Ministers have abandoned efforts to delay council elections in another extraordinary U-turn by Keir Starmer.
The dramatic climbdown came after a legal challenge by Reform to the move to postpone votes for more than 4.5million people.
Insiders suggested a misinterpretation of the law was to blame for the blunder, which came just hours after the PM dismissed the idea of more volte faces.
A Ministry of Housing and Local Government spokeswoman said: ‘Following legal advice, the Government has withdrawn its original decision to postpone 30 local elections in May.
Ministers have abandoned efforts to delay council elections in another extraordinary U-turn by Keir Starmer
The dramatic climbdown came after a legal challenge by Reform to the move to postpone votes for more than 4.5million people
The Ministry of Housing and Local Government confirmed the shift today
‘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.’
There has been a furious backlash to the delays, but the announcement still took Wesminster by surprise.
The Electoral Commission had warned that the bar should be set ‘very high’ for local councils postponing votes.
Communities secretary Steve Reed had said polls could be postponed to free up resources for a costly shake-up of local government.
Some 21 of the councils that were involved are currently controlled by Labour – more than two-thirds of the total.
In some cases, the elections are being delayed for a second consecutive year creating ‘double delays’.
Four county councils – West Sussex, East Sussex, Suffolk and Norfolk – all fall into this category, with councillors elected in 2021 now set to serve seven-year terms.
Polls suggest Labour is on course to take a drubbing in this May’s elections, and the contests are widely seen as a litmus test of Sir Keir’s survival prospects.
