The end of last week brought significant change across the UK’s political landscape, as people across England, Scotland, and Wales headed to the polling stations.
Much of the media coverage ahead of Thursday was focused on England’s local elections, particularly with expectations being that Reform UK and the Green Party would make significant strides across the country. Despite that focus, there were significant decisions being made in Scotland and Wales, where people went to decide who would run the Scottish and Welsh governments.
Going into this year’s elections, the Labour Party had the most seats in local government (5,830), with the Conservative Party in second (4,180) and the Liberal Democrats (3,180) coming up behind. The other two main protagonists, Reform UK and the Green Party, had 986 and 914 seats respectively.
In Scotland, the Scottish National Party were the largest party with 60 seats ahead of the election. The Scottish Conservatives were in second, with 31, whilst Scottish Labour sat in third with 22 seats. Notably, Reform UK Scotland had zero seats ahead of the election – which was the second that they would take part in since being established at the beginning of 2021.
Welsh Labour were the leading party in the Senedd before these elections, with 30 seats, followed by the Welsh Conservatives and Plaid Cymru, which had 16 and 13 seats respectively. Reform UK Wales and Wales Green Party didn’t have any seats before this year.
Of the 36 metropolitan boroughs in England, 32 took part in last week’s elections (Liverpool, Wirral, Rotherham, and Doncaster did not). Half of those saw all councillor positions up for election, whilst the other 16 saw only one-third of the councillors elected.
Concerning the boroughs that were electing all councillors, Reform UK – which had control of no metropolitan boroughs – were the big winners as they took control of nine boroughs. Labour only held onto one (Sefton), whilst the remaining six ended up under no overall control. Those metropolitan boroughs in which only a third of councillors were being elected, Labour came away with control of nine, the Liberal Democrats took control of one, whilst the remaining six – again – changed to being under no overall control.
When it comes to unitary authorities, 18 took part in these elections, with six electing all councillors and the other 12 only electing one-third of councillors. Those councils that were electing all councillors included East Surrey and West Surrey, which were both new councils. Both of these councils were won by the Liberal Democrats, whilst Reform UK took control of one (Thurrock). The other three change to no overall control.
Reform UK did replicate these results in the unitary authorities that were only electing one-third of councillors, as the Liberal Democrats emerged with two and Labour held on to three councils. The remaining seven ended up under no overall control.
Six county councils had their elections delayed from 2025, with five of those having begun under the control of the Conservatives – the other one (East Sussex) was under no overall control. By the end of the week, two of these had been won by Reform UK, whilst the other four were under no overall control.
When it comes to district councils, there were 48 that were taking part in these elections, with seven councils looking to elect half of their councillors in addition to the 41 that were electing either half or one-third of councillors. The three district councils that were electing all councillors all ended up going different ways, with Reform (Newcastle-under-Lyme) and the Liberal Democrats (South Cambridgeshire) taking one each. The final one (Huntingdonshire) remained under no overall control.
Similarly, the seven that were electing half of councillors saw control only change hands once. This was in Hastings, which was won by the Green Party, whilst Adur, Cheltenham and Fareham remained Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative respectively. The remaining three remained under no overall control.
Of the 38 councils that were only electing one-third of the councillors, the majority ended up under no overall control. Labour and the Liberal Democrats came away controlling five each, whilst the Conservatives controlled two. The remaining one (Norwich) was won by the Green Party.
All 32 boroughs in London were part of the 2026 local elections, with all of them electing all councillors. Labour came away from the election with control of the most councils (nine), whilst the Conservative Party followed closely with six. The Green Party and the Liberal Democrats emerged with three councils each, whilst Reform UK and Aspire ended up tied with one each. The remaining nine London boroughs were left under no overall control.
In Scotland, people were voting for who would take control of Holyrood, and it was anticipated that the Scottish National Party would be the big winners. That was largely what happened as they took a fifth successive Scottish Parliament election victory. The party came away with 58 seats, which, whilst not a majority, was 41 seats clear of Scottish Labour and Reform UK Scotland, who came away joint second. The Scottish Greens were just behind them with 15 seats, whilst the Scottish Conservatives came away with 12 seats. Ten seats were also won by independent candidates.
The Welsh elections saw much more change than Scotland, with Plaid Cymru coming away with 43 seats and Reform UK Wales following with 34 seats.
Welsh Labour, which had been the party in power since 1922 – the longest winning streak of any political party in the world, only came away with nine seats. This led to the resignation of Eluned Morgan, the leader of Welsh Labour and the First Minister of Wales, before the election. In her place, Ken Skates was confirmed as the interim leader of the party.
Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth had already confirmed that he would prefer to form a minority government, rather than a coalition, as the party fell six seats short of the number that it would need for a majority.
The three other parties that won seats, Welsh Conservatives, Wales Green Party and the Welsh Liberal Democrats, ended the elections with seven, two and one seats respectively.
