Government cancels plan to delay local council elections in England | Local elections
Ministers have abandoned plans to postpone 30 local elections this May after receiving legal advice that this could be illegal.
The government had planned to postpone elections in England while local government was reorganised; This will likely result in some authorities merging or merging with others. Ministers have opposed holding elections for councils that could expire within a year or two.
But the plans sparked a backlash from opposition parties and a legal challenge from Reform UK, which claimed they were undemocratic. The government confirmed on Monday it had abandoned the idea, with the reform case due to be heard this month.
A spokesman for the local government department said: “Following legal advice, the government has withdrawn its original decision to postpone 30 local elections in May. Giving councils certainty over their local elections is now paramount and all local elections will now be held in May 2026.”
In a letter to reform leader Nigel Farage, a government lawyer said local government secretary Steve Reed asked housing minister Matthew Pennycook to review the legality of the delay, and Pennycook agreed the election should be held this year.
The letter stated that the government would pay Reform’s legal costs in the case; Reform sources say these costs are likely to be more than £100,000.
The government announced on Monday it would give affected councils an extra £63 million to help them with restructuring and would consider further support to help local elections be held relatively quickly.
In a letter to council leaders, Reed said: “I recognize that many of the local councils undergoing restructuring have expressed genuine concern about the pressure they are under as they seek to deliver the most ambitious reforms to local government in a generation.
“That’s why today I’m announcing that we will be providing up to £63 million of additional capacity funding to 21 local areas in the process of restructuring across the full programme, building on the £7.6 million provided to develop proposals last year. I will announce further details on how this funding will be allocated shortly.”
faraj Published on X: “We took the Labor government to court and won. Keir Starmer, in collusion with the Tories, tried to stop 4.6 million people from voting on May 7. Only Reform UK fights for democracy.”
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch described the move as “predictable chaos from a useless government unable to make basic decisions”.
he added in an X post: “The legal confusion is hardly surprising and is one of the reasons why the Conservatives (with a few exceptions that now seem truly foolish) opposed the move to postpone council elections for the second year in a row.”
