By Stephen Fisher

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. 

But while the direction of change was the same in the local elections as it was in the polls, the scale of the Reform gains and corresponding Conservative losses was extraordinary. The graph below shows what an enormous outlier the Reform performance was relative to the pattern up to 2024.   

The following graph shows that 2025 was also a clear outlier for the Conservatives.

For Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, the net gains and losses were broadly in line with expectations based on previous elections, as the following graphs show. 

Table 1 shows how party support in the opinion polls has changed since 2022 when most of the seats up this year were last fought. The 2026 figures are the average of the most recent poll from each of eleven pollsters that were conducted within the last month. The table also includes the corresponding figures used last year.  The broad situation is the same: Reform up by over 20 points; Conservatives and Labour down heavily; and the Liberal Democrats and Greens also up from four-years prior. 

Table 1. Opinion poll changes from 2021 to 2025, and 2022 to 2026 locals (GB)

%	2021	2025	Change 21-25	2022	2026	Change 22-26
Con	41	23	-18	34	18	-16
Lab	36	24	-12	40	19	-21
LD	7	13	+6	10	12	+2
Green	5	9	+4	6	15	+9
Reform	2	25	+23	2	27	+25

On that basis, the broad pattern of seat gains and losses is likely to be similar to last year: big gains for Reform; more modest gains for the Greens and the Liberal Democrats; and heavy losses for the Conservatives and Labour. 

Local Seat Projections

My projections for local election seat gains and losses for the May 2026 round of local elections are in Table 2. With over five thousand seats up and a lot of change in public opinion since 2022, some of the projected gains and losses are huge. They imply a net movement of nearly three thousand council seats from the two traditionally largest parties to the Greens, Liberal Democrats and especially Reform.

Table 2. Projections for net seat gains and losses at 2026 local elections

	Seat projections
Con	-1010
Lab	-1900
LD	+200
Green	+450
Reform	+2260

The +200 net seat gains projected for the Liberal Democrats is the only projection based on a model I have used for several years: a regression of LD seat share change on Con-LD swing, with allowance for additional losses during the coalition years.

The projected +450 net gains for the Greens is based on the same method that worked reasonably well last year: an additional 1% of the seats up for every percentage point rise in the polls since four-years prior.

For the Conservatives and Reform, both the classic models and the method I used last year provide a poor fit for last year. Since this year has a high chance of having a broadly similar result to last year, a different approach is needed. 

Reform will make +2260 net gains if they are able to translate their +25-point rise in the polls into council seats at the same rate as they translated their +23-point poll rise last year. 

The knock-on consequences of three thousand projected net gains for Reform, Greens and Liberal Democrats combined are for the Conservatives and Labour collectively to suffer a net loss of 74.2% of the seats they are defending. The independents and minor parties may also lose seats, but since they are only defending 260 that will not alleviate much of the damage to the Conservatives and Labour.

The projected -1010 losses for the Conservatives and -1900 for Labour in Table 2 are based on the assumption that both parties suffer that same 74.2% loss of seats. That assumption is a compromise position. Since the Conservatives are down more heavily than Labour in the polls we might expect the Conservatives to lose seats at a greater rate. On the other hand, Labour have been losing more heavily than the Conservatives in local by-elections since May. 

If the Conservatives do lose -1010 seats net, they will be down to around 350, just 7% of the seats up. That is startlingly low, but still larger than the 6% of seats that Labour won last year.

The seats up this year are traditionally a strong set for Labour, not least because they are mainly in London and other Metropolitan borough councils. In 2022 Labour won just over half the seats up in England. If the projected -1900 losses is correct then Labour will win just 13% of the seats.

Local by-election gains and losses since May 2025 provide some reason to think that Reform may not do so well as polls and the pattern in last year’s big round of local elections would suggest. Reform have made +68 net gains in by-elections, representing 37.2% of the 183 seats up. If replicated this May, net gains of 37.2% would amount to +1865 seats. While that is well short of the +2260 projection in Table 2, it would still be record breaking.

On the same basis, the Conservatives will lose half their seats (-670) and Labour three-quarters (-1920) if local by-election loss rates over the last year are repeated this May. 

Post-mortem for 2025 projections

The predictions from last year in Table 3 below are taken from Mark Pack’s helpful compilation. Given the graphs above, readers will not be surprised to see that my projections were reasonably good for Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, but well out for the Conservatives and Reform. 

Table 3. Forecasts and actual local election net seat gains/losses for 2025

	Britain Elects	Electoral Calculus	Politics UK	Robert Hayward	Sam Freedman	My projections	Actual
Con	-538	-471	-545	-475 to -525	-500 to -600	-350	-675
Lab	+72	-32	-183	-25 to +25	“Roughly” zero	-140	-189
LD	+104	+68	+203	+70 to +80	+50 to +150	+75	+163
Green	+17	-1	+44	+20 to +40	“Small” gains	+65	+44
Reform	+311	+474	+522	+400 to +450	+350 to +500	+375	+677
Others						-25	+20

The Green and Reform projections were simply based on an additional 1% of the seats up for every extra percentage point increase in their poll rating since 2021. That worked reasonably well for the Greens but was not good enough for Reform. Others rightly anticipated greater gains, but all substantially underestimated Reform. While I thought my projection for Reform was a “reasonable benchmark,” given the polls at the time, there was no clear basis from the pattern of past local elections to predict any bigger gains for Reform. 

I am glad I said, “I suspect that with 995 seats to defend, the Conservatives will lose more than 350.” However, I also said, “the model unwittingly projects Labour to lose nearly half their seats. That seems unlikely.” Labour actually lost nearly two-thirds of their seats.

Many thanks to Colin Rallings, Michael Thrasher, David Cowling, Rob Ford and the BBC for help compiling the data over the years.

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 →

What we know at 8.20pm on Saturday 4^th May 2024, after 106 out of 107 councils, 2640 councillors, 11 Mayoralties (including London and estimated West Midlands result), 35 out of 37 Police and Crime Commissioners (PCC), the Greater London Assembly (with all votes declared but not the D’Hondt allocation), and 1 parliamentary by-election. Just 1 council and 2 PCCs to declare.

Verdict: 

Extremely bad for the Conservatives. Good for Labour and Lib Dems. Very good for Greens. Mixed for Reform UK.

Conservatives:

• Dropped to 25% in the BBC Projected National Share (PNS) of the local election vote: their joint lowest since records began in 1982
• Lost control of 10 councils out of 16 they were defending: Adur, Basildon, Dorset, Dudley, Gloucester, Havant, North East Lincolnshire, Nuneaton & Bedworth, Redditch and Rushmoor.
• – 473 net council seat losses: 48% of the 986 they defended, leaving them behind the Liberal Democrats in total seats won.
• Won only 1 of the 11 directly elected Mayoralties, with Andy Street narrowly losing the West Midlands and Ben Houchen suffering a 17-point swing to Labour in Tees Valley.
• Lost 10 of the 27 Police and Crime Commissioners they defended, with an average drop in vote share of 8 points across the 27.
• Lost the contest for London Mayor with a 3-point drop in their share of the vote.
• Lost 1 seat in the Greater London Assembly after a 3-point drop in their London-wide list vote.
• Lost the Blackpool South by-election on a 26% swing (the third biggest by-election swing in the post-war period).

Labour:

• First place with 34% in the BBC Projected National Share (PNS) of the local election vote: down 1 point on last year, but another 9-point lead over the Conservatives. Not as good as Labour achieved before their 1997 victory, but better than at any set of local elections where they went on to lose the general election.
• +8 net gains in council control. Gained 10 (Adur, Cannock Chase, Hartlepool, Hyndburn, Milton Keynes, Nuneaton & Bedworth, Redditch, Rushmoor, Tamworth and Thurrock), but lost Kirklees and Oldham. Retained control of a further 40 councils.
• +185 net council seats gains
• Won 10 of the 11 directly elected mayor positions, including West Midlands from Andy Street and London, that is all but Tees Valley which Labour failed to take despite achieving a 17-point swing there.  
• +10 gains of Police and Crime Commissioners, and held all 10 of those they were defending. Average vote share increase of +8 points across all 35 contests.
• Won the London Mayor contest for the third time in a row, with an increased vote share of +4-points.
• Maintained their position as largest party in the Greater London Assembly with 11 out of the 25 seats.
• Won the Blackpool South by-election on a 26% swing (the third biggest by-election swing in post-war period), in line with other big by-election wins for Labour this parliament.

Liberal Democrats:

• Gained control of Dorset and Tunbridge Wells and held all 10 councils they were defending.
• +104 net council seat gains, winning 521 seats in total (more than the 513 secured by the Conservatives). 
• Increased vote share +3 points on average across the Police and Crime Commissioners, despite the change in the electoral system creating incentives for their supporters to vote tactically away from them in most places.
• Maintained their position in the Greater London Assembly with 2 seats.

Green Party:

• Secured their best local elections performance ever (better than 2019): enough to put them at 13% in the local elections Projected National Share (PNS)
• +74 net council seat gains, winning 181 seats in total 
• Averaged 15% across the 7 Police and Crime Commissioner positions they stood for, despite the change in the electoral system creating incentives for their supporters to vote tactically for others
• Maintained their position in the Greater London Assembly with 3 seats.

Reform UK:

• Came 3^rd on 17%, narrowly behind the Conservatives, at the Blackpool South by-election.
• Won just 2 council seats out of 2640 up for election.
• Averaged 12% of the vote, in the wards they contested, but they contested just 12% of seats.
• Put in a much more limited effort and much less impressive performance than UKIP did in local elections between 2013 and 2016.
• 1 seat on the Greater London Assembly with 6% of the vote.

See analysis by John Curtice and the rest of the BBC team for further detail.

by Stephen Fisher

What we know at 8pm on Friday 3rd May 2024, after 1 by-election, 98 out of 107 councils, 2199 councillors, 4 Mayoralties, and 27 out of 37 Police and Crime Commissioners declared so far.

Bad for the Conservatives. Good for Labour and Lib Dems. Very good for Greens. Mixed for Reform UK.

Conservatives:

• Lost the Blackpool South by-election on a 26% swing (the third biggest by-election swing largest in post-war period).
• Lost control of 8 councils net (Adur, Basildon, Dudley, Havant, North East Lincolnshire, Nuneaton & Bedworth, Redditch and Rushmoor), out of 13 defended
• Lost 424 council seats net, out of 877 defended and declared so far
• Won only 1 of the 4 directly elected Mayoralties declared so far
• Lost 9 of the 21 Police and Crime Commissioners defended and declared so far, with an average drop in vote share of 9 points

Labour:

• Won the Blackpool South by-election on a 26% swing (the third biggest by-election swing largest in post-war period).
• Gained control of 8 councils net (gains were Adur, Cannock Chase, Hartlepool, Hyndburn, Milton Keynes, Nuneaton & Bedworth, Redditch, Rushmoor, Tamworth and Thurrock, but lost Kirklees and Oldham)
• Gained 169 council seats net 
• Won 3 of the 4 Mayoralties
• Gained 9 Police and Crime Commissioners and held all 5 of those they were defending, with an average vote share increase of +8 points

Liberal Democrats:

• Gained control of Tunbridge Wells and held all 10 councils they were defending
• Gained 79 council seats net 
• Increased vote share +5 points on average across the Police and Crime Commissioners declared so far

Green Party:

• Gained 60 council seats net
• Increased vote share, averaging 13 points where they stood, despite also contesting more seats than before. 
• Averaged 8% in the 3 PCCs they contested that have declared so far

Reform UK Party:

• Came 3^rd on 17%, narrowly behind the Conservatives, at the Blackpool South by-election
• Won just 2 council seats out of 2160 declared so far.
• Averaged 12% of the vote, in the wards they contested. That is up 6 points on last year, but they contested just 12% of seats.
• Put in a much more limited effort and less good performance than UKIP in local elections before 2015.

See analysis by John Curtice and the rest of the BBC team for further detail.

What we know so far, after 1 by-election, 35 out of 107 councils, and 3 Police and Crime Commissioners declared.

Bad for the Conservatives. Good for Labour, Lib Dems, Greens, and Reform UK.

Conservatives have:

• Lost the Blackpool South by-election on a 26% swing (the third biggest by-election swing largest in post-war period).
• Lost control of 3 councils (North East Lincolnshire, Redditch and Rushmore), out of 6 defended and declared so far
• Lost 122 council seats net, out of 267 defended and declared so far
• Lost 2 of the 3 Police and Crime Commissioners defended and declared so far, with an average drop in vote share of 12 points.

Labour have:

• Won the Blackpool South by-election on a 26% swing (the third biggest by-election swing largest in post-war period).
• Gained control of 3 councils net (gains were Hartlepool, Redditch, Rushmoor, and Thurrock, but lost Oldham)
• Gained 52 council seats net 
• Gained 2 of the 3 Police and Crime Commissioners declared so far, with an average increase in vote share of 11 points.

Liberal Democrats have:

• Held 3 councils so far declared than they were defending.
• Gained 18 council seats net 
• Increased vote share +3 points on average across the 3 Police and Crime Commissioners declared so far.

Green Party have:

• Gained 13 council seats net
• Vote share up on average in BBC keywards
• Increased vote share +5 points and moved into 3^rd place in the only Police and Crime Commissioners declared so far they contested.

Reform Party have:

• Come 3^rd on 17%, narrowly behind the Conservatives, at the Blackpool South by-election
• Vote share up on average in BBC keywards
• Increased vote share by 11 points in the only Police and Crime Commissioner they contested that has declared so far.

by John Curtice and Stephen Fisher, 1^st May 2024.

Seats won and lost in the local council elections in England this week may be a poor guide as to how well the parties performed. Since the elections are held under single or multi-member plurality, without any increase in support a party may make big gains in seats off the back of another party losing votes. A third party whose vote is geographically spread may make a substantial advance in votes yet reap little reward in terms of seats. Meanwhile, seats won and lost only provide an indication of whether a party has lost or gained ground as compared with when the seats up for grabs were last contested.

These caveats are important again this year. Around 70% of the council seats up for grabs this year were last fought over in May 2021. Boris Johnson was Prime Minister and the Conservatives were successfully claiming the credit for an early Covid vaccine rollout. The party enjoyed a six-point lead in the polls, gained over 200 seats in the local elections and recorded their best performance in terms of votes since 2017.

The Conservatives therefore face the challenge this week of defending a strong baseline while running 20 points behind in the polls (an even weaker position than this time last year). They look set to make significant losses. Other parties, such as the Liberal Democrats, may gain seats purely as a result of the decline in support for the Conservatives, without necessarily attracting more voters themselves.

That said, one key uncertainty is that Reform UK are only fielding candidates in one in six of the wards where local elections will take place. According to the polls, the Conservatives are now losing more of their 2019 voters to Reform than any other party. Perhaps some of these voters will switch to the Conservatives where Reform are not on the ballot paper, thereby helping to stem Conservative losses. 

Yet we cannot assess party performance by simply adding up the votes cast (even if we had the resource to collect them all on election night). In England (unlike Scotland and Wales) it is never the case that the whole country votes in local elections at the same time. The places that vote one year are politically different from those that vote in another.

Continue reading Understanding the Local Elections Projected National Share (PNS) in 2024 →