2018 United Kingdom local elections

← 2017 3 May 2018 2019 →
150 of 404 councils inEngland 6 directly elected mayors
Turnout	35.0%
Leader Jeremy Corbyn Theresa May Vince Cable Party Labour Conservative Liberal Democrats Leader since 12 September 2015 11 July 2016 20 July 2017 Seats before 6,465 seats 105 councils 9,211 seats[1] 202 councils 1,840 seats 7 councils Projected vote share[a] 35% 8% 35% 3% 16% 2% Seats won (2018) 2,353 74 councils 1,332 46 councils 542 9 councils Councillors (after) 6,495 105 councils 9,118 199 councils[2] 1,889 11 councils Net change (notional) 79 0 councils 35 3 councils 76 4 councils
Map showing council control following the election. Conservative:      Labour:      Liberal Democrats:      No overall control:      No election:

The2018 United Kingdom local elections were held on Thursday 3 May 2018,^[3] with local council elections taking place in all 32London boroughs, 34metropolitan boroughs, 67district andborough councils and 17unitary authorities.^[4] There were also direct elections for themayoralties ofHackney,Lewisham,Newham,Tower Hamlets andWatford.

With the exception of those areas that have had boundary changes, the seats up for election were last contested in the2014 local elections.

Aparliamentary by-election inWest Tyrone took place the same day.^[5] Various other local by-elections also took place.

According to a BBC News estimate, taking into account boundary changes, the major political parties are effectively defending the following 'notional' numbers of council seats on election day:

• Labour Party – 2,278 seats
• Conservative Party – 1,365 seats
• Liberal Democrats – 462 seats
• UK Independence Party – 126 seats
• Greens – 31 seats

These numbers are how many seats each party won at the previous comparable election, generally in 2014, rather than which party held the seat on the eve of the election.^[6] Some other news agencies, such as thePress Association, compare against the party holding a seat on the eve of the election, leading to a different analysis of gains and losses.^[7][8]

There are also 48Residents Associations' councillors, and 100 'other' / independent councillors.^[9]

Allregistered electors (British,Irish,Commonwealth andEuropean Union citizens) aged 18 or over^[10] on polling day were entitled to vote in the local elections.^[11] A person with two homes (such as a university student having a term-time address and living at home during holidays) was able toregister to vote at both addresses as long as the addresses were not in the same electoral area, and was able to vote in the local elections for the two different local councils.^[12]

In certain councils, there was a trial system in place where photo ID was required to vote. These councils were:Swindon,Gosport,Woking,Bromley, andWatford.^[13] An estimated 4,000 electors were turned away from polling stations across these trial areas as a result of not having the appropriate form of ID.^[14]

The number of councils controlled by each party following the election are shown in the table below. Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats made modest gains in terms of their respective number of councillors, whereas the Conservatives made a net loss of 35 seats. UKIP lost nearly all of the 126 seats they were defending, with only 3 councillors elected.^[15] The turnout for the election was 35.0%.^[16]

Party		Councillors			Councils
		Won	After[17]	+/-[b]	Won	After	+/-
	Conservative	1,332	9,118	35	46	199	3
	Labour	2,353	6,495	79	74	105
	Liberal Democrats	542	1,889	76	9	11	4
	SNP	—N/a[c]	430		0	0
	Plaid Cymru	—N/a[d]	203		0	0
	Green	39	198	8	0	0
	UKIP	3	116	123	0	0
	Independent	91	1,645	15	0	7
	No overall control	—N/a			21	82	1

The following table shows the aggregate results for the 32 councils that were up for election in London.

Party		Councillors		Councils
		Number	Change†	Number	Change
	Labour	1,128	67	21	1
	Conservative	508	92	7	2
	Liberal Democrats	152	34	3	2
	Residents	25	2	0
	Green	11	7	0
	Independent	7	5	0
	UKIP	0	9	0
	PATH	1	1	0
	Harold Hill Ind.	1	1	0
	No overall control	—		1	1

^†Due to boundary changes, the figures for seat losses/gains are notional changes calculated by the BBC, and do not match up precisely to the London-wide results in 2014.

The following table shows the aggregate results for the 118 councils that were up for election outside of London.

Party		Councillors		Councils
		Number	Change	Number	Change
	Labour	1,225	12	53	1
	Conservative	824	57	39	1
	Liberal Democrats	390	42	6	2
	Independent	89	12	0
	Green	28	1	0
	Residents	21		0
	UKIP	3	114	0
	Liberal	1	1	0
	No overall control	—		20

Only four councils switched from a majority for one party to another. The Conservatives gainedRedditch from Labour, and lost control of three councils to the Liberal Democrats:Kingston upon Thames,Richmond upon Thames andSouth Cambridgeshire. The Liberal Democrats also gainedThree Rivers District Council from no overall control. Labour gained a majority on three councils that had been under no overall control (Kirklees,Plymouth andTower Hamlets) while losing their majority on two (Derby andNuneaton and Bedworth). The Conservatives gained a majority on one council that had been under no overall control (Basildon) while losing their majority on two (Mole Valley andTrafford).^[18]

Labour won the inaugural mayoral election for theSheffield City Region. Five other mayoral elections saw no change in the winning party: Labour held four and the Liberal Democrats held one.

This was the first set of local elections since the2017 general election. Most of the seats up for election had last been contested in the2014 local elections.

Because the group of local councils varies with each cycle of local elections, the BBC and other analysts calculated a projected national vote share, which aims to assess what the council results indicate the UK-wide vote would be if the results were repeated at a general election. The BBC's estimate put Labour on 35% of the vote (up 8% since 2017), the Conservatives on 35% (down 3%), the Liberal Democrats on 16% (down 2%).^[19] In theMay 2017 local elections, the projected national voteshare was 38% for the Conservatives, 27% for Labour, 18% for the Liberal Democrats and 5% for UKIP. When votes were still being counted, media reports widely described the result as "mixed" for both Labour and the Conservatives.^[20] The results suggested that support for the parties had not moved much since the general election 11 months earlier.^[21] Some reports considered the results a relief for Theresa May and the Conservatives.^[22][23]

Ben Margulies, a research fellow at theUniversity of Warwick, noted how theUK Independence Party's collapse in vote share directly benefited the Conservatives as they committed toexiting the European Union. Margulies stated that the Conservatives' position with the electorate will "remain perched on a precipice".^[24] Matthew Mokhefi-Ashton, a politics lecturer atNottingham Trent University, argued that Labour had set their expectations too high and thus made the actual result look disappointing by comparison.^[25] David Cutts, a professor of political science at the University of Birmingham, described the Liberal Democrats' performance in the election as "underwhelming" in contrast to the media response, arguing that the party only made moderate gains in their strongholds from before theLiberal-Conservative coalition and council areas that were seen as "Strong Remain" and "Strong Leave". Cutts argued that thenext local elections in England are a greater test of their stability as they feature substantially more strongholds.^[26]

All seats in the 32 London borough councils were up for election.

4 metropolitan boroughs had all of their seats up for election following boundary changes.

One third of the seats in 30metropolitan boroughs were up for election:

Oneunitary authority had all of its seats up for election following boundary changes.

One third of the council seats were up for election in 16 unitary authorities.

Seven non-metropolitan districts have all of their seats up for election.

Six non-metropolitan districts have half of their seats up for election.

54 district councils had one third of their seats up for election.Weymouth and Portland originally had elections scheduled for 2018, but the elections were postponed indefinitely following a decision to merge the council into a unitary Dorset Council from 2019 onwards.^[123][124]

These were the last elections to Daventry District Council, following the decision to abolish it along with Northamptonshire County Council and its 7 district councils into two unitary authorities in 2020.

There were five local authority mayoral elections and one metropolitan mayoral election.

Footnotes

Citations

• 2018 United Kingdom local elections
• 2018 elections in the United Kingdom
• May 2018 in the United Kingdom
• Premiership of Theresa May
• Jeremy Corbyn

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from May 2018