UK local elections at a glance and what they could mean going forward

While it has not been long since the recent general election, politics is ever changing, this is reflected in the state of local elections across the country and how they indicate party popularity on a smaller scale. I have taken a look at the last 77 of these from June 6th to October 3rd in order to look into pre election trends, as well as Labour’s post election fall off in popularity, a small resurgence of the conservatives and largely sustained levels of support for the Lib-Dems, all of this also being coupled with the ups and downs of smaller parties and independents within local politics. Any trends taken from this do of course have to be taken with a pinch of salt, due to the much lower turnout levels meaning they are less reflective of the whole voter base. 

June July and August local elections showed little change, most seats tended to be held by their respective incumbents with the exception of several Conservative seats (being hoovered up by Lib Dems and Labour respectively). These months largely mirrored the election and how the public generally voted, Labour left the Conservatives in a distant second place but were unable to effectively challenge the Lib Dems, who retained a strong position in local politics across the country. 

The largest shift in seats came through September, this is when Labour support began to dry up somewhat post-election, with issues such as the country wide riots causing discontent and leading to many being largely more critical of the government. (see below) Trends in this graph have continued. 

While this Labour government had already split opinion going into the election, September through to October has definitely been difficult for them, with their claim of a £22bn black hole being met with criticism and issues over everything from donors to Sue Gray, the wheels seemed to have come off quicker than even their harshest critics would have expected. Even the view of this government as sleazy has became more common, feeding into disillusionment surrounding larger parties (as the same kind of sentiment applies to the Conservatives) 

What does this mean in terms of seats then? As you could probably guess, Labour took a big hit, Losing nine seats in September, seven of which were won by the Conservatives who have had something of a resurgence since the election (although nothing close to good enough to give them a hope of winning power any time soon). Lib Dems remained generally the same, holding six, losing one and gaining one, a feat also copied by the Greens and the SNP. An interesting side note also relates to Reforms appearance in some of these local elections, They didn't win any in September but did begin to show small signs of growth, popping up in several constituencies to take 6-10% of the vote share (usually coming from either Labour or Conservatives). They likely hope through winning local council seats, they can continue to grow their parties image over the next five years in order to have a crack at government, likely trying to springboard off anti Labour and Conservative sentiments, although they would have expected to have done slightly better and it is likely that without as much media attention they will suffer a steady decline, although they did manage to win the Blackpool local council in October so that is a big positive they can take away.  While early on and more yet to come in the coming weeks, October seems to be looking like another bad month for Labour, losing 3 seats so far. 

Local election trends have largely lined up with what I feel is the current general public sentiment, Labour have been poor in office by most people's metrics and therefore it has cost them in terms of local councils (although not enough to undo any of the success they had winning them prior to winning the election so far). Conservatives bouncing back also was pretty likely and under a more stable leadership after they have decided on a leader the party will likely rebuild, although of course still facing the added challenge of Reform taking right wing voters from them.