Polls have opened across England, Scotland and Wales for a series of local, mayoral and parliamentary contests, providing the biggest electoral test Keir Starmer and the Labour government have faced since they won the 2024 general election - a period now long enough for voters to have formed opinions.
As millions of people across Great Britain trudge to polling stations on Thursday, party leaders are bracing for results that could fundamentally change the political landscape nationally in Scotland and Wales, and across local authorities in England. The results, watched closely by all parties, represent the first major political test in what is increasingly a multiparty system. This comes after months of Labour and the Conservatives both languishing in the polls, while smaller parties such as Reform UK, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats have been gleefully picking up the pieces.
The elections cover the Scottish and Welsh parliaments and 136 local councils in England, where 5,014 seats are being contested. This includes every seat on all of London’s 32 borough councils, plus more than a dozen borough councils, six unitary councils, six county councils and three district councils. A further 73 councils are holding elections for half or a third of their seats - because nothing says democracy like partial representation. There are also six mayoral contests: in Croydon, Hackney, Lewisham, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Watford.
Polls for local elections will be open between 7am and 10pm, with the first results expected around 12.30am on Friday, followed by a glut of further results from about 3am onwards. About a third of councils should have declared by around 7am, while the most significant results - including the mayoral results in London boroughs, and council results in Manchester and Leeds - will start coming in at lunchtime. By the end of Friday, about 80 more councils will have declared results, but the final councils - including Croydon and Tower Hamlets in London and Hastings in Sussex - won’t declare until Saturday afternoon, presumably to keep the suspense alive.
Results in Scotland and Wales should become clear by about 4pm on Friday, with more local election results announced in the late afternoon and early evening. Counting for mayoral elections will only begin on Friday, with Hackney and Newham expected to declare at 1pm, Watford at 2pm, Lewisham at 3pm, Croydon at 4pm and Tower Hamlets at 6pm.
After the May 2025 local elections, Labour held 34% of all council seats in England, down 2% from 2024. The Conservatives fell to 26%, down 4% from the previous year, and the Liberal Democrats held 19%, up 1%. The number of councillors represented by other parties increased from 11% to 12%. The Greens held 5% of seats, a similar share to 2024. Reform UK went from zero to 5% with the election of 677 councillors - a reminder that a small percentage can still mean a lot of people in local government.
In Scotland, 129 MSPs will be voted into Holyrood, where they will debate and pass laws on all devolved matters, including education, health and transport. Policy areas with a UK-wide or international impact, such as defence, foreign policy and immigration, are decided in Westminster - because nothing says local control like knowing your big decisions are made elsewhere. At the last Scottish parliament election in 2021, the SNP won 64 seats - one short of a majority - with the Scottish Conservatives coming second with 31. Scottish Labour came third with 22 seats, the Scottish Greens took eight and the Scottish Liberal Democrats four. Polls will be open in Scotland from 7am until 10pm, and unlike in previous years, counting will happen on Friday morning, with the first declarations expected at lunchtime and most results declared by the evening.
Welsh voters will elect 96 representatives across 16 constituencies, with six members of the Senedd in each. Electoral changes mean a new proportional voting system will be in place: voters will be asked to back a party rather than a candidate, with six Senedd members voted in based largely on the proportion of votes they get in a constituency. Because if there’s one thing British democracy loves, it’s trying a new voting system every few elections.