Voters in England will head to the polls on 7 May to cast their votes with more than 5,000 council seats up for grabs, as pollsters predict a disastrous result for Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.
The prime minister is facing a local election wipeout in just over a week, with some experts predicting the party could see its worst-ever result.
Both Reform and the Greens are forecast to be the big winners at the event, as opinion polling shows discontent with both Labour and the Conservatives growing.
Here is what pollsters are predicting:
At last year local elections, Labour last two-thirds of its seats in England in one of the party’s worst results in history. The party was polling around the mid-20s at that point, and since then has dropped to 19, meaning an even more disastrous result could be on the cards this year.
Of the 5,000 English council seats being contested this year, Labour is defending just over half (2,557) of them – and is projected to lose between 50 and 74 per cent of them.
This was the scenario put forward by polling expert Stephen Fisher, a professor of political sociology at the University of Oxford. His recent forecast sees Labour lose 1,900 councillors at the upcoming elections, which would mark a new low for the party.
Other pollsters have put Labour losses closer to a more conservative 1,500, which would still be a terrible result for the government.
Meanwhile, Reform is projected to gain over 1,300 seats from a base of just 3, more than doubling its current number of councillors to 2,342.
The Greens similarly are forecast to enjoy good results as projections see them gain 555 from a base of 141, while the Lib Dems could gain 393.
As at last year’s event, the Conservatives look set to suffer another bruising defeat, facing a loss of 907 councillors from a base of 1,362, a drop of two-thirds.
On a council-level, Reform looks set to translate its massive gains into taking control of several councils across the country. Sunderland is forecast to comfortably flip from Labour to Reform control, with Thurrock, Wakefield and Barnsley projected to go a similar way.
Nigel Farage’s party is also projected to take several councils from Conservative control, including Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk.
The Greens meanwhile are expected to do well in London and are in line to form a minority of councillors in six boroughs across the capital, possibly even taking outright control of Hackney. Zack Polanski’s party is also polling well in Hastings, which currently has no overall control, and is understood to be targeting the seat to take over.
Both of the rapidly expanding parties could also grow to be the minority party in several of the contested councils after the election, or to push Labour to become a minority in areas it currently has overall control of.
