Voters in England will go to the polls on 2 May to elect more than 2,600 councillors and 10 metro mayors, in the last set of local elections before the general one.
Labour and the Conservatives are defending just under 1,000 seats each, the Liberal Democrats about 400 and the Greens just over 100. Police and crime commissioners in England and Wales are also up for election.
The results will be scrutinised by psephologists looking to predict the results of the general election. Many of the seats up for grabs were last fought four years ago, when the Conservatives were at a high point. In May 2021, Boris Johnson was enjoying a Covid “vaccine bounce” and planning to be in power for a decade.
Now Labour are nearly 20 points ahead and the Tories are facing the prospect of a landslide defeat after 14 years in government. Local election experts Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher estimate the Tories could lose half of its 1,000 council seats up for election. A rebel group of MPs and former Tory advisers are plotting to use the results to destabilise Rishi Sunak’s leadership.
Experts will pay close attention to voter turnout, particularly on the impact of controversial voter ID rules, which first came into force in the May 2023 local elections.
Metro mayors
Voters in England will choose 10 metro mayors, with the North East, York and North Yorkshire, and the East Midlands electing them for the first time.
Millie Mitchell, a devolution researcher at the Institute for Government, said: “Why are these the big battlegrounds? Because mayors have got substantial powers and budgets and abilities to kind of act as spokespeople for regions.
“Both the Conservatives and Labour see mayors as part of this puzzle for delivering local growth and for helping to solve regional inequality, therefore it’s really important what the results of these elections are.”
West Midlands
Labour’s number one target is the West Midlands, where the party hopes to unseat Andy Street, the independent-minded Conservative mayor who is seeking a third term. Labour’s candidate is a former businessman, Richard Parker.
When Keir Starmer launched his local election campaign in Dudley last month, he declared: “You can take it from me, we’re not playing for a draw. We’re looking to win in Dudley, looking to win in the West Midlands, right across the country.”
Tees Valley
Tees Valley is another top Labour target. Unseating Ben Houchen – a rising star in the Conservative party who won 73% of the vote in 2021 – would be a major coup for the party. Labour’s candidate is Chris McEwan, the deputy leader of Darlington borough council.
Joe Twyman, a pollster and the founder of Deltapoll, said: “The really interesting ones will be Tees Valley and West Midlands. If Ben Houchen and Andy Street both lose their mayoralties, that’s bad news. If the Conservatives can hold on to both of them, or even just one – then that will be a good news story.”
East Midlands
Voters in the East Midlands will elect a metro mayor for the first time. The region is something of an electoral battleground, comprising Nottinghamshire, Nottingham, Derbyshire and Derby.
Labour is hopeful of winning but is up against the Tory candidate Ben Bradley, a high-profile MP who was elected in 2017 in the formerly safe Labour seat of Mansfield, where he has a 16,306 majority. Bradley is also the leader of Nottinghamshire county council.
Winning in this region would help Labour – whose candidate is the former MP Claire Ward – demonstrate that it is making inroads in former strongholds that have voted heavily Tory in recent years.
London
Voters in London will elect their mayor, with Sadiq Khan seeking a third term, and members of the London assembly. “Everyone expects Sadiq Khan to win and I don’t think there’s much doubt that he will,” Twyman said. “But if it’s closer than the polls and conventional wisdom is expecting, I think that … will provide some sort of protection for Rishi Sunak.”
Strategists from both parties will look closely at the results in the so-called “doughnut” of commuter seats in greater London where the Tories are trying to capitalise on opposition to Khan’s ultra-low emission zone.
Councils
East: Basildon, Harlow, Thurrock
Essex is a real battleground in this set of elections. Labour is looking to make significant inroads in Basildon, which is Tory controlled and where all seats are up for grabs. Following boundary changes, all 33 seats are up for grabs in Harlow, a marginal area where the Tories increased their majority last year; and Thurrock, where the Tories control the council with a small majority.
West Midlands: Dudley, Nuneaton & Bedworth, Redditch
As well as Dudley, Labour will be hoping to win control of Redditch and Nuneaton & Bedworth. All seats are up for election in all three. Nuneaton is traditionally a bellwether constituency in general elections – when the Tories held it in 2015 it was an early sign that they had defied expectations to win a majority.
“Harlow [in Essex], Basildon, Nuneaton … They’re all the type of places that the Conservatives currently hold, will want to hold and will need to hold come a general election, but are very much at risk in these locals,” Twyman said. “Really, if Labour are where Labour need to be, they need to win in all of them.”
North West: Oldham, Hyndburn
Labour officials are keeping a close eye on Oldham, in Greater Manchester, where a third of seats are up for grabs. Oldham is home to a large Muslim community and there is the prospect of a protest vote against Labour’s stance on the war between Israel and Hamas.
Hyndburn, in east Lancashire, is a “red wall” battleground, with the council under no overall control and a third of seats up for grabs. The Conservative chair Richard Holden has been campaigning in the area with its Tory MP Sara Britcliffe, who was elected in 2017 with a 2,951 majority.
South East: Milton Keynes, Rushmoor …
Labour is hoping to make further inroads in Rushmoor, where it won several seats last year but the Tories retained control. In Milton Keynes, Labour is aiming to win two seats and take majority control of the council, which the party is currently running in a progressive alliance with the Liberal Democrats. A third of seats are up for election in both places.
… and Tunbridge Wells, Wokingham
All seats are up in Tunbridge Wells and Wokingham, two Lib Dem target areas that form part of the “blue wall” of Conservative strongholds in the south-east of England. Both are currently under no overall control.
West: Bristol City, Dorset
Bristol is the Green party’s top target: it is already the largest party and hopes to formally take control of the city council. If it does, it will fuel speculation that the party could take the new Bristol Central constituency in the general election. Beating Labour in battleground wards will be a challenge when the main opposition party is performing so well in national polls.
A top Liberal Democrat target is Dorset, a recently formed council in what has been a Conservative-controlled area for decades. If they win here, the Lib Dems will demonstrate they are making inroads in their one-time stronghold of the West Country, having already won control of Devon in 2022 and Somerset in 2023.
Police and crime commissioners
The Conservative party has traditionally done well in police and crime commissioner elections: of the 35 PCCs in England, 30 are currently Conservative. Twyman said: “It will be really interesting to see how many of those they can hold on to. If they lose all of them, then I think that that’s really, really bad news for the Conservatives.”
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• This article was amended on 5 April 2024 because in Harlow, all 33 seats are up for election, not a third of seats as an earlier version said.
