May Elections 2026

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May Elections 2026

- Across England 5,014 local council seats are up for re-election and 6 mayoralties
- Scotland will vote in the Scottish parliamentary elections
- Wales will vote in the Welsh parliamentary elections

These are going to be some pretty big elections.

Will post anything interesting as we near them, but for now here is a national poll.

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A poll out for the Scottish parliamentary elections.


The SNP on course to hold on to power, but with Reform becoming the official opposition in Scotland.

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Wow, what a historic day. Counting is still underway in England and Scotland so I will post about them when it is a clearer picture.

Let's start with the result in Wales, which is historic.

Labour have been the dominant party in Wales since the 1920s when the party started to become a party of government. In every election for over a century - be it Generals, Locals or the Assembly, Labour have won a healthy majority in the principality. Always, even when Labour have been at their lowest. Many of the greatest Labour politicians have been born in or served Welsh constituencies.

Today, after 120 or so years, that came to a brutal end.

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Here we go with Scotland who have just finalised results.

The SNP have clung on because, yet again, the majority Unionist vote in Scotland is split between multiple parties. No surprise. Second place opposition is now split between Reform and Labour, which is a setback for Labour who used to control Scotland as a fiefdom but a huge bonus to Nigel Farage's Reform - as his previous political parties often struggled in Scotland compared to other parts of Britain.

I'll tag @buttons; for her thoughts (if any).

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Finally the English Locals... obviously a lot more elections here so I will cherry pick what I found interesting, and the overhead totals.

We've basically seen Reform take rock solid seats and councils from Labour in the north and the Tories in the south, and we've seen the Greens take inner London boroughs from Labour whicjh were once unthinkable. On some councils, absolutely historic/insane swings.

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I could go on and on and on... but you get the picture in England.

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On an overall British picture, here's my thoughts and those of Andrew Marr (below).

We've never had this level of fragmentation of the vote, and the last time we came anything near to this on a nationnal level wasn't Ukip in the 2010s or the SDP in the 1980s...... but the Labour Party replacing the Liberal Party in the 1910s and 1920s. We've had fragmentation on subnational level before, notably in the 2010s when Labour collapsed in Scotland to the SNP, but now Wales has also similarly collapsed and both main parties have collapsed in England.

Pinging @Seatherny; because why not.

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Labour MPs now appear to be moving as a result of these elections.

Sir Keir Starmer has been prime minister for 1 year, 309 days.

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