Council elections to go ahead in May after legal challenge to Government

The Government has abandoned plans to postpone elections across 30 councils this May after receiving advice from lawyers following a legal challenge from Reform UK.

Local Government Secretary Steve Reed had approved proposals to delay the polls to help deliver a major reorganisation of local authorities.

But in a letter to council leaders on Monday, the Cabinet minister said the Government had written to the High Court confirming he was withdrawing the decision “in light of recent legal advice”.

Some £63 million will be made available to local authorities undergoing structural changes, he said.

“I recognise that many of the local councils undergoing reorganisation voiced genuine concerns about the pressure they are under as we seek to deliver the most ambitious reforms of local government in a generation,” Mr Reed said.

“My officials will be in touch with those affected councils to understand if any further practical support will be required.”

The Government has agreed to pay Reform UK’s legal costs after the party challenged the initial decision to postpone the votes.

Following the U-turn, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said that “providing certainty to councils about their local elections is now the most crucial thing”.

City councils in Lincoln, Exeter, Norwich, Peterborough and Preston had been among those where ballots were not to take place on May 7, alongside several districts such as Cannock Chase, Harlow, Welwyn Hatfield and West Lancashire.

Polling day had also been postponed for county council voters in East Sussex, West Sussex, Norfolk and Suffolk.

Nigel Farage suggested Mr Reed should resign as he hailed the reversal of planned delays as a victory for Reform UK and “democracy in this country”.

“What I do think now is the minister, Steve Reed, has clearly acted illegally, and given that the Government’s now given in, knew they’d lose to us in court, I think Steve Reed’s position as a minister should now be debated,” the party leader told journalists on a visit to Romford.

He added: “(It) seems to me that if a Government minister does something illegal, they really ought to resign.”

Asked if he should apologise for the potential cost to taxpayers of both footing the bill for legal fees and of holding the elections that had been due for postponement, Mr Farage said: “The idea I should apologise because it costs money to hold elections in a country where one-and-a-quarter million people died in two world wars so that we could be a free democracy, I won’t even begin to apologise.

“That is our system. That is our way. We choose the people that represent us, tax us, make decisions on our behalf, and once every few years, we’ve the right to judge them and get rid of them. That is the very basis of how modern Britain works.”

In a court order published in January, Mr Justice Chamberlain said the party was seeking an order temporarily blocking the Government from changing the date of forthcoming ballots pending the hearing of the full legal challenge.

Reform UK had asked the court to determine the full claim before the end of March, when notices of election are published.

Another hearing had been set for Thursday.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch described the reversal as “predictable chaos from a useless Government that cannot make basic decisions”.

“Even the simple stuff that should be business as usual gets messed up,” she said.

Shadow local government secretary Sir James Cleverly dismissed Labour as a “joke” and said Mr Reed’s credibility was “now completely gone”.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said the Government had been “forced into a humiliating U-turn” and should be stripped of its power to “cancel elections on a whim”.

“That is why the Liberal Democrats have brought forward an amendment to change the law, stripping the Government of this power and ensuring that the public’s voice is protected by statute, not left to the whims of ministers,” he said.

Green Party leader Zack Polanski said he was “pleased the Government had done another U-turn”, describing the delay elections in May as part of “a disturbing authoritarian trend from this caretaker Prime Minister.”

An MHCLG spokesperson said: “Following legal advice, the Government has withdrawn its original decision to postpone 30 local elections in May.

“Providing certainty to councils about their local elections is now the most crucial thing and all local elections will now go ahead in May 2026.”