UK local elections open, Labour braces for losses as Reform and Greens target council seats, Starmer leadership risk shifts from Westminster to tally rooms

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Voting under way in UK local elections seen as verdict on Starmer euronews.com

Polling opens in UK local elections, Labour braces for losses as Starmer faces multi-front challenge, devolved parliaments vote while Westminster reads it as a confidence test

Polling stations opened across the UK on Thursday for elections covering roughly 5,000 council seats in England alongside contests in Scotland and Wales, where all seats in the devolved parliaments are being fought. Prime Minister Keir Starmer voted in central London before leaving without taking questions, as his party privately prepares for a difficult day, according to the Evening Standard. Euronews reports that Labour is defending about 2,500 English council seats and is bracing for heavy losses.

The scale of the contests makes them a stress test for a government that came to power in July 2024 but has struggled to show visible improvement in growth, public services and living costs. Local councils control unglamorous but expensive services—adult social care and refuse collection among them—and the vote often functions as a way for voters to bill the party in charge for day-to-day deterioration without waiting for a general election. In London alone, more than six million residents are eligible to vote, with over 1,800 councillors and several borough mayors up for election, the Standard notes.

What makes this round unusually sharp is how many directions Labour is being attacked from at once. Euronews cites polling analysis suggesting the traditional Labour–Conservative duopoly is weakening, with Reform UK, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats all positioned to take seats on different terrain. Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, is targeting working-class areas and former Labour strongholds with an anti-establishment and anti-immigration message, while the Greens are expected to gain in cities and university towns, and the Liberal Democrats to pick up ground in pockets of southern England.

Inside Labour, the counting is also about authority. Euronews reports that a decisive defeat could trigger moves by Labour lawmakers to oust Starmer, after earlier internal unrest over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the United States. Starmer’s closing message urged voters to “choose unity over division”, but the electoral map does not reward rhetorical unity: council seats can be lost in one place to Reform and in another to Greens, with each challenger offering a different explanation for why the government is failing.

Polls close at 10pm, with some counts starting overnight and most results expected Friday afternoon. By then, the question will be less about which party won the most councils and more about whether Labour’s losses are small enough to keep a leadership challenge on ice until the next crisis arrives.