UK local elections 2026: what are the prospects in London?

For nearly three decades, Labour has depended on the capital as a rock-solid source of parliamentary strength. After the local election votes are counted, the party will have to think long and hard about whether it has taken London for granted and now risks being ejected from its safest seats.

The 2026 London elections promise dramatic shifts in political control at a local level. As UK voting becomes increasingly fragmented between five parties (six in Scotland and Wales), many boroughs are likely to face a move from Labour or the Conservatives to ‘no overall control’ (NOC), or in some cases to be won outright by Reform UK or the Green Party.

London boroughs hold all-out elections every four years. In 2022, Labour won 21 councils, the Conservatives five, the Liberal Democrats three, Aspire (a Tower Hamlets party) one, while two were left as NOC.

London has not always been a ‘Labour city’. Until the late 1990s, the Conservatives, Labour and the Lib Dems generally won a similar vote share in London as across the UK as a whole. While regions such as the North East and South East generally had, respectively, above-average Labour or Conservative vote shares, across the city as a whole, London saw the two major parties winning similar vote shares over time.

From 1997 onwards, Labour has performed better in London than nationally while the Conservatives have seen their position worsen. Changing demographics – London voters are on average younger and are more likely to be from a minority – explains at least part of this leftwards-shift, though issues such as Brexit may also have affected voting intentions.

London elections are chronicled by the Greater London Authority (GLA) and its predecessor institutions in a series of books (available here). These volumes document the outcome of every ward election all the way back to 1964. In recent years, detailed analysis has been published alongside the data.

Figure 1: 2022 local elections results London

Source: Greater London Authority (2022).

What does polling suggest?

Vote shares for the parties in the 2022 borough elections and in recent opinion polls are shown in Table 1. The 2026 polling is derived from YouGov voting intention results but uses a six-week average in recognition of the relatively small sample size at the regional level. What is clear is that Labour has lost about a third of its 2022 voters, with the Conservatives also doing worse than in the last elections. Both the Greens and Reform have seen a large increase in their voting numbers.

Table 1: Vote share (%), London boroughs, 2022 and 2026

	2022 (result)	2026 (polls)	Change
Conservatives	26%	19%	-7
Labour	42%	26%	-16
Liberal Democrats	14%	12%	-2
Greens	12%	26%	+14
Reform	0%	15%	+15
Others	6%	2%	-4

Source: YouGov; author’s calculations.

If these polling numbers prove predictive, there will be substantial changes in the number of seats won by at least four of the five parties shown. Labour (who won 1,156 seats in 2022) could lose several hundred this year, meaning that the party risks losing control of boroughs such as Barking and Dagenham, Camden, Greenwich, Hackney, Haringey, Islington, Lewisham, Newham and Southwark because of a Green surge.

Given Labour’s large majorities in most of these boroughs, it may still end up as the largest party but would need to work with smaller parties to govern. It is hard to see Labour being particularly enthusiastic about doing deals with the Greens, but not impossible. The Greens have hopes of winning mayoral positions in Hackney and Lewisham.

The Conservatives’ position is marginally less bad. Having won their smallest-ever total of seats in 2022 (404), it looks likely that they will lose more this year. Bexley and Bromley could well be lost to Reform or NOC. On the other hand, the anti-Labour sentiment could help the Conservatives to win back Barnet, Wandsworth and/or Westminster. The party could conceivably lose seats and win control of more councils.

The Greens will hope to do well in the boroughs where Labour is under threat (as outlined above), but may also win seats in Kingston and Richmond (from the Lib Dems), plus odd ones in Barnet, Croydon, Greenwich and Westminster. Reform’s best hopes of winning control of boroughs are in Barking and Dagenham, Bexley and Havering, though it will probably also win seats in Barnet, Bromley, Croydon, Hillingdon and Sutton.

It seems likely that there will be more NOC councils than in any London borough elections in history. Fragmentation of voting between five parties makes precise predictions very difficult. In some wards, there will be three or four parties with relatively similar vote shares, which means that a tiny number of votes will determine who wins overall control of the council in question.

Of course, not all parties are competitive in all boroughs. There will be traditional two-party competition between the Conservatives and Labour in Barnet, Enfield, Hillingdon, Wandsworth and Westminster. But in other places, notably Camden, Hackney and Lambeth, the two-party struggle will see Labour fighting the Greens. In Bexley and Bromley, the Conservatives face a Reform threat, while in Kingston and Richmond, the Lib Dems may face a Green insurgency.

What are the most important local issues?

These are local elections about issues such as street cleaning, libraries, social care and potholes. But national and international issues will have a profound impact. Labour will be a few weeks away from having been in power with a large majority for two years at the national level: the government is in mid-term, when voters in many democracies turn away from incumbents.

Issues such as Palestine and the Middle East conflict will swing votes in several boroughs, and not always in the same direction. Tower Hamlets has a different political orientation altogether, with a borough-based party having won in 2022.

The media are positioning the outcomes of the May elections (in London, as well as Scotland, Wales and across England) as being likely to determine the fate of prime minister Sir Keir Starmer and opposition leader Kemi Badenoch. If Labour lose over 1,000 council seats and do badly in the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Senedd elections, Starmer’s enemies may strike. Similarly, if the Conservatives lose too many seats and councils, questions will be raised about Badenoch’s capacity to win.

That being said, expectations are so low for Labour and the Conservatives that even a significantly bad result for the two legacy parties may already be factored in. It is more likely that Badenoch and Starmer will survive than not.

The UK’s sub-national elections of 2026 will be the most interesting of modern times. We will learn about the extent to which the challenger parties, Reform and the Greens, can inflict damage on the formerly dominant Conservatives and Labour. The Lib Dems appear to have lost their role as the main repository of protest votes but may win Merton from Labour as a consolation prize.

London politics matters to the political parties because there are 75 MPs in the city. Labour has hitherto depended on the capital as a rock-solid source of parliamentary strength. After the votes are counted, the party is likely to have to think long and hard as to whether it has taken London for granted and now risks, as in Reform-curious areas, being ejected from their safest boroughs and seats. At its simplest, there are few, if any, safe seats left in UK politics.

Where can I find out more?

A guide to London's 32 boroughs ahead of 7 May elections: BBC analysis with commentary by Tony Travers.
London Election Reports: volumes documenting the outcome of every London ward election back to 1964.
London Centric: commentary on London politics by independent journalist Jim Waterson.
'Cost of Living' the top concern driving voters to the polls in English Local elections: polling in April by Ipsos.
LSE London blog.