As the political scientist Paula Surridge explains in this excellent psephological guide, the raw numbers that come out after the votes are counted won’t tell you that much about who’s had a good night. More useful is to compare the results with what happened last time the same contests took place.
In most of today’s elections, that was in 2021, and so the Conservatives have a lot to lose: they were extremely popular under Boris Johnson in that bygone age, partly because of the recent rollout of the coronavirus vaccine. Labour were in the doldrums. And Reform, running across England today, barely had any candidates at all. (UK In A Changing Europe has a good crib sheet on the baseline to measure the results against.)
Here’s what else to keep in mind when the votes are counted.
Labour | Will tough results prompt a lurch to the right?
Best case scenario: Cling on to Runcorn and keep Nigel Farage at bay.
Worst case scenario: The opposite, with Doncaster council also falling to Reform.
Most likely scenario: At least some retreat against Reform, and a debate over whether the party needs to tack right to head off the problem.
Labour only won 286 seats last time, and has control of just one of the councils being contested. That limits the scope for losses, and a quiet night where interest is largely elsewhere would probably be viewed by Keir Starmer as a decent result.
The trouble is there are some headline-grabbing contests that could go badly. In the Runcorn byelection, two polls have suggested that a massive majority of almost 15,000 votes could be overturned by Reform. (This piece by Josh Halliday and Olivia Lee captures the mood of some very sceptical voters there; there are also suggestions from the Labour side that they might be helped by anti-Reform tactical voting.)
Labour are also nervous about losing Doncaster, the sole council they control that’s in play, to Reform. If the results imply that lots of Labour MPs whose closest challenger last year was Reform could lose next time around, expect renewed arguments that the party needs to shift further to the right on immigration.
Conservatives | How bad does it have to be to count as a crisis?
Best case scenario: A Labour by-election defeat distracts from their travails.
Worst case scenario: A fourth-place finish in vote share and the loss of councils in Tory strongholds – with the Lib Dems and Reform hurting them in different parts of the country.
Most likely scenario: Ugly numbers, and Tories giving interviews where they play down the damage.
The Conservatives have been telling anyone who will listen that crap results are inevitable, and shouldn’t be viewed as a sign of crisis. They’re certainly right about the first bit: of the 1,641 council seats in play, they are defending almost 1,200 of them. It’s possible they could lose about half their seats – the kind of punishment usually reserved for an incumbent government.
It’s also possible that they lose control of nearly every one of the 19 councils they control which are up for grabs. Part of the problem is the difficulty of crafting a message that appeals to supporters threatening to desert them for Reform and the Lib Dems alike. Their best hope of a bright spot is in the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough mayoral race, where a YouGov poll gives former MP Paul Bristow a solid lead.
Kemi Badenoch’s supporters will insist that she has only just got started, and will hope that the Runcorn byelection, announced before any of the councils, will shape the coverage. In this analysis piece, Pippa Crerar reports that many backbenchers are fatalistic – but evidence that things have actually got worse for the Tories since last year will make it hard to silence questions about whether they will be reduced to seeking an electoral pact with Reform in the future.
Liberal Democrats | Can they capitalise on the Reform-Tory fight?
Best case scenario: Take Tory councils in the “blue wall”.
Worst case scenario: No councils gained and tactical voting works against them.
Most likely scenario: Modest gains that don’t get much attention.
The Liberal Democrats are leaning in to the idea that the Tories are shifting right to counter Farage – and, as this Ed Davey piece suggests, getting a lot of mileage out of an infamous Kemi Badenoch quote: “A typical Liberal Democrat will be somebody who is good at fixing their church roof”. Great news in the rural and provincial areas that constitute most of today’s battlegrounds.
They’d love to take control of councils in Oxfordshire, Cornwall, Gloucestershire and Kent, and will hope that some disgruntled Labour supporters will help their cause, perhaps even elevating them to second behind Reform in national vote share. Those kinds of successes wouldn’t really amount to more than the party’s traditional mid-term bounce – but it would be encouraging to continue to take Tory support even when they’re not in power.
Greens | Would a mayoral success grab some attention?
Best case scenario: Gain some council seats with a big increase in vote share, and win the West of England mayoral race.
Worst case scenario: Stasis.
Most likely scenario: Some success, but more evidence that Farage is the one with the megaphone.
They may not get the degree of attention that Reform do, but the Greens are hoping to benefit from tactical voting and some of the same anti-system bounce that Nigel Farage is likely to enjoy, albeit on a smaller scale.
There is little chance of winning any of the councils on offer, which are in areas where they haven’t traditionally done well. They would be absolutely thrilled to win the West of England mayoralty, with polls split on whether their candidate or Labour’s is more likely to prevail.
Expect the post-match analysis to dwell on whether they can copy aspects of Reform’s messaging. “They’re at the centre of all conversations at the moment,” deputy leader Zack Polanski acknowledges to Helena Horton in this piece. “We need bold communication from the Green party as we’re at a point in politics where the one thing that is definitely certain is the status quo won’t hold up.”
Reform | Might they be victims of their own success?
Best case scenario: Win Runcorn, several mayoralties, and wrest control of councils from both Labour and the Tories – with more votes than anyone else across England.
Worst case scenario: Tactical voting on the left limits their success.
Most likely scenario: A lot of momentum – but also the risks that come with power.
As all of the above probably suggests, Reform are almost certain to dominate the headlines tomorrow morning. They will hope to win somewhere between 400 and 500 council seats, and success on that scale will bolster Nigel Farage’s continual case that they have a real shot at Westminster power at the next general election.
But that’s still a long way off – and success is likely to come with some significant risks attached for a party which has a chequered history of untested candidates, and for a leader who doesn’t like sharing the limelight. Andrea Jenkyns, the media-friendly former Conservative minister running on a “DOGE Lincolnshire” ticket for the mayoralty there, should watch her back.
The polling implies that they have a chance of winning overall control in two or three councils. But their councillors will have very limited experience of local government, and the history of their predecessor parties suggests that acrimony and chaos may be the most likely sequel. The Conservative mayor in Tees Valley, Ben Houchen, sums up the hopes of the bigger parties neatly in this Politico piece: “They’re going to have two or three years to either do something which proves to people that actually they’re a genuine alternative … or they’re going to fall flat on their face.”
