As the post war global political consensus breaks down around us and populism, authoritarianism and isolationism threaten to create a new world order. Our small set of elections in the shires of England will tell us a story about how our politics is changing, what it might mean for the future of UK politics and how the rising tide of global populism is hitting our shores.
These elections are less a poll on the success of the Labour Government to date, and more a window into the battle for the life and future of the Conservative Party as it struggles to retain its place as the voice of the Right in British Politics. Labour is lucky (by the standards of a Governing party in its first local elections) in that it doesn’t have a huge number of seats or councils to defend and even if it loses Mayors and the Runcorn by-election, it has remarkable circumstances and personal scandals to blame. A good night for Labour may simply mean it scrapes by as a marginal player in the core narrative of the night.
All the attention is on the performance of Reform UK. If they can pull off some signature victories then they could gain two Mayors, an MP and numerous council wins. If the Conservative vote share collapses, then defections, calls for electoral pacts and disgruntlement with their current leadership may well grow.
Below we have summarised the core races and given you some ideas of what is worth watching.
Interactive PDF report: Inflect’s guide to the Mayoral and Local Elections. Use the viewer controls to turn pages.
