At the time of this writing, Britain is approximately halfway through counting the results of its 2026 local elections. Ordinarily, local elections wouldn’t deserve much attention, but this is no ordinary time in British politics. Local elections cover local councils, not Parliament, but this year sees many millions of votes up for grabs, as well as elections to the regional executives in Scotland and Wales. As such, they are a useful barometer of British opinion.
As things stand, the British people have turned ruthlessly against Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party. Up and down the country, Labour has been losing seats and control of councils, in places that were once considered its impregnable heartlands. The major beneficiary of this has been Nigel Farage’s Reform U.K., the populist right-wing party which many have dubbed a British answer to MAGA. Reform has steamrolled through seats in Labour strongholds like Sunderland, Hartlepool, Wigan, and Tameside. Around 5,000 council seats are being contested in England, and it looks like Reform U.K. will win over 1,500 of them, taking control of many councils.
Labour is not the only victim of Reform, either. Reform has taken Essex County Council and Suffolk County Council from the Conservatives. These two prosperous counties in the east of England are the sorts of places that would ordinarily vote Conservative like a muscle reflex. The party’s Shadow Cabinet is disproportionately drawn from this part of the country. Reform has taken control of both counties, and it has also secured control of its first London borough: Havering, which sits on the London and Essex border.
While some parts of Essex showed Conservative resilience — in parts of the county’s wealthier neighborhoods — the picture in England is becoming clear: Reform U.K. is starting to look like the default party of choice for Britain’s working- and middle-class voters, especially white British voters. The Conservatives made some gains in inner London, notably in Westminster and Wandsworth. Their victories there are a testament to the gross mismanagement of the capital city under Labour and the Tories’ effective work in winning back the affluent working population in the capital.
Undoubtedly, immigration has played a huge part in Reform’s success. Epping, on the edge of London and Essex, saw huge demonstrations against illegal immigration last year after the government placed asylum seekers in hotels there. Reform has taken all but one council seat in Epping.
On the Left wing of the spectrum, the picture is a little different. Labour has lost seats to the Greens and the Liberal Democrats, and many pollsters predict breakthroughs for Muslim candidates standing on single-issue pro-Gaza platforms. These activists were once part of the wider Labour family but have left the reservation since 2023. Results are yet to come in for these urban, left-wing seats, but early findings are interesting. The Lib Dems have done well in leafy, progressive suburbia, taking every seat in Richmond and making huge gains in Surrey. American readers should draw parallels with the prosperous belt of liberal commuters outside of Washington, D.C.
The Greens have made headway in some of London’s very left-wing boroughs like Hackney, but early indications suggest that voters are hesitant about the Greens and worried about their radical Left economics and progressive social policies. However, the Greens appear to be the dominant force among young women — mirroring the left-wing drift among young women in America — as well as Muslim voters.
Full results have not been posted in Scotland and Wales. Reform has secured many second-place finishes in constituencies across Scotland, an impressive feat given it had essentially no presence there before 2024. Reform may become the official opposition in Scotland, though some results suggest Reform and the Scottish Conservatives have been canceling each other out in some seats, allowing soft victories for the Scottish National Party. In Wales, Reform is competing with Plaid Cymru — a left-wing Welsh nationalist party — for first place, though it looks like Plaid will pip Reform to the post. In both Scotland and Wales, Labour has hemorrhaged support.
Looking ahead, all eyes are on Labour MPs and whether they will try to remove Keir Starmer. He is unpopular in the extreme, and Labour has lost voters to the Right and the Left in large numbers. Reform called these elections a “referendum on Keir Starmer,” and that was a foresighted decision. What this holds for the 2029 General Election is uncertain. Reform remains in first place, but pollsters dispute whether it could secure an overall majority. The governing party is faced with a choice: continued decline under Starmer, or a wildcard replacement of Ed Miliband, Angela Rayner, Wes Streeting, or possibly Andy Burnham. Every option is bad in its own way, but one thing is clear: the British people have called time on Keir Starmer.
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Fred de Fossard is the director of strategy at the Prosperity Institute.
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