British Local Elections, May 2024

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Assuming we don't have a may general, this will be our last electoral test for the sunak ministry. Most followers of this board will be aware of the events that have led the current conservative party to be discredited in the eyes of the electorate, so i will not overlabour that point, but this is going to probably be a very rough ride for the incumbent government (especially as this race was last fought in a post-covid glow, so they have a lot of seats to lose). There is also a small electoral reform, with all mayoral and PCC elections moving to FPTP.

The races include:

- mayoral election. Obviously a lot of attention will be on the capital but I don't expect that to be that interesting. Sadiq Khan is not beloved but he is not hated, and the Tories have largely thrown in the towel with a pretty lousy candidate, Susan Hall. In Birmingham, Andy Street is running for reelection but he is fairly popular and Labour don't have a massively high profile challenge to him - if he wins, expect him to be mentioned all the time as a future tory leader. Street may be popular, but the same does not apply to Ben Houchen in the Tees Valley, who has suffered under corruption allegations and is looking very vulnerable as the Red Wall heads away from the tory party. Incumbent Labour mayors in liverpool, south Yorkshire, west Yorkshire and Manchester all are up, and i don't think there's any drama there.

We also have some new mayoral elections: york and north Yorkshire, east midlands (ben Bradley vs former Labour MP Claire Ward) and the North East (which seems to be a battle between Labour's Kim McGuinness and the leftist ex-Labour incumbent mayor of the "North of Tyne", Jamie Driscoll. Somebody has to do something about these bizarre positions because this is too much bs.

- as usual all sorts of other councils are up: the ones that are fully up include Bristol, Dudley, Dorset and Wokingham. Closer to the time we can probably work out where Lib Dems have potential, where Labour could suffer post gaza backlash, where Tories are most boned etc.

- and of course the PCC's are all up, which will be a useful barometer of the mood of England and Wales (having never lived in a place with a PCC i refuse to believe they are beloved local figures).

[YL]

Because of the PCC elections, I think everywhere in England and Wales has at least one position to vote for.

Bristol might be interesting to see how well the Greens do, though I think winning control would be an ambitious target.

Some of these new mayoral positions are quite strange. "East Midlands" just means Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, which is not a particularly coherent unit. "North East" is the current North of Tyne (Newcastle, Northumberland, North Tyneside) plus Gateshead, South Tyneside, Sunderland and the Durham unitary, so is all of the North East England region except for the bits in Tees Valley.

I will try to write previews for a selection of councils at some point...

[Oryxslayer]

I'm sure we'll be able to go into more details when things get closer (and if there's no coinciding GE) however the year is likely be transformative despite the limited number of elections. In many of the 1/3 councils this is the 2021 "Johnson-Wave" class of councilors up. The shear overexposure compared to even a average year means there are a lot of incoming Tory losses. In many places it is this class that has maintained conservative control, even as they lost seats and seen reversal waves for Labour. A few examples:

Harltepool and it's by-election were the capstones of 2021. After Labour swept 9/12 seats up in 2023 (and were 2 votes away from 10/12) things essentially tied between the governing Conservatives + Indies versus Labour. And the class now up is 7 Con, 3 Indie, 2 Lab.

Thurrock had to declare bankruptcy under the pandemic-era Tory leadership. This led to Labour making 5 gains and going 9/16 despite it being a difficult set of seats up. It's presently under a Tory minority of 23 to 19 Labour and 7 Indies of various colors. The 2024 class is 11 Con, 4 Lab, 2 Indie.

Dudley is interesting because If the near-identical 2022 and 2023 elections were to have decided council control then things would be tied or near-tied. But the 23-3 Tory sweep in 2021 keep things safely in their hands. Boundary changes mean not just the 2021 class but every councilor is up, potentially allowing for even more dramatic changes.

The Dudley situation is similar in nearby Reddich, Cannock Chase, and Nuneton, Nuneton notably had no election in 2023 so the council is still absurdly Tory, even though that electoral foundation has likely collapsed.

Then in Tamworth where Labour had that surge in 2023, every councilor up is a Tory or ex-Tory.



I'll also mention that, like you said, the Police Commissioners are posts nobody cares about in normal circumstances. But precisely because nobody cares about them they are good generic ballot tests. In 2021 the Tory wave allowed them to push into normally Labour turf. Now we'll be able to see how deep are the Tory losses.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The movement to FPTP will also be interesting because the PCC's (especially at first) have often had decent independent numbers and there are several counties where it is not immediately obvious whether Lib Dems or Labour are the opposition, and with much less need to tactically vote because of a lack of public awareness about these positions.

[YL]

In South Yorkshire the Government is proposing to abolish the PCC position and merge it into the Mayoralty, which will require an election for the latter, but as far as I'm aware this hasn't completely gone through yet. The Mayoralty is held by Labour's Oliver Coppard, and assuming there is a Mayoral election I don't think he is likely to have much trouble. Three of the boroughs have council elections; Doncaster is on an unusual cycle and does not.

Sheffield One third of seats up.  Currently Lab 31, Lib Dem 29, Green 14, Con 1, Ind 9 (all elected as Lab).

What happened here is that immediately after last year's election the national Labour Party forced out the then leader, Terry Fox.  A few months later he and six allies were suspended from the party after breaking the whip on a planning issue, and in October they and one further ally formally left the party and now sit as the "Sheffield Community Councillors Group"; this is not a registered party so I count them as Independents above.  Labour's new leader Tom Hunt is still leader of the council, though some power is shared with the Lib Dems and Greens.

The split means that it's very unlikely that Labour take overall control this year, but they will hope to gain several seats, including the two of the rebels' seats which are up this year, the seat of another former Labour councillor (this one of a more Corbynite shade) sitting as an Independent and the single Conservative seat in Stocksbridge & Upper Don (the only seat the Tories have won in the last 20 years).  The Green results in 2023 were a little disappointing and Labour will hope to take a couple of seats from them as well, while the Lib Dems and Labour will each be targeting a couple of each others' seats.

Rotherham Whole council up.  Currently Lab 33, Con 15, Lib Dem 4, Ind 7.

The Conservatives performed strongly in 2021 in the Rother Valley constituency, where they won a comfortable majority of the seats, including in some very implausible wards (e.g. Maltby East); they also won some scattered seats in the area covered by the new Rawmarsh & Conisbrough constituency, and it will be interesting to see how they hold up in this borough.

Three seats were won by what was effectively the former UKIP group under the label of the Rotherham Democratic Party, but that party has since dissolved and the two remaining councillors sit as Independents, along with four councillors elected as Tories and one elected as Labour.  The Lib Dems will be hoping to make a few gains, in particular in Anston & Woodsetts ward where they took a seat off the Tories in Anston & Woodsetts in a by-election.

Barnsley One third of seats up.  Currently Lab 48, Lib Dem 10, Con 2, Reform UK 1, Ind 2.

As can be seen Labour are pretty dominant here, with the largest opposition coming from a slowly growing Lib Dem group who target a handful of wards in the west of the borough and generally win the ones they target; they will be targeting at least one Labour seat (Kingstone ward) this year.

The Tories failed to win a single seat last year and are left with just two seats, including one up this year, in Penistone East ward, which voted Labour last year.  They had won Rockingham ward (western Hoyland and Birdwell) in 2022, but the councillor has since joined Reform UK. The other threat to Labour has usually been from Independents; the organised Barnsley Independent Group has disappeared, but actual independents did win two seats (including Rockingham again) last year.

[JimJamUK]

The Conservatives performed strongly in 2021 in the Rother Valley constituency, where they won a comfortable majority of the seats, including in some very implausible wards (e.g. Maltby East); they also won some scattered seats in the area covered by the new Rawmarsh & Conisbrough constituency, and it will be interesting to see how they hold up in this borough.

Truly one of those results that makes you wonder, even by the standards of 2021, ‘what the hell what there!?’

[Chickpeas]

Perhaps we will see the first ever Liberal Democrat PCCs elected this time around.

[Coldstream]

It would be pretty humiliating for the Greens if they can’t take Bristol City Council. I’d honestly be shocked if they don’t win by a lot.

[JimJamUK]

It would be pretty humiliating for the Greens if they can’t take Bristol City Council. I’d honestly be shocked if they don’t win by a lot.

Tbf, 2021 was a very bad year for Labour, the unpopular Labour mayor is on his way out, and the most recent by-election in a Green held ward saw a decent swing to Labour. The Greens ‘only’ won 1/3 of the seats in 2021, and this was largely based on winning naturally Green friendly wards rather than the Lib Dem style local targeting that will be needed for them to win majority (Bristol isn’t just Bristol West).

[Coldstream]

It would be pretty humiliating for the Greens if they can’t take Bristol City Council. I’d honestly be shocked if they don’t win by a lot.

Tbf, 2021 was a very bad year for Labour, the unpopular Labour mayor is on his way out, and the most recent by-election in a Green held ward saw a decent swing to Labour. The Greens ‘only’ won 1/3 of the seats in 2021, and this was largely based on winning naturally Green friendly wards rather than the Lib Dem style local targeting that will be needed for them to win majority (Bristol isn’t just Bristol West).

We won the mayoralty and the metro mayoralty on that same day. Marvin isn’t gone either, he’s still the mayor. And Bishopston’s “swing” was because the students weren’t there - it’ll be back to 1000 Green vote majority in May.

I’d love to be wrong, but it’ll only be a Green failure of seismic proportions that lets us keep the council. It should be a walkover.

[TheTide]

It's impressive that the PCC elections are still going. I'll always remember how Theresa May (who of course has been in the news very recently) desperately insisted that they were a good idea after the initial elections in November 2012, where the turnout was slightly less than the average Sunday League team is getting as I post this.   

[Oryxslayer]

I think the issue for the Greens in Bristol is that there are still Conservative seats held after 2021. Like Brighton last year, Labour should probably be looking to these as opportunities. Which means the Greens would need to make significant gains as well.

On paper I think the best place for the Greens is Stroud, barring some local issue I don't know about (or them coming from nowhere like in Lewes or East Herts last year). All seats up, Greens have minority control, lots of Tory seats to lose, and local Labour seems to have issues.

[YL]

I think the Greens could win overall control in Bristol, but they need 36 seats and just winning all the seats in the wards where they already have councillors (not a sure thing by any means) would only take them to 30, so they'd have to be winning in new places.

Bristol isn't that homogeneous, and most of the wards they haven't already won are not that demographically favourable to them, especially in the outer south and east of the city, nor in most cases have they come particularly close. Now, they are capable of winning such places, and indeed not all the wards where they already have councillors are obvious Green wards, so if they get their targeting right and hold what they already have they have a chance, but from where I'm sitting (which is not in Bristol!) it's far from a certainty.

Winning enough seats to lead the council is of course easier: I doubt Labour, the Lib Dems and Tories (and, if they get re-elected, the two ex Lib Dem councillors in Knowle who have formed the "Knowle Community Party") are going to form an anti-Green coalition.

[Coldstream]

I think if you’re not in Bristol you can’t quite appreciate the hatred for Marvin Rees (which is not unlike that for Sadiq Khan), and how it’s manifested particularly in the south of the city which may lead people who aren’t obvious Greens to vote for them just as anti-Labour vote.

Also the city has changed demographically massively in the last 20, even 10 years, its become so much more gentrified where places like Bedminster that were homogeneously white working class up until the last few decades are now completely changed. Even places like Knowle west and Hartcliffe are starting to gentrify.

Also the local Labour Party members are concentrated in the centre of the city, so they aren’t positioned ideally to go after Tory seats that are almost exclusively in the outer fringes. We should get Frome Vale + Avonmouth, I seriously doubt we’d get anymore without more work.

[JimJamUK]

I think if you’re not in Bristol you can’t quite appreciate the hatred for Marvin Rees (which is not unlike that for Sadiq Khan), and how it’s manifested particularly in the south of the city which may lead people who aren’t obvious Greens to vote for them just as anti-Labour vote.

Also the city has changed demographically massively in the last 20, even 10 years, its become so much more gentrified where places like Bedminster that were homogeneously white working class up until the last few decades are now completely changed. Even places like Knowle west and Hartcliffe are starting to gentrify.

Also the local Labour Party members are concentrated in the centre of the city, so they aren’t positioned ideally to go after Tory seats that are almost exclusively in the outer fringes. We should get Frome Vale + Avonmouth, I seriously doubt we’d get anymore without more work.

All the Conservative wards had quite substantial differences between candidates, such that even a modest swing could see the bottom Conservative lose out. And given Rees will not be on the ballot this time, it’s not clear how many people would be tactically voting Green against him/his legacy (especially anymore than they did last time).

[Coldstream]

Time will tell, frankly I think net gains for us in Bristol this year would be nothing short of miraculous.

[YL]

George Galloway is threatening to stand in the Greater Manchester mayoral election.

[DL]

George Galloway is threatening to stand in the Greater Manchester mayoral election.

Make my day!

[YL]

The West Yorkshire mayoral election doesn't look likely to be very interesting, with Labour's Tracy Brabin likely to be re-elected comfortably. Labour have majorities on all five councils here; a couple are small, but only Kirklees actually looks vulnerable in terms of overall control.

All these councils except Leeds are scheduled to have all up elections on new boundaries in 2026, so longer term effects of these elections will be less than usual.

Bradford

Lab 53, Con 15, Green 8, Lib Dem 5, independents 9. The latter are in various factions: 4 are the "Bradford Independent Group", two of whom were elected as Labour and two as Independent; 2 are the "Bradford South Independents", elected as Conservatives in 2021; 2 are just "Independent", one elected as Labour and one as a Conservative; 1 is an "Ilkey Independent" (sic) who was once a Conservative but was most recently elected as an Independent.

Anyway, lots of those Independent seats are up for election: the Ilkey Independent, both Bradford South Independents and one of the Bradford Independent Group. The Tories are defending three seats in wards they lost last year.  I suspect that Independents may do quite well here, but not well enough to threaten Labour's majority.

Calderdale

Lab 27, Con 14, Lib Dem 6, Green 2, independent 1, vacant (Con seat) 1. The Independent was elected as Labour, and is not up for election this year.

This is only a small Labour majority (two losses would make it a minority) but it doesn't look vulnerable in practice, with every ward they are defending voting comfortably for them in 2023. Instead, it's the Tories who look vulnerable: they are defending 7 seats, including their last seat in Elland and the vacant seat in Illingworth & Mixenden, won comfortably by Labour in 2023, and also their last seat in Northowram & Shelf, won comfortably by the Greens in 2023. (The last named is the sort of ward where the Tory candidate might have welcomed a General Election on the same day.) Some of their other wards were also rather close last year.

Kirklees

Lab 35, Con 18, Lib Dem 8, Green 3, independents 5.  Here the independents consist of one elected as such, who is up for election, and four elected as Labour who sit as the "Kirklees Community Independents Group".

The Labour majority here (which is now down to just one) doesn't look as secure here as in Calderdale, especially with the Independent activity which may be a threat to some of their seats. However they will hope to take seats in Holme Valley South and Denby Dale from the Tories, who also look vulnerable to the Lib Dems in the middle class Huddersfield wards of Almondbury and Lindley. The heavy redraw of the Parliamentary boundaries here means that watching the results in the wards making up the new Spen Valley and Ossett & Denby Dale constituencies (the latter mostly in Wakefield) will be of interest.

Leeds

Lab 61, Con 18, Lib Dem 6, Morley Borough Independents 6, Garforth & Swillington Independents 3, Green 3, SDP 2.

This is a very secure Labour majority. The Tories are defending 8 seats but only won 4 in 2023, when they managed to lose Wetherby to the Greens, so again they look vulnerable.  Labour do have vulnerablities of their own, though, including to the SDP, who are looking to cmplete the set of councillors in Middleton Park. One new Parliamentary constituency where the results might be of interest is the new Leeds North West, effectively a new constituency in spite of the retained name.

Wakefield

Lab 48, Con 5, Lib Dem 3, independents 7.  Three of the independents, all elected as Conservatives, sit as the "Wakefield Independent Group", while the other four, three elected as Conservatives and one as Labour, are just Independents.

This Labour majority is so safe that they literally cannot lose it at the coming election unless they suffer multiple defections or resignations.  The Conservatives did quite well in 2021, when they won 8 seats, but they have had a lot of troubles since: note that that 8 is more than their total number of seats, including those elected in 2022 and 2023.  Indeed, they failed to win a single seat in 2023 and several of their councillors have left the party.  Five of those Ind-elected-as-Con councillors are up for election this year, as are two of the remaining Tories, all in wards Labour won in 2023, though both Wakefield South and Wakefield Rural were close.  The one ward Labour didn't win then is Knottingley, turned into a Lib Dem stronghold by Tom Gordon; he has now left Wakefield council to try to become MP for Harrogate & Knaresborough, but the party maintained their dominance with a new candidate.

[Oryxslayer]

Bradford

Lab 53, Con 15, Green 8, Lib Dem 5, independents 9. The latter are in various factions: 4 are the "Bradford Independent Group", two of whom were elected as Labour and two as Independent; 2 are the "Bradford South Independents", elected as Conservatives in 2021; 2 are just "Independent", one elected as Labour and one as a Conservative; 1 is an "Ilkey Independent" (sic) who was once a Conservative but was most recently elected as an Independent.

Anyway, lots of those Independent seats are up for election: the Ilkey Independent, both Bradford South Independents and one of the Bradford Independent Group. The Tories are defending three seats in wards they lost last year.  I suspect that Independents may do quite well here, but not well enough to threaten Labour's majority.

Bradford here gets at what I would call the second commonality of this small class of local elections: Labour infighting/dissatisfaction. (The other common theme is Tory losses from 2021 overexposure, who could have guessed) There's a surprising amount of councils up which have seen abnormal levels of Labour defections to Independents, sometimes with the Indies forming a new majority with other parties. Burnley is the most striking example. In there, Bradford, and a number of other places the defections are cause of the official Labour party response to the war in Gaza. The defectors in those situations are mostly Muslim. In others though the dividing issues are older and more local.

How the electorate responds to this type of infighting is uncertain. Oftentimes when councilors defect and lose the official label versus a dominant party - and Labour right now is going to be very dominant in these areas - the official candidates just retake their seats. These defections though are coordinated locally, and the issues fueling them may be reflected by the electorate. The Gaza defectors in particular no doubt hope that Muslim-majority wards care about that singular issue even at the local level where things are more complex.

[Oryxslayer]

Guess I will start with a more general analysis here. If anyone has local knowledge of scandal or conflict that isn’t instantaneously apparent, please comment in, cause that can change these things.

All Up:

North Tyneside: 48 Lab – 6 Con – 6 Indies (18 Lab – 3 Con in 2023)

Partial:

Gateshead: 17 Lab – 5 LD [Council: 49 Lab – 17 LD] (15 Lab – 7 LD in 2023)

Hartlepool: 7 Con – 2 Lab – 3 Indies [Council: 17 Lab – 12 Con – 1 Other – 6 Indies] (9 Lab – 2 Con – 1 Indie in 2023)

Newcastle-upon-Tyne: 18 Lab  - 6 LD – 2 indies [Council: 48 Lab – 23 LD – 7 Indies] (14 Lab  - 10 LD – 3 indies in 2023)

South Tyneside: 14 Lab – 2 Greens – 1 Con – 1 Indie [Council: 38 Lab – 9 Greens – 1 Con – 6 Indies] (11 Lab – 4 Greens – 3 Indies in 2023)

Sunderland: 12 Lab – 6 Con – 4 LD – 1 RefUK – 2 Indies [Council: 47 Lab – 13 Con – 12 LD – 1 RefUK – 2 Indies] (17 Lab – 5 LD – 3 Con in 2023)




Current councilors Up. In North Tyneside, where boundary changes force everyone up, the oldest class is given priority.



2023 Results in these wards.

It’s natural to start in the Northeast since the council’s there make a point of reporting first. However, these contests are not that interesting. While there technically are enough Labour seats up that they can lose control in all five Tyneside and Wear councils, in practice this is a statistical impossibility. There are enough super-safe wards that control is not seriously in danger anywhere. Labour was dominant here even during their bad years, and this is not a bad year. However, Labour would be fortunate to be net neutral or positive when it comes to total councilor numbers in the subregion. In four of the five councils Labour either lost a handful of seats or remained stagnant in the comparable year of 2023. Those losses went to the Lib-Dems in Gateshead and Newcastle, the Greens in South Tyneside, and various independents everywhere. Repetition though is not a guarantee: Lib-Dem gains in Gateshead were supposedly off immediate council policy that year, and the Greens in 2023 put significant effort into South Tyneside.  

The one exception to the story of single-digit losses in the five Tyneside and Wear councils is Sunderland. As will become more apparent elsewhere, this is the 2021 class of councilors up for reelection, and the 2021 local elections were a Tory wave that pushed Labour well below their floor in many areas. Especially since now the environment has reversed. Local issues previously emerged for Sunderland Labour at the same time as the Conservatives were surging post-Brexit, leading to numerous losses in every direction. Though by the time the council could fall to NOC, in 2022, these issues had reversed. In 2023 they made gains and the 2024 class is even more exposed to Labour advances than 2023. The one thing to note is that while Labour made gains of the Torys and other parties, they so far failed to take a ward that fell to the Lib-Dems. In fact, the Lib-Dems have also gained at the Conservative’s expense. These factors allowed the Lib-Dems to become the second largest party in Sunderland after 2023, but defections mean they once more are looking to take back this position.

Hartlepool is the final northeastern council up in 2024 and it’s entirely different from the other 5. The council fell to NOC in 2019 and since then was governed by right-wing Independents and the Conservatives. Labour defied the odds won a landside in 2023, winning 9/12 wards and were 3 votes away from winning 10/12. This tied the council at 18 Labour to 18 Conservatives and Indies. A subsequent defection put Labour at 17, but the overall coalition math remains the same. This class of councilors has 10 of the 18 coalition members up. A Labour result not even half as good as 2023 will give them control, and the 2024 environment looks very much like 2023. Labour therefore should by Very Likely to take control.

[YL]

One very late change in which elections are actually happening: the Government had planned to abolish the PCC role in the West Midlands, merging it into the mayoralty which covers the same area. However the outgoing PCC launched a legal challenge to the Government's decision, and a court decision today has quashed that change, so the West Midlands will still have a PCC election. There is a suggestion that Andy Street, the Tory mayor, might stand for the PCC position as well.

I'm pretty sure this only affects the West Midlands, so the South Yorkshire and North Yorkshire PCC posts will still be folded into the mayoralties.

[YL]

The North East also has its mayoralties of course, and they might be more interesting.

North East here meaning Northumberland, Tyne & Wear and the County Durham unitary. This is a massively expanded version of the existing North of Tyne mayoralty, adding Durham and the three Tyne & Wear boroughs south of the Tyne. The Labour incumbent in North of Tyne, Jamie Driscoll, was not selected for the Labour nomination and left the party to stand as a left-wing Independent. He has some support but I have no idea whether it is enough to really threaten Labour's chances; their candidate is Kim McGuinness, currently PCC for Northumbria.

Tees Valley i.e. the 1974 county of "Cleveland" (Middlesbrough, Redcar & Cleveland, Stockton, Hartlepool) plus Darlington. This has been a bit of a disaster area for Labour in recent years, though there were some signs of recovery last year, and the incumbent is Tory Ben Houchen. I don't know how well known certain stories in Private Eye are...

And then there are also the PCCs; police areas in this region don't match the mayoralties so there are no mergers as yet:

Northumbria i.e. Northumberland and the Tyne & Wear boroughs (2012 Lab, 2016 Lab, 2021 Lab)

Durham which here does include Darlington (2012 Lab, 2016 Lab, 2021 Lab)

Cleveland covering the other four Tees Valley unitaries (2012 Lab, 2016 Lab, 2021 Con)

[Joe Republic]

Most followers of this board will be aware of the events that have led the current conservative party to be discredited in the eyes of the electorate, so i will not overlabour that point

I suspect it'll be the electorate that takes care of the over-Labouring.

[JimJamUK]

FWiW, Sunderland Labour are still serial underperformers, it’s just that they’re underperforming a far higher baseline than they were in 2019/2021. The Tories will also continue to overperform in a few key wards in North Tyneside, but that could be anywhere from a near wipeout to double digits. South Tyneside Greens are very well organised and pushing against an open door so I would expect their success to continue. Hartlepool Labour should romp home, although that probably means they will get smashed in 2025.