Elections 2026: The Five Battlegrounds

There are local elections in the UK every May, and every year I do a preview. This time around there are so many different elections going on I’ve split the preview into three posts.

Part one looked at the overall situation in England – including predicted vote shares and seat losses/gains – as well as the parliamentary elections in Scotland and Wales.

Today I’m looking in more detail at the 104 councils up for election across England outside of London.

Part three will focus on the capital, in partnership with London Centric.

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When I first started doing these previews it was fairly straightforward. In most of England the fight was between the Tories and Labour, or sometimes the Liberal Democrats. But with five parties clustered around 15-25% of the vote it’s now much more complicated.

Our electoral system is not designed for a world in which there are so many competitive parties. But rather than lead to permanent chaos, it’s likely that voters will adapt. Over time they will figure out which two parties are best placed to win in their area and chose the one they are most closely aligned to. We saw this happen in the Gorton and Denton by-election, which became a Reform vs. Greens contest, and the Welsh by-election in Caerphilly, which was a Reform vs. Plaid Cymru fight.

This is not a straightforward process. In many places it’s not at all clear which the best placed parties are yet. It will take time for voters to adjust. But ultimately we will still have two or three main parties fighting each other in most councils or constituencies, they’ll just be different ones depending on the geography and demographics of the area.

This is why these elections matter so much. As we move into this multi-party world the way things shake out at local level could determine the options voters have in future contests. In the past when the Tories or Labour did badly because they were running an unpopular national government they could be reasonably sure they’d resurrect in a few years’ time. That may no longer be the case if they stop being one of the default options in large parts of the country.

To try and make sense of this changing landscape I’ve sorted all the councils up for election this time into five battlegrounds which show the different types of contest evolving around the country as our national politics fragments.

As we go through each group I’ll highlight the key councils to watch out for, what I expect to happen, and what it will signal about the wider political shifts we’re seeing. At the end I’ll give a summary of the councils I think each party will win.