Fact check: Are this year’s local elections being ‘cancelled’?
Full Fact looks at a number of claims about the postponement of some council elections which had been due to take place in May.
This fact check has been compiled by Full Fact, the UK’s largest fact checking charity working to find, expose and counter the harms of bad information.
In recent weeks we’ve seen various different claims about local elections in May being “cancelled” or postponed — from politicians, in the media and on social media, where some have suggested elections have been cancelled “till 2027” or are set to be cancelled “for the first time since World War II”.
The claims are based on the news that some councils in England have asked to delay elections which were to take place this May, due to a reorganisation of local government.
After an announcement on Wednesday, we now know nine councils in England will have their May 2025 elections postponed until May 2026. Other local elections will go ahead as planned, however.
Some of the media, politicians from different parties and even a minister have referred to the prospect of council elections being “cancelled”, on the grounds that some elections which had been due in May will not take place. However, the Government has generally used the term “postponed”, given the votes have been delayed and will eventually take place in May 2026 (albeit technically for new entities, not the existing councils).
The prospect of postponement has attracted fierce criticism from some politicians from across the political spectrum, with one Conservative MP calling it “anti-democratic”, the Liberal Democrats describing it as a “scandal” and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage claiming: “Only dictators cancel elections.”
Prior to announcing which elections will be delayed, the Government said postponements would only be considered to “help an area to deliver reorganisation and devolution to the most ambitious timeline”. It has also argued there is a “well-established precedent” for postponing elections due to reorganisation.
Why are some elections being postponed?
Some areas of England are currently covered by a single unitary authority, while others are part of a “two-tier” system, in which local government responsibility for services is shared between 21 county councils and the 164 district councils they cover.
The Government wants to move councils in two-tier forms of local government to single-tier unitary authorities.
Sixteen county councils and two unitary authorities due to hold elections in May asked the Government for permission to postpone them, in order to take part in this local government reorganisation. Nine of those requests have now been granted.
What local elections are scheduled for May 2025?
Some 33 local authority elections were originally due to take place in England on May 1, including for all 21 county councils, nine unitary councils, the unitary authority of Thurrock, one metropolitan district council (City of Doncaster) and the Isles of Scilly.
On Wednesday, it was announced six areas had been granted places on the Government’s “devolution priority programme”: Cumbria; Cheshire and Warrington; Greater Essex; Hampshire and Solent; Norfolk and Suffolk; and Sussex and Brighton.
Elections will be postponed to May 2026 in seven county councils (East Sussex, Essex, Hampshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Surrey and West Sussex) and two unitary councils (Thurrock and Isle of Wight).
The rescheduled elections will not be for the existing county or unitary councils. In a letter to councils in December 2024, local government minister Jim McMahon referred to these as elections to a “shadow unitary council”, and said this was the “usual arrangement in the process of local government reorganisation”. Indeed, this was the case when Cumbria County Council was reorganised, for example.
Local elections will be going ahead as planned in May in 14 county councils, eight unitary councils, the City of Doncaster and the Isles of Scilly, while six mayoral elections will also take place. So broad claims on social media that “2025 local elections [have been] cancelled” are potentially misleading, because we knew even before the Government’s announcement on Wednesday that many definitely would still go ahead as planned.
What is Labour’s plan for local government?
In its English Devolution White Paper, published in December, the Government said it would “facilitate a programme of local government reorganisation for two-tier areas”, as well as unitary councils “where there is evidence of failure or where their size or boundaries may be hindering their ability to deliver sustainable and high-quality public services”.
The Government said unitary councils “can lead to better outcomes for residents, save significant money which can be reinvested in public services, and improve accountability with fewer politicians”. It said that “for most areas”, new unitary councils would cover a population of 500,000 or more.
However, some academics have raised questions about the benefits of large unitary councils over smaller ones, and some politicians have expressed concerns over how effectively large councils will be able to serve rural communities.
In his December 2024 letter to councils, Mr McMahon said the Government “expect to deliver new unitary authorities in April 2027 and 2028”.
How many voters are affected?
Prior to the Government’s February 5 announcement we saw various speculative claims about the number of voters who would be affected by elections being postponed. For example, a number of posts on social media claimed nine million people could be left unable to vote.
However, now the Government has confirmed which elections will be postponed, we know around 5.7 million people are on the electoral register in the councils which will be affected.
Has this happened before?
Some on social media have previously suggested that if council elections are postponed in May, it would be the first time this has happened “since World War II”. But this isn’t correct.
For example, under the previous Conservative government, local elections in three county councils and three district councils that had been scheduled to take place in May 2021 were delayed until May 2022, as the councils moved to become unitary authorities. In 2019 and 2020 too, some district council elections were also cancelled due to reorganisation.
And local elections have been postponed for other reasons in the past, for example due to the Covid pandemic in 2020 and the foot and mouth disease outbreak in 2001.
