Why are local elections being cancelled?

Council elections will be postponed for at least a year in 29 areas across England, the government has confirmed.

The “vast majority” of the 139 local elections in May will go ahead as planned, said Local Government Secretary Steve Reed. But opposition MPs say that the delayed ones are disenfranchising four million voters, and Reform UK is threatening legal action.

Which elections are being delayed?

On 7 May, elections are due to take place for over 4000 council seats in England but polling will now be delayed for city councils in Exeter, Lincoln, Norwich, Peterborough and Preston; for district councils in Cannock Chase, Adur and Harlow; for borough councils in Ipswich, Cheltenham, Redditch, Basildon, Burnley, Thurrock, Chorley, Crawley, Blackburn with Darwen, Hastings, Hyndburn, Rugby, Stevenage, Tamworth, Worthing, Welwyn Hatfield and West Lancashire, and for county councils in West Sussex, East Sussex, Suffolk and Norfolk.

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This means that about 650 councillors will no longer face election this year and will have their terms extended, probably until 2028. Of those, 238 are Conservative councillors, 206 are Labour, 81 are Liberal Democrat, 39 are Green, 26 are Reform, 7 are Your Party and 59 are independent. All four county councils affected are currently led by the Tories, but most of the other councils affected are controlled by Labour.

Why are the elections being delayed?

There’s a “major shake-up of local government” underway, which will abolish some local authorities altogether, said the BBC The “rejig” will mean the old “two-tier system of district and county councils” in many parts of England will be replaced with new “unitary” councils.

Some local authorities have therefore concluded that postponing the upcoming ballot is necessary, either because they are “concerned” about their ability to “run the polls alongside the overhaul of town halls” or because they want to save “the cost to taxpayers” of holding elections for councils that are due to be abolished.

All this means that, where councils are going to be “folded into” new unitary councils in 2027 or 2028, we have a curious situation: either polls are going ahead in May and councillors who are elected will only serve for a year or so, or polls are being postponed and current councillors, elected for four years, will end up serving up to seven.

Why has the delay been criticised?

Labour is “running scared of the electorate” and “denying millions of people a voice”, said Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey. Starmer’s government is “moving seamlessly from arrogance to incompetence and now cowardice”, said Tory shadow local government secretary, James Cleverly.

Reform, which had a run of success in local elections last May, winning more than 600 seats and taking control of 10 councils, has also spoken out. Tory defector Robert Jenrick said that delaying local council elections is “almost certainly illegal”. Party leader Nigel Farage said he would be “fighting this denial of democracy in the High Court”. A hearing is scheduled for 19 February.

The Electoral Commission, the body that oversees elections, said it “recognises the pressure on local government” but does not see “capacity constraints” as a “legitimate reason for delaying long-planned elections”.