by John Curtice, Stephen Fisher, and Patrick English, 7^th May 2026.

One of the highlights of the BBC’s coverage of local elections is the Projected National Share (PNS). This is an estimate of what the GB share of the vote would have been if (a) local elections had been held everywhere, (b) the outcome where there were no elections mirrored the pattern where there were, and (c) the principal parties contested all the seats.

Although there are devolved elections in Scotland and Wales today, the PNS is always based entirely on local election results in England. This means that the PNS this year will tell us about what would have happened if voters across the whole of Britain had local elections and the results mirrored what happened in the particular parts of England with local elections this year. It will not take account of the results of the entirely separate devolved elections in Scotland and Wales. To that extent, even though the PNS is expressed as a GB share of the vote, it is best thought of as an indicator of political developments in England.

A key virtue of the PNS is that it provides a summary statistic that is comparable across local election years irrespective of the particular mix of places in England that have local elections in any particular year, a mix that varies considerably from year to year. 

This year’s local elections, for example, take place primarily in urban England, including all of London. Consequently, they are places where Labour has hitherto at least been relatively strong. They are also places that on average voted for the UK to Remain in the EU at the 2016 referendum even though Britain as a whole voted to Leave. The PNS is designed, among other things, to remove this unrepresentative character.

In this blog we outline some of the challenges in estimating a PNS and explain how we are addressing them. 

Continue reading Understanding the Local Elections Projected National Share (PNS) in 2026 →

By Stephen Fisher

(Originally published 25 March 2026, updated 2 April to correct a sentence in the rationale for the equal projected seat loss rates for the Conservatives and Labour. No change to the projected net gains and losses.)

Vote-intention opinion polls provided a rough guide to council seat net gains and losses last year. Reform, Greens and the Liberal Democrats were up in the polls, compared with four-years prior, and so made gains. Reform were up most in the polls and also made the biggest gains. Conversely, the Conservatives were down in the polls more than Labour were, and correspondingly lost more seats than Labour did. 

Continue reading Local election seat projections for 2026 →

By Stephen Fisher, 19^th March 2026

What follows is not a forecast, but an analysis showing that Reform UK need to make at least +2050 net seat gains in the English local elections to show they are still performing as well as they did at last year’s local elections and +1935 to be on par with local by-election results since then. However, given that last year Labour lost seats to Reform at a faster rate than did the Conservatives and this year Labour are defending more seats, Reform could make as many as +2270 net gains without that necessarily indicating any significant progress in their ability to win council seats.

If the polls are anything to go by Reform should do even better this year than they did last year. Reform are up three points in the general election vote-intention opinion polls. More relevant, however, is the +26 points rise in Reform polling relative to four years ago when most of the seats up for election this year were last fought. That +26 is three points larger than the corresponding +23-point poll rise Reform were enjoying at the time of last year’s local elections relative to four years prior. Also, Reform have extended its poll leads over the Conservatives and Labour since last year both absolutely and relative to four years prior. On that basis, the polls suggest that Reform should exceed their local election performance from last year.

Last year’s local elections were extraordinary though. From practically a standing start, the net gains for Reform UK amounted to a record-breaking +41% of all the seats up for election.

If Reform repeat that scale of success this year they will make +2050 net seat gains from the 5010 or so seats that will be contested in the English local elections in May. That would comfortably beat the +1661 gains that Tony Blair’s Labour party achieved in England at the 1995 local elections.

Reform’s gains last year were also extraordinary relative to the previous failure for either Reform or UKIP to translate opinion poll strength into substantial numbers of council seat gains, as shown in the graph below. Most striking is the contrast between 2025 and 2024, when the +11.5-point rise in Reform polls (relative to the Brexit Party in 2020) yielded just two seats. 

That Reform won 41% of council seats up with just 31% of the votes cast and an even lower 30% in the BBC Projected National Share (PNS) is unusual but not unprecedented. In 2019 the Conservatives won 42% of the seats with 31% of the vote and a PNS of 28%. Similarly, in 2010 Labour also won 42% of the seats with 32% of the vote and a PNS as low as 28%. Now that Reform is the most popular party in English politics, the electoral system works to the party’s advantage.

Reform gains last year overwhelmingly came from the Conservatives and Labour and barely at all from seats the Liberal Democrats or Greens were defending.  While Reform gained 41% of the seats overall, roughly speaking (because of multimember wards) the Conservatives lost 48% of their seats to Reform, and Labour a massive 63%.

Continue reading Benchmarks for Reform seat gains at the 2026 English local elections →

By Stephen Fisher, 2^nd May 2025.

Updated with all of Thursday’s election results in. That is 23 councils, 1639 seats across 1399 wards/county electoral divisions, 6 directly-elected mayoralties, and 1 parliamentary by-election.

Verdict: 

Extraordinary for Reform, good for the Liberal Democrats, mixed for Greens, bad for Labour, and extremely bad for the Conservatives.

The graph below gives you a sense of how dramatically things changed this year. For an explainer of the PNS see here.

Reform UK:

• Top of the poll, with 30% in the BBC Projected National Share (PNS) of the vote, up from just 2% in last year’s local elections (due to not fielding many candidates in 2023). Reform comfortably beat UKIP’s best result of 23% in 2013.
• Won control of +10 councils, despite starting with no seats at all: Derbyshire, Doncaster, Durham, Kent, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, North Northamptonshire, West Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, and Staffordshire. 
• Largest party on a further 4 councils that are “No Overall Control”, so 14 out of 23 in total: Cornwall, Leicestershire, Warwickshire, and Worcestershire.
• Won the popular vote in 14 authorities.
• Won the Runcorn and Helsby parliamentary by-election, albeit by just 6 votes, with a 17-point swing. Overturning a majority 34 points or more has only happened in 17 previous by-elections.
• Won 677 council seats: 41% of the total.
• Won the Greater Lincolnshire and Hull & East Yorkshire mayoralties, and came a close second in Doncaster, North Tyneside and the West of England

Continue reading Local elections 2025 summary →

by John Curtice and Stephen Fisher, 1^st May 2025.

            One of the highlights of the BBC’s coverage of local elections is the Projected National Share (PNS). This is an estimate of what the GB share of the vote would have been if (a) local elections had been held everywhere, (b) the outcome where there were no elections mirrored the pattern where there were, and (c) the principal parties contested all the seats.

            The aim is to provide a summary statistic that is comparable across local election years irrespective of the particular mix of places that have local elections in any particular year, a mix that varies considerably from year to year. 

             This year’s local elections, for example, take place primarily in rural shire county England. Most of them are places that vote Conservative in especially high numbers. In the general election last July, for example, the Conservatives were neck and neck with Labour rather than 11 points behind. They are also places that voted more heavily for Leave in the 2016 referendum. The PNS is designed, among other things, to remove this unrepresentative character.

However, there are a number of key challenges that make it particularly difficult to calculate a PNS for this year’s elections. In this blog we outline those challenges and explain how we are addressing them.  

Continue reading Understanding the Local Elections Projected National Share (PNS) in 2025 →