How historic and transformational were the May 2026 local elections?

There have been a lot of excitable headlines since people across the UK went to the polls on Thursday May 7, 2026. Words like ‘historic’ and ‘transformation’ have been used, while Labour has been said to have been ‘hammered’ and ‘punished’. How true is this? Are things shifting? And is this a new political world?

One of the things I have been studying recently is representation so I’ve done a reasonable amount of reading about various issues around how our political system works in the UK, people’s participation, and what representation looks like. I also used to be a local government correspondent so I have reported on many elections, local, national, and European. I also know that it is all very confusing.

The first thing I will say is that my overwhelming takeaway from looking at all this is that the system doesn’t work very well, but it works better than many other options, and no-one has the time or resources to change it.

A little bit of background

In its 16th Audit of Political Engagement (2019), the Hansard Society concluded people felt “pessimistic” about the state of the country, and “feelings of powerlessness and disengagement are intensifying” (p. 3).

According to the Electoral Commission, 54% of people do not believe elected representatives care about them.

More people did not vote in the 2024 General Election than voted for any of the political parties. Turnout was 59.9% which means 40.1% of people didn’t head to the polling station.

Researchers found that “almost 50% of the British public have engaged in some form of protest activism” and were impressed that 11% “have engaged in the relatively costly act of attending a protest” (Grasso et al., 2018, p. 209). But they reported Millennials (or ‘Blair’s Babies’) were less politically active than generations before, and those who turned 18 under Thatcher were less engaged than the generation above.

This is your reminder that decisions are made by those who show up.

What were people voting about on Thursday?

There were three different types of elections happening at the same time:

• Local elections in England – not every council, and not every seat in every council.
• Welsh Senedd – this is Wales’ devolved government and the voting system this year was a new kind of proportional representation
• Scottish Parliament – Scotland’s devolved government

I’m going to focus on the local elections in England.

There are 317 local authorities (or councils) in England and around 17,000 councillors.

On Thursday, there were 4,851 council seats up for grabs across 134 local authorities. So about a third of councils held elections. In some places the whole council is up for election at once, literally, ‘all change’. In others, there is ‘election by thirds’ so the majority of councillors stay in place while a third of seats are up for election.

While thousands of seats changed party, the impact is not as dramatic as the headlines make it sound. Yes, there are more Reform, Green and Liberal Democrat councillors, while there are fewer Labour and Conservative ones. But unlike a General Election where you can change the colours on the political map overnight, it’s hard to have a massive impact across the country.

That is not to downplay that some areas will now have a different party leadership than they did before. And more councils are now under ‘no overall control’, which means no single party gets to decide what happens.

What does this new political landscape look like?

More red and blue than you might imagine from the headlines. While Labour and the Conservatives lost seats, and there were more votes for other parties, the proportion of seats across English local authorities now looks like this:

According to LGiU, Labour now has 5,316 seats, the Conservatives have 4,059, and the Liberal Democrats have 3,051, while the Greens have 855 seats and 816 are held by Reform. There are 2030 seats held by other parties and independents.

What does this mean for the Government?

Honestly? Nothing. Obviously Labour would prefer not to have lost a lot of seats during the local elections but it has no bearing on national policy at all. The internal party navel-gazing that seems to have so many in the Labour party stuck is likely to intensify though.

What does it mean for Keir Starmer?

A lot of headlines make this election sound personal and that Starmer is in trouble. We have a Prime Minister, not a President. They lead the Cabinet.

It is the Cabinet which decides what Government policy is, and that has to be voted through by Parliament. There are a whole load of other things going on but the fact is, the Prime Minister has very little personal power.

It’s his job to herd all the cats. Some cats might like to be herded by somebody else but it would have very little impact on policy. It certainly would not make a difference to inflation.

What difference will the new councillors make?

Local government and national government do very different things. Funding for local government has been reduced massively in recent years. There isn’t much left to cut and there are services that local councils have to provide like bin collections, education, social care, and planning. Libraries, play equipment, toilets and community events are a bonus and money for these is dwindling.

The new councillors will be figuring out how to make the little they have go as far as possible while making the area they represent as pleasant to live in as possible. How much decision-making they get to do depends on whether they are in the council’s ruling party, or take part in committees which oversee issues such as planning.

Why is the vote splitting?

Politics at the moment feels unusual if you are Gen X (born between the mid-60s and early-80s) or younger because we have historically been used to elections either going to the Conservatives or Labour. But the picture in local government has always been more mixed with independents and smaller parties.

Going back to the national picture, the level of support for the main two parties is declining. Less than two out of three votes went to the Conservatives and Labour by 2010, according to political scientist John Curtice.

There has been an increase in the number of parties people can vote for in recent years. So people have more options.

Also the way political parties have positioned themselves mean people feel left out. Remember those stats I quoted at the start of this article about how 54% of people do not believe elected representatives care about them and 40.1% of people did not vote at the last election? Those people are looking for politicians who speak to them.

A group which feels they are not represented are working class voters. Indeed, only 3% of MPs elected in 2015 had a background in manual work. While many people have become more socially liberal over the past few decades, studies show that working class voters are economically liberal (in favour of public ownership and workers’ rights for instance) but socially conservative. What politicians are talking about – and what is being reported in newspaper headlines – does not chime with their world view. (There’s an excellent book about this called The New Politics of Class: The Political Exclusion of the British Working Class by Geoffrey Evans and James Tilley.)

This is a massive hearts and minds issue which is being overlooked. Everyone has a right to their opinion. Yet people who have critical views are often either ignored or belittled. The newer parties have tuned in to this.

You also have a media which is controlled by a handful of people, many of whom are very rich, and who look at it as a means to get clicks and engagement in order to make money. The more you can anger people, the longer they will stay. But also if you can get people to vote for people who will act in the media owners’ interests, you can sway issues around privacy, ownership, and the impact of social media, among other things.

And there’s the issue that our political system is complex and hard to understand.

Is democracy broken?

No. People are turning out to vote and we have free and fair elections. The results from Thursday show this.

If you want the outcome of democracy to be different, then you have work to do.

There is very little point in having a go at people about their beliefs. I see so many social media posts asking people why on earth they voted the way they did. None of us like to feel attacked. None of us like the suggestion that we might have made a mistake or been duped in some way. It’s not a helpful way to discuss issues.

We are in a world now where people can stick to their own bubble of information that supports their world view. We like to be told we are right.

Most people get their news and views from friends and family. Talk to people. Get past the awkwardness of engaging in a conversation where you might be met with alternative viewpoints. See where the common ground is.

Show up to things. Whether it’s a town hall meeting, a protest, or a community event, turn up.
And write to your elected representatives about the things that matter to you. It takes time and effort and that means more than a social media post.

What kind of country do you want to live in? What do you want to see happen? Talk about it and find the others.

And please, please vote.

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter