British Local Elections, May 2024

[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...

[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.

[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.

[YL]

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

[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.

[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)

[YL]

The entire Labour group on Pendle council have left the party, a few days before nominations close for this year's election.

[YL]

Can Labour win back control of the Oxford city council despite several councilors going independent?

They currently have 20 councillors, but there are two vacant seats which were both theirs, so effectively they need three gains to get to 25 out of 48. Oxford elects by halves, so there are 24 seats up, plus a second seat in Blackbird Leys because of the vacancy. (The other vacant seat would have been up anyway.)

Labour seat up (12 wards, 13 seats): Blackbird Leys (2), Carfax & Jericho, Churchill, Headington Hill & Northway, Hinksey Park, Littlemore, Lye Valley, Marston, Osney & St Thomas, St Clement's, Temple Cowley, Walton Manor.

Formerly Labour seat held by defector up (5): Barton & Sandhills, Cowley, Holywell, Northfield Brook, Rose Hill & Iffley.

Lib Dem seat up (5): Cutteslowe & Sunnymead, Headington, Quarry & Risinghurst, Summertown, Wolvercote.

Green seat up (2): Donnington, St Mary's.

So it looks like the answer is yes, as long as the defectors don't get much electoral traction and Labour take most of their seats back. There is, however, another point: two of those Labour defences (Marston and Osney & St Thomas) were won by Greens in 2022, so those seats are vulnerable, and the Greens will also fancy their chances at the ex-Labour seat in the very studenty Holywell ward. Independents have also got some respectable vote shares in Oxford recently (indeed one of the Independents not up this year was elected as such) so I don't think it's a done deal.

NB the registered political party called the Oxford Independent Alliance do not appear to be connected to the existing Independent councillors, including the "Oxford Socialist Independents" and the "Independent Group".

[YL]

Lists of candidates are beginning to appear: the deadline for nominations was 4pm yesterday, but councils have until 4pm on Monday to publish.

In Rochdale, 13 out of the 20 wards have Workers Party candidates; the exceptions are mostly in the wards covering Middleton but also include two Rochdale town wards. Farooq Ahmed, the Lib Dem who was observed campaigning for Galloway in the by-election, had been nominated as a Lib Dem (slightly surprisingly, given nominations didn't open until long after the by-election) but his nomination was withdrawn, and a new one submitted with him as a Workers Party candidate; the Lib Dems also found another candidate. Only one of the Independents from the by-election is standing, and that is William Howarth (the anti-grooming campaigner) who is the Workers Party candidate in Balderstone & Kirkholt ward.

The SDP have an impressive 19 candidates in Leeds and scattered candidates elsewhere. Reform UK, not noted for their interest in local elections, have managed to find full slates in Sunderland and Hartlepool.

Labour defectors in Burnley and Pendle are standing as Independents (or "no description" candidates, which is functionally the same). One defector in Pendle had already been nominated as Labour; like Farooq Ahmed in Rochdale his nomination was withdrawn and Labour found a new candidate, but he was then nominated again as a "no description" candidate.

There are large numbers of Independent candidates in some further councils, including Oldham, Kirklees and Bradford; in the last named three of them are incumbent councillors defending their seats. Some of these are probably on organised slates, but certainly not all (and in Oldham several wards have two or three Independents competing against each other).

Oh, and the Greens somehow managed to nominate two candidates for the single vacancy in Bucklow-St Martins ward of Trafford.

[YL]

Sheffield's Labour split is of a different nature to the others, as it's nothing to do with Gaza and the main rebel group isn't particularly from the left of the party. Only two of them were up for election this year and one of them is standing down, but the other, Tony Damms, who has represented Southey Green/Southey since 1987, is standing as an Independent.

The one Tory councillor is not defending his seat, and there is only one Reform UK candidate, but three from Heritage, another UKIP splinter. There are a lot of TUSC candidates; indeed they're standing in every ward but one, and they've explicitly endorsed an "anti-cuts and pro-Gaza" independent in that ward (Darnall).

[YL]

One thing about Reform UK is that they are a very top down party, which can make it hard to develop a proper organisation. I note that one of their few full slates this time is in Bolton, where they are in an alliance with a localist party called "Bolton for Change", and their only actual electoral success has been in Derby, where again they are in an alliance with a localist organisation.

At this rate though they are struggling find enough candidates to fulfil their pledge to contest every seat in the General Election. And some of those they have found have been "interesting".

[YL]

What are the chances the Greens get a majority in Bristol?

They currently have 25 seats (including the by-election gain in Hotwells & Harbourside) and need 36. There are five wards (Ashley, Bedminster, Central, Eastville, Lawrence Hill) where they have one or two councillors and Labour have one, so they could get to 30 by winning the remaining seats in these.

Beyond that it becomes a bit harder: the demographically most obvious targets have already been won, and they haven't come close yet in many other wards. They are certainly capable of breaking through in more wards, but they'd need to do so in at least three, so Filwood and Horfield wouldn't be enough.

[YL]

How is the weird east of England mayoral looking? The boundaries really confuse me

Well the boundaries are simple: all the contiguous East Midlands that was willing to join such a deal. Lincolnshire is setting up arrangements for their own combined mayor presently, so they are out. Leicestershire (and Rutland) wanted in, but Leicester city and especially local mayor Sir Peter Soulsby seemingly put his foot down firmly against the deal. Since both the city and the shire needed to join as a pair, they are out. And even if Northamptonshire wanted in they now would be disconnected.

In terms of results...should be strongly for Labour in this environment right? Though that's just a top-down perspective, maybe things are better for Bradley or worse for Ward locally, but nothing comes up under a brief news search.

Yes, it's just Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire (including the unitary cities) and really ought to be called that, not that it really makes much sense as a "metro".

Here's how the area voted last year:
https://twitter.com/Conrad_AML/status/1779614412061458624
(with obvious caveats in the follow up tweet)

[YL]

(there is a genuinely weird "Leader (ie NOT mayor) of Suffolk/Norfolk" thing proposed, but that has now been pushed back - likely to next year so as to coincide with the CC elections)

As far as I can tell it's essentially the same idea as having a mayor of a council (as opposed to a combined authority) but for a county council, and for some reason the Government insisted on it as part of the devolution deals in Norfolk and Suffolk. I don't think either has actually been formally approved by the existing council yet.

[YL]

any chance Labour can gain Sheffield?

Theoretically possible but rather unlikely given the number of councillors who left their group this year. Even if that hadn't been the case it would have been touch and go.

My impression is that the Greens and especially the Lib-Dems have enough wards locked down that the city can never leave NOC barring a change in local preferences.

Not really. Labour's problem at the moment is the number of originally Labour councillors who have left the party; if it weren't for them they'd have a plausible path to overall control this year.

Buy does it actually matter when all 3 are kinda working together?

The working together is pretty grudging, especially (my impression) from the Lib Dem side; indeed if you look at the Lib Dem leaflets I get you'd think it was either a Labour council or a Labour/Green coalition.

[YL]

any chance Labour can gain Sheffield?

Theoretically possible but rather unlikely given the number of councillors who left their group this year. Even if that hadn't been the case it would have been touch and go.

can they gain the seats back this year?

There are 9 Independent councillors, all elected as Labour. One is a Corbynite who left Labour some time ago and her seat is up this year; the other 8 are associated with the faction around the previous Leader and only two of them have seats up this year. (One of them is standing again as an Independent.)

They currently have 31 out of 84, so for an actual majority they need 12 net gains. Those independent-held seats should provide three and then there is a Conservative seat from 2021 which should be very vulnerable (and whose incumbent is not standing again) and one Green defence that the Greens seem to have given up on. That's five likely gains, and there are a few more possibilities from the Greens and Lib Dems, but I can't really see them getting to 12. (And some of their own seats are vulnerable.)

[YL]

Mayor polls from More in Common. Street narrowly ahead, Driscoll close in the North East, Labour ahead in Notts/Derbys and Burnham unsurprisingly winning in a landslide.

North East

McGuinness (Lab) 35
Driscoll (Ind) 33
Donaghy (Reform UK) 14
Renner-Thompson (Con) 11
Gray (Green) 4
King (Lib Dem) 4

West Midlands

Street (Con) 41
Parker (Lab) 39
Harper-Nunes (Green) 8
Williams (Reform UK) 8
Yakoob (Ind) 3
Virk (Lib Dem) 1

Greater Manchester

Burnham (Lab) 63
Barker (Reform UK) 12
Buckley (Ind) 9
Evans (Con) 9
Austin (Lib Dem) 4
Spencer (Green) 4

"East Midlands" (Notts/Derbys)

Ward (Lab) 41
Bradley (Con) 28
Graves (Reform UK) 14
Adlington-Stringer (Green) 9
Relf (Ind) 4
Tamblyn-Saville (Lib Dem) 4

Details here

[YL]

Andrew Teale's previews:

Part 1: introduction, London and Wales
Part 2: northern England, except Lancashire, and the Midlands

(Parts 3 and 4 to follow)

[YL]

Andrew Teale's previews:

Part 1: introduction, London and Wales
Part 2: northern England, except Lancashire, and the Midlands

(Parts 3 and 4 to follow)

Part 3: southern England outside London

In other news, an outfit called Labour Together ("a think tank offering bold ideas for Britain under a Labour government") have produced a poll of the North Yorkshire mayoral election (which includes the city of York as well as the ridiculous North Yorkshire unitary council, which in turn includes Sunak's constituency). It shows Labour ahead by enough that if they don't win it will be reasonable to call the poll wrong.

[YL]

Andrew Teale's preview, part 4 (Lancashire)

[YL]

The pollworkers at the village hall looked rather startled to see a small group of people walking in. Today has not been busy, they say.

I assume it's just West Mercia PCC where you are?

PCC turnouts are generally terrible except where there are other elections going on. This can have some effects on the results; e.g. I suspect Labour's chances of winning Avon & Somerset are rather higher than they might otherwise be because Bristol has local elections too so will have a non-embarrassing turnout but nowhere else in the PCC area does.

There might be some similar effects in the mayoral elections (e.g. no local elections in Birmingham, so turnout might be a bit lower there in the West Midlands mayoral election compared with the rest of the area) but I think people care more about those than they do about PCCs so the effects should be smaller.

[YL]

Labour have won Avon & Somerset PCC in spite of a high Green vote: Lab 32.3%, Con 30.6%, Green 21.7%, Lib Dem 15.4%.

Labour have lost control of Oldham by losing five seats to Independents; I think this is connected to the  Gaza backlash.

[YL]

Blackburn with Darwen (and specifically the Blackburn bit) is another area with Independents taking seats off Labour…

.. but in turn Labour are taking seats off the Tories.

[YL]

You’d expect Driscoll to do worse where he’s not the incumbent, but that lead is surely too big.