Labour will hold management of a minimum of NINE councils it was set to lose by cancelling native elections
Delaying local elections for millions of voters will see Labour keep control of at least nine councils it would have lost, analysis suggests.
Around 30 councils – serving between four and five million voters – are set to be given permission to postpone ballots, set for May, to help a wider reorganisation of local government.
The delay has been slammed as ‘damaging our democracy’, with Reform UK accusing Labour of ‘running scared’.
The Government is expected to cancel at least 27 council elections, more than a third of the 63 up for re-election, meaning hundreds of councillors will avoid the risk of being voted out.
Around two-thirds of the councils involved are controlled by Labour.
Analysis by the FT found that Labour had avoided the risk of losing nine of its councils – including the likes of Thurrock, Ipswich, Preston and Chorley – by delaying the elections, while the Tories may have saved three.
Some 168 Labour councillors who were up for re-election are now expected to serve another year after they requested that polls be put back.
Around 174 Tory councillors are not expected to face voters after asking for a postponement – a number that is expected to rise for both parties.
Sir Keir Starmer said: ‘What is happening is the biggest reorganisation of councils for 50 years and it is only right that we ask whether it’s sensible to elect people to councils that are actually going to change in their composition in a few years’
Now Nigel Farage is planning to launch a legal bid to prevent dozens of councils scrapping the May elections
Now Nigel Farage is planning to launch a legal bid to prevent dozens of councils scrapping the May elections.
The Reform leader was due to make an announcement on Friday but held off after Robert Jenrick defected to his party.
He is expected to start court proceedings to get the decision overturned due to the expectation that his party were likely to have picked up many of the seats.
He has called the delays ‘the kind of outrageous behaviour you expect from a banana republic. Labour and the Tories are damaging our democracy and running scared of voters.’
In December, ministers asked 63 councils that are likely to be abolished in their current form if they wanted to delay elections to focus on the shake-up of local authorities.
Councils were given until midnight on Thursday to decide and government officials said there had been a flurry of requests to postpone in recent days. These are all expected to be approved.
Labour’s overhaul of local authorities will replace remaining two-tier systems of district and county councils with new ‘unitary’ bodies responsible for delivering all council services in their area.
Sir Keir Starmer said: ‘What is happening is the biggest reorganisation of councils for 50 years and it is only right that we ask whether it’s sensible to elect people to councils that are actually going to change in their composition in a few years.
‘The Government is not taking the decision on this. It’s down to individual, locally-led decisions, and different councils have taken different positions. Some Labour councils have asked for a delay. Some Tory councils have asked for a delay, and a Lib Dem council.
‘So, it’s a local issue, but what sits behind it is this common sense question of whether it makes sense to elect people to positions when the council itself is going to change in a very short period of time.’
A government spokesman said: ‘There is a clear precedent for postponing local elections where local government reorganisation is in progress, as happened between 2019 and 2021.’
The Government is expected to confirm which elections will be postponed in the coming days.
