The 2026 elections are shaping up to be a seismic moment for politics in the UK. Across England’s local elections, Labour is facing up to a devastating result while Reform UK has picked up hundreds of seats from a standing start. Throughout the day as results come in from across England, Scotland and Wales, our panel is providing context, analysis and expert insights.
Big wins for Reform, but can it deliver?
Alia Middleton, Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of Surrey
Reform UK’s surge in areas such as Newcastle-under-Lyme indicates that the party has sustained the support it started to gather in the Midlands and the north of England at the 2024 general election.
The party has rather uniquely demonstrated an ability to steer voters away from both Conservatives and Labour. Gaining councillors and nibbling away at Labour support in the party’s heartlands in Hartlepool and Burnley shows that Labour’s reclaiming of its red wall at the 2024 general election may only be a temporary reinstatement.
Alongside the collapse and prolonged recovery of the Conservatives, Reform seems to be harvesting the party’s votes – take Essex County Council, which Reform now controls, for example. This has been either under Conservative control or no overall control since 1974. In 2021, Reform UK barely registered, but today it has 42 councillors. Several members of the shadow cabinet – including Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch – have seats in Essex. But now Reform seems to be consolidating its support in the county.
One upcoming issue for Reform, however, is that voters will soon expect delivery. Reform has shown it can win votes in local elections but the more councillors it has, the more it needs to show that it can function not just as a campaign machine, but as a professional party that can keep its promises and deliver real results.
From patchwork to pointillist painting
Tim Bale, Professor of Politics, Queen Mary, University of London
English local elections involve county, borough and district councils, as well as mayoralties. They take place in some parts of the country but not in others, and in some places all of the seats on a council are up for grabs, while in others it’s only a third.
No wonder, then, that one of the go-to clichés that politicians and pundits routinely reach for on a day like today is “patchwork”. Yet even that may not do justice to the complex reality now that we have entered the era of five- rather than two-party politics.
Lewis Langstaff-Wood/Alamy
A better analogy now might be a pointillist painting – lots of coloured dots that resolve themselves into a complete scene as the picture gradually takes shape. Much of what we’ll see in the initial analysis – especially when it comes to those spinning party lines – will be a tale, to quote Shakespeare’s Macbeth, “told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing.”
Once we hear from political scientists about projected national share and the national equivalent vote, we can start to understand.
What next for Starmer and Labour?
Karl Pike, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, Queen Mary, University of London
Keir Starmer is in a kind of lame duck political position – very few people think the prime minister will lead Labour into the next general election. His authority is gradually reducing, and losing these elections around the UK will reduce it further. On that, most people within the Labour party can agree. But they cannot agree on how to respond, and the options Labour MPs have for changing their leader are complicated.
Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham could win enough support within the parliamentary Labour party (PLP) to challenge Starmer. Or he could succeed Starmer if he stepped aside, and win a majority of Labour members and affiliated supporters in the event of a contest. But the Burnham option requires some choreography that could be disrupted. Burnham is not an MP, and could still be blocked from standing by Labour’s national executive committee. Any Labour leadership contest would have to follow a successful byelection victory for Labour and for Burnham.
Angela Rayner continues to be popular in the party, but there are lingering doubts after her exit from government over her tax affairs. Wes Streeting could probably only become leader if the PLP opted to nominate just one politician, removing the need for a contest. If any candidate from the PLP’s “soft-left” stood against Streeting, I think Streeting would struggle to win.
So the who, when and how all remain up in the air. Meanwhile, the UK government has important jobs to do, all of which require people to focus on governing, rather than party management. It is not clear that the PLP has a majority view on what a different government direction should look like.
I cannot predict what will happen next. It seems unlikely that Starmer can continue to lead Labour into next year and beyond. But much of the discussion around a change of leadership seems to involve a political high-wire act. This is why, for some time now, Labour MPs have been unhappy – but unsure of what to do about it.
The death of two-party politics? Tactical voting means we can’t say that for certain
Thomas Lockwood, PhD Candidate in Politics, York St John University
Early results from England’s local elections might suggest increasing fragmentation in the party system, but “five-party politics” is better understood as an emerging pattern than a settled reality. What stands out most is not a clean realignment, but continued tactical voting and localised switching. Voters are choosing between multiple viable parties depending on context. This might be, for example, prioritising immigration and national discontent in red wall towns, or focusing on environmental concerns and housing in urban and university areas, rather than shifting permanently between fixed blocs.
For the first time in nearly 50 years, Labour has lost Tameside Council in Greater Manchester, which has fallen to no overall control. This is significant as it’s the council area for the constituency of Labour’s former deputy leader Angela Rayner.
On its own, it’s not a seat-threatening result for the next general election, but it is a serious long-term warning sign for Labour’s heartlands. Combined with the wider picture of Reform gaining hundreds of councillors, it shows that the “disrupter” dynamic is structural, not fleeting. But whether these localised surges harden into a durable five-party system, or remain heavily shaped by tactical voting and specific local contexts, will only become clearer in time.
So far, however, Reform will be feeling very encouraged by the state of play.
The Conversation’s coverage of elections in England, Scotland and Wales is being updated throughout the day.
