British voters will go to the polls on Thursday as Labour faces its first electoral test since taking power last year.
The two main parties are expected to suffer losses in local elections likely to confirm the rise of right-wing populists. Anti-immigrant Reform UK is expected to make gains, as are the centrist Liberal Democrats and left-wing Greens, indicating that Britain is entering an era of multiparty politics.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s party faces a twin challenge of local elections across England and a by-election in Runcorn and Helsby, a seat Labour won convincingly in 2024 but that is expected to go down to the wire in a contest against Reform UK.
In a final message to voters ahead of the polls opening at 7am, Labour chairwoman Ellie Reeves insisted the government’s plan was “already starting to deliver”.
“As voters head to the polls today, there’s a clear choice between Labour with a plan for change to deliver the security working people deserve and renewal for our country, or more of the same chaos voters rejected last year with the Tories and Reform,” she said.
Labour has sought to cast Thursday’s contest as a test not for Keir Starmer but for Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, with Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner saying the elections were “predominantly … the Tories trying to retain seats that are in the shires”.
Mrs Badenoch has conceded that the scale of the Conservative victory when these councils were last up for election in 2021 means losses are likely.
But in her final message to voters, she said: “If you want a great council, don’t just hope for it, vote for it.
“Vote Conservative because Conservative councils deliver better services for lower taxes across the board.”
Experts have suggested the Tories could lose about 500 seats, with gains for the Liberal Democrats and, especially, Reform.
Both of those parties have talked up their prospects, with Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey saying Mrs Badenoch faced “a reckoning at the ballot box as former Conservative voters across the home counties rally behind the Liberal Democrats”.
He added: “Badenoch sneering at the Lib Dems for being the party that cares for your community and will fix your local church roof shows exactly why her party has lost the public’s trust.”
Meanwhile, Reform leader Nigel Farage told a rally in Staffordshire on Wednesday night that the elections would see his party eclipse the Conservatives as the main opposition party in England.
Predicting a political “earthquake”, he said: “Tomorrow is the day that two-party politics in England dies for good.”
In an interview with Sky News, he said he also expected Reform to win “two or three” of the six mayoralties up for election on Thursday, saying he was “confident” of a win in Hull and “reasonably confident” of victory in Lincolnshire.
He also said he was “optimistic” about the Runcorn and Helsby by-election but stopped short of predicting a win.
Shifting times
British politics have been dominated by the centre-left Labour party and centre-right Tories since the early 20th century. But last year's general election and recent opinion polls show a shift towards greater pluralism.
Surveys show Britons are disillusioned with the two establishment parties amid anaemic economic growth, high levels of irregular migration and flagging public services.
Labour won a thumping parliamentary majority in July with just 33.7 per cent of the vote, the lowest share for any party winning a general election since the Second World War.
The Conservatives won just 24 per cent of the vote, securing only 121 seats in the 650-seat parliament as the party endured its worst election defeat.
Reform, led by Eurosceptic firebrand Nigel Farage, picked up five seats, an unprecedented haul for a British hard-right party, while the Liberal Democrats won 61 more MPs than at the previous election and the Greens quadrupled their representation to four.
The by-election, the first since Mr Starmer entered Downing Street, follows the resignation of former Labour MP Mike Amesbury, who won the seat with 53 per cent of the vote last year but stood down following his conviction for assaulting a constituent.
Most of the council seats were last contested in May 2021, at a time when the then-Conservative government, led by former prime minister Boris Johnson, was enjoying a spike in popularity following the successful roll-out of the first Covid-19 vaccines.
This means the Tories are defending a large number of seats across much of the country: they currently control 19 of the 23 local authorities holding elections on Thursday, either as the majority party or a minority administration.
Every seat on all 23 authorities is up for grabs this year, but boundary changes mean some areas will be electing fewer councillors than before.
