In December 2025, the government invited 63 councils to raise capacity concerns with ongoing local government reorganisation and request a postponement of their 2026 local election, after also postponing 6 combined authority mayoral elections that were scheduled to occur on the same day. This move prompted criticism from the Electoral Commission which questioned the credibility of the reasoning given and said that it caused "unprecedented" uncertainty. The commission stated that "There is a clear conflict of interest in asking existing Councils to decide how long it will be before they are answerable to voters". Opposition parties also criticised the decision, accusing Labour of denying people the right to vote.[7] By February 2026, the government confirmed 30 of the 63 council elections have been postponed.[8][9][10] However, following a legal challenge by Reform UK, who made major gains in the previous local elections, on 16 February 2026, the government withdrew its plans to delay elections, with all scheduled elections and delayed elections from 2025 taking place, after receiving legal advice that the move could be unlawful.[11]
These will be the second set of local elections during the premiership of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and will take place amid unpopularity towards the governing Labour Party amid scandals including the relationship of Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein, with the Reform UK and Green Party opposition parties rising sharply in popularity polls.[12][13] After the election of Zack Polanski as leader, the Greens gained a council seat from Reform UK for the first time in a Derbyshire by-election in January 2026.[14] Green candidate Hannah Spencer won the 2026 Gorton and Denton by-election, defeating Reform UK, with the incumbent Labour Party falling to third place.[15] On 7 May 2026, there will also be devolved elections to the Senedd and the Scottish Parliament.
The English Devolution White Paper on 16 December 2024 set out the Labour government's plans for local government reorganisation, involving the remaining two-tier counties of England being abolished with elections to new unitary authorities. Some of the elections scheduled for May 2025 were delayed by a year in order to allow reorganisation to take place.[5][16] At least 13 of the 21 county councils asked the government to delay their elections.[17] On 5 February 2025, the government announced that elections to nine councils (seven county councils and two unitary authorities) would not take place in 2025 to allow restructuring to take place, with elections to reformed or newly created replacement authorities taking place in 2026.[6]
By November 2025, it had been announced that Surrey County Council and the districts included in it would be replaced by new unitary authorities, but the government have said that other initially-scheduled 2025 elections will take place in the existing local government structure unless there is "strong justification otherwise", with the process of creating new unitary authorities delayed.[18][19] Four new combined authority mayoral elections — Greater Essex, Hampshire and the Solent, Norfolk and Suffolk, and Sussex and Brighton — were delayed to 2028, having been originally scheduled for 2026.[20]
Elections for all councillors in all thirty-two London boroughs will be held in 2026 in line with their normal election schedule. The previous elections to London borough councils were held in 2022, which saw Labour win its second-best result in any London election and the Conservatives return their lowest-ever number of councillors in the capital.
There are thirty-six metropolitan boroughs, which are single-tier local authorities. Thirty-two of them have an election in 2026 (Doncaster, Liverpool, Wirral and Rotherham do not). Of these, Birmingham City Council and St Helens Council hold their elections on a four-year cycle from 2022, so are due to hold an election in 2026. In 2025 Barnsley Council held a public consultation regarding the permanent adoption of the whole council election cycle, which has since been confirmed.[21] Barnsley is going to hold its elections on a four-year cycle starting from 2026.
The remaining twenty-nine councils generally elect a third of their councillors every year for three years with no election in each fourth year, on the same timetable which includes elections in 2026. Thirteen of these metropolitan borough councils have all of their councillors up for election in 2026 rather than the usual one-third, following ward boundary changes from their LGBCE electoral review. All thirteen will likely be reverting to thirds in 2027, 2028 and 2030.
Most of these unitary authorities elect councillors in thirds, with councillors elected in 2022 up for reelection in 2026. Swindon and Milton Keynes elect councillors by thirds, but have all seats up in 2026 due to new ward boundaries. Thurrock and Isle of Wight both have all-up elections delayed from 2025. East Surrey and West Surrey are both newly-created councils with all councillors to be elected.
Following the election of Zack Polanski as Green Party leader, the party rose sharply in popularity polls quickly after.[12][13] The party gained their first seat from Reform UK, in a Derbyshire by-election in January 2026.[14]Hannah Spencer won the 2026 Gorton and Denton by-election after attracting left-wing voters disgruntled by Labour's handling of the Gaza war.[15][22] Spencer won the by-election with a majority of 4,402 votes, defeating both Reform UK and the Labour Party to become the Green Party's fifth MP and first in the North of England.[23][24] This was also the first ever parliamentary by-election win for the Greens.[25]
Reform UK
On 1 January 2026, Nigel Farage announced he wanted to go "double or quits" by planning to spend more than £5 million over the next four months in the run-up to the local elections, saying he wanted to spend "every single penny in the bank account" on a mass direct mail and social media campaign. He called this year's set of local elections the "single most important event" before the next general election. In August 2025, Reform UK received a £9 million donation from Christopher Harborne.[26]
Conservatives
On 19 March 2026, Kemi Badenoch launched the Conservative campaign for the local elections at an event in London.[27]
↑Davey served as Acting Leader from 13 December 2019 to 27 August 2020 alongside the Party Presidents Baroness Sal Brinton and Mark Pack, following Jo Swinson's election defeat in the 2019 general election. Davey was elected Leader in August 2020.[2]
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