Labour vote share at 11% in the nation of Kier Hardie and Nye Bevan. Down 3 seats in Scotland where it was confident of winning back from the Scottish National Party just months ago. The Scotch Greens are just 2 seats behind. One of the worst local election results ever for Labour. It was only a 100 short of what people defined as the catastrophe of a 1500 seat lost. Greens scooped two mayors from Labour and won councils in East London north and south of the river.

The BBC projected all national vote share puts Labour on 17%, Tories 17%, Lib Dems 16%, Greens on 18% and Reform on 26%.  Another projection on Sky News has Reform  on 27, Tories on 20, Labour 15, Greens 14, Lib Dems 14 Others 10. In terms of seats in a parliamentary election this might mean Reform 284, Labour 110, Tories 96, Lib dems 80 and Greens 13.

These figures express a real and present danger of a far right led coalition or arrangement with Farage as PM. Reform would only need 42 abstentions to form a government.  This is a big threat to the well being and interests of the working class.  Socialists need to build the broadest united struggles to stop this happening.

This vote expresses widespread anger at the failure of the two traditional mainstream parties to deliver meaningful change in the face of the cost of living crisis and a general sense that things are getting worse. Our kids are not even getting the modest benefits of a house or a secure job that many of us as parents had. Turnout was generally up at around 43% which is high for local elections. For example Colchester saw a 11 point increase in voters. So the anger does have some political expression. Unfortunately it is the far right Reform party that is mostly channeling this sentiment.

Reform

Reform did well nearly everywhere except in inner London and other metropolitan centres. It came second in Wales and joint second in Scotland.  It gained nearly 1400 seats from a zero start since it hardly stood candidates in the elections previously held in these seats. It now has over 2300 councilors and won control of 13 councils this time to add to the 10 it already led. 

This sort of local council base will help Reform to consolidate and embed itself in local communities. It lacked this a year or so ago. These are not small scale councils – Essex, where half the Tory shadow cabinet have seats, is now led by Reform. In other places Reform’s surge has taken away Labour leadership into No Overall Control such as in Birmingham.  The long wave of Brexit is still paying off for Reform as it wins most votes in Brexit voting areas.  Those socialists who thought Brexit would be an ‘opportunity for the left’ got it completely wrong.

Despite this electoral success, Reform is struggling to get beyond the 30% threshold. The recent stagnation at around 27/28% in the polls is reflected in these results. They do not represent majority opinion and there is mass vocal opposition to their politics as seen in the recent half million strong Together demo. However as we saw with Labour’s hollow 2024 landslide you can win the most seats or even a majority with around 30% given today’s fragmented multiparty system and the undemocratic First past the Post voting method.

Already some corporate businesses are backing Reform but the dominant sectors of the capitalist class are not…yet.  As we have seen in Italy with the Meloni led coalition it is quite possible for the bosses and the ruling class to switch from the mainstream parties to the far right option. It will be interestingto see if this begins to shift – just as big business lined up to ‘partner’ Labour before the last general election. Big business dislikes volatility and any government that might provoke mass struggles. 

If Labour confirm it is a busted flush in the coming period we could see this shift becoming stronger although the establishment preference would be a coalition with a more stable Tory party. An eventual Reform/Tory government would be a serious defeat for the working class and must be resisted at all costs.

Greens

While these elections saw a continued radicalization to the right we also saw a further increase in support for the Greens who stood on policies clearly to the left of Labour. People are radicalizing to the left too. The Greens were the second biggest gainer of seats gaining 399 and winning 4 councils. They won seats in most parts of the country and now have well over a thousand councilors.  Its membership is now approaching 250,000 and probably is bigger than Labour, which has not released official figures for some time now.

There is now a  ‘green belt’ being established in east London north and south of the river as the Greens took control of Hackney after 28 years of Labour rule and have a slim majority in Waltham Forest. It is the biggest party in Haringey, they gained 10 seats in Camden are main opposition and gained 13 seats in Newham.  There the Labour party does not have a majority given ‘Gaza’ independents and the Greent together hold 40 seats.  Tower Hamlets is also outside Labour control with Luther Rahman’s Aspire holding the mayorality. Greens got 20% in the Mayoral election. Greens won the mayoral elections in Hackney and Lewisham.

The new ‘green republic’ of Hackney is no surprise given how the highly factionalised right wing Labour leadership collaborated in the suspension of Diane Abbott, blocked any support for Palestine, deselected any left candidates and gutted any meaningful meetings. Ward and General management meetings were extremely brief and allowed hardly any political discussion. Canvassing was done mostly by councilors and a few others. Most activists sat on their hands. Many voted for the Greens. The right’s smashing of the Corbynist left, which was the dominant force in Hackney North, has resulted in a historic defeat for Labour in Hackney. It now has only 9 councillors. When I met a young black woman at the polling station who proudly said she and her friends were voting Green I thought something big was happening. 

Hackney Green/Socialist coalition

The Green Party and particularly Zoe Garbutt our new mayor in Hackney has been prominent is supporting Palestine. The disinvestment campaign, brutally blocked by Labour who refused all discussion on the issue will now go ahead and the twinning with Haifa will end. 

The Greens here are not just about elections. They support the occupation of Ridley road market traders and set up a coalition with the Hackney Independent socialists. Unfortunately all the socialist candidates lost although they got respectable scores of just under to more than a thousand votes.  Clearly the problem was that ordinary voters did not understand the coalition link between the Greens and these candidates – it could not be labeled on the ballot paper. The failure of Your Party has meant that socialists standing to the left of Labour have been squeezed by the Green surge.  This situation has national implications for left independents around the country

Running councils will provide new challenges for the Greens when it comes to austerity cuts since the government fails to properly fund local council spending. Experiences of Green councils in Brighton and Bristol have not been positive on this issue.  There is discussion about a Green initiated national campaign involving unions and meetings of councils over any cuts imposed by lack of government money. It is important that socialists engage with newly radicalized Green members on this.

Labour does not stop Reform

Labour electoral strategy of trying to completely separate the national government’s policies and Starmer from the local campaign clearly failed. You struggled to find a photo of Starmer on any election literature. More shamefully the disgraceful smears against the Greens over antisemitism and misrepresenting their regulated drug policy totally failed.  Claims that the Greens would be less assiduous in responding to the bread and butter work of dealing with local people’s concerns on fly tipping, potholes etc also backfired.  Everyone knows Green activists have been involved in lots of basic community campaigns.

As predicted, Starmer’s position is under direct attack after these terrible results. A number of backbenchers who are not from the Socialist Campaign group are asking the PM to set out a timetable for his exit. This seems to suggest that they are pitching for Burnham since an immediate leadership challenge would exclude him. He needs time to find a winnable constituency. John McDonnell says we do not want a coup which implies the same approach. Diane Abbott has also correctly suggested that there is no point in changing drivers if the car is taking the same road. Policies need to be radically different. While socialists should have no illusions in Burnham he would probably make it easier for those socialists still inside Labour. His proposal –if he sticks with it – of proportional representation would be a democratic step forward that would benefit the Greens and the socialist left.  He would block the worst change which would be Wes Streeting as leader.

These elections have also once again totally destroyed the argument that supporting Labour is the best way of stopping Reform. The figures do not lie. Ever since July 2024 this government’s actions have fed the rise of Reform. Mirroring the racist policies against migrants and refugees has just given Reform’s policies more credibility.  As all the electoral analysts have explained Labour are losing more votes to the left than to Reform.  Indeed hemorrhaging votes to the Greens even allows Reform to come through to win in certain seats.

Another Starmer reset?

It is difficult to see how yet another reset by Starmer will square the strategic circle.  Labour cannot tailor its policies to please at one and the same time the anti-migrant Reform voter and the progressive Green voter. Neither are Starmer and Reeves willing to abandon the junior partnership with corporate capital which prevents any radical redistribution measures that eat into its control of the economy. Presenting Starmer as some magistral statesmen keeping us all safe in uncertain international crises is not cutting through either. His diplomacy is not doing much to stop the expected worsening of the cost of living due to the war on Iran.  In any case his reset may be pre-empted by his departure.  A majority of Labour MPs know that their seats are in danger if they stick with Keir at the next general election.

Bringing in Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman as some sort of Labour ‘heavyweights’ that will allow the PM to punch himself out of the hole he is in smacks of utter desperation and is unlikely to save his skin.

The Labour leadership’s latest line that they do not want to ‘doomscroll’ through successive prime ministers doe not even hold up to historical accuracy.  Dumping Teresa May for Johnson actually helped the Tories win a general election and extended their tenure.

For socialists, these elections are a warning about the continued risk of a Farage led government.  To a degree they also provide some hope that the radicalization on the left is continuing , at least in some places.  We have to continue to build resistance both to Farage and to all the other attacks on our living standards and democratic rights.

More than ever we need a strong ecosocialist current which can work alongside people in the Greens, the trade unions and even those left in Labour.  One of our weaknesses is our presence in those geographical areas where Reform is strong. We need to discuss how we might overcome this. 

One useful event that can contribute to building an eco-socialist left is the second Ecosocialist national conference taking place on 30May at London South Bank University. See more and register here

We welcome contributions on the local elections, this article does not pretend to give a detailed analysis of what is happening in the localities or the nations of Cymru or Scotland