People leave after visiting a polling station in Perthshire, Scotland, on Thursday.ANDY BUCHANAN/AFP/Getty Images
Britain’s populist upstarts Reform UK and the Green Party have shaken up the country’s politics and look headed for major victories in dozens of local elections Thursday.
Thousands of council seats in England are being contested, while voters in Wales and Scotland will elect new national governments. Voting ends at 10 p.m. local time, and ballot counting starts Friday.
The election is seen as a referendum on the stewardship of Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his Labour government. Polls show Mr. Starmer should be bracing for a disastrous set of results largely at the hands of Reform and the Greens.
British Labour Party expected to take a beating in local elections
Labour is expected to lose as many as 1,800 of the 2,500 council seats it holds in England. The party is also likely to finish third in Scotland and in Wales, where it has been in government for more than a century.
Labour is being squeezed on the right by Reform UK, which has been topping most national opinion polls for months, and on the left by the Greens, whose new leader, Zack Polanski, has tapped into public discontent over the rising cost of living.
Polls show Reform could pick up 1,500 seats in England throughout rural areas and small cities such as Barnsley, which has been a Labour stronghold for more than 50 years.
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer and wife Victoria arrive at a polling station in central London on Thursday.Kirsty Wigglesworth/The Associated Press
The Greens are forecast to take hundreds of council seats from Labour in London and do well in cities such as Manchester and Birmingham. And even though the party has never won a seat in the Welsh parliament, it could finish with enough seats Thursday to be a junior partner in a coalition government with Plaid Cymru.
Both Reform and the Greens have been on stunning trajectories in recent months.
After winning just five seats in the last parliamentary election, in 2024, Reform has been bolstered by a series of high-profile defections from the Conservatives and is well ahead of Labour and the Conservatives in popular support. Leader Nigel Farage’s pledges to crack down on immigration, slash taxes and cut government spending have resonated with many voters who view him as the best alternative to Mr. Starmer and Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch.
“I don’t want to sound overconfident, but I do genuinely think we’re at a moment of something changing on May 7 that isn’t just a short-term protest vote, it’s a genuine shapeshift in British politics. They are my realistic expectations,” Mr. Farage told reporters this week.
Britain's Reform Party Leader Nigel Farage arrives at a polling station in Walton, England, on Thursday.Richard Pelham/The Associated Press
Some observers have questioned whether he can keep his party’s momentum going, and there have been signs that support for Reform may have peaked.
The Greens had been an irrelevant force in British politics for years, but the election of Mr. Polanski as leader last September has breathed new life into the left-wing party. He has addressed voter concerns about affordability by promising free bus service, a steep wealth tax and new measures to encourage the construction of more social housing.
In February, the Greens stunned Labour by winning a parliamentary by-election in a Manchester area seat that had been held by Labour for decades. Green candidate Hannah Spencer won 41 per cent of the vote, compared with 29 per cent for the Conservative candidate and 25 for Labour.
Mr. Polanski’s popularity has been dented by a recent social-media post in which he criticized London police officers for their handling of the arrest of a man suspected of stabbing two Jewish men in north London. His post prompted a rebuke from Metropolitan Police Chief Mark Rowley, who said the officers were trying to wrest a knife from the alleged assailant.
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Mr. Polanski has apologized for the comments, which drew widespread criticism, and has tried to move on from the controversy. This week he told voters: “Vote Green and make history.”
In a nod to the challenges Labour faces from both parties, Mr. Starmer issued a stark warning this week. “When you put your vote in the ballot box, you face a clear choice,” he said. “Progress and a better future for the community you call home, with a Labour council working with a Labour government. Versus the anger and division offered up by Reform or empty promises from the Greens.”
Tony Travers, associate dean of the School of Public Policy at the London School of Economics, said the success of Reform and the Greens represents a significant shift in British politics.
For decades, the country’s first-past-the-post electoral system rewarded Labour and the Conservatives. But the rising popularity of Reform, the Greens and the centrist Liberal Democrats has created a more fractured landscape, Dr. Travers said. “It looks like the Netherlands or Sweden, but with a voting system that wasn’t designed really to work with that kind of multiparty system,” he said.