A genuine multi-party competition 

The first takeaway from these elections results is that it confirms the pattern seen at last year’s local elections that the country is now in an era of genuine multi-party politics. Before last year the two traditional political heavyweights – Labour and the Conservatives – routinely combined for three fifths of the national vote; on Thursday, their combined share plummeted to 34%. Their 17% each closely matches the 18% and 16% recorded by the Greens and the Liberal Democrats respectively, and falls well short of Reform’s 26%. Voters today are expressing a much greater variety of political preferences than they have ever done before. 

This multi-party competition can be seen in some of the individual results. Reform won councils off both Labour and the Conservatives, the Conservatives lost seats but still managed to regain control of Westminster council, the Liberal Democrats lost Hull but gained Stockport and Portsmouth, and the Greens managed to take five councils where previously they had held none in this cohort. And despite losing rafts of councillors and councils, Labour still ended the night with control of more town halls than any other party. 

 

In an era of fragmentation, Reform are the big winners 

The headline is that the big winners of these elections were no doubt Reform UK. They won nearly 1500 councillors and took control of 14 councils. That latter figure might well have been even bigger too if not for the custom in many councils of electing councillors in thirds – in Hartlepool, for example, Reform won every single seat up for election this year, yet still find themselves level with Labour in the council chamber. 

But dig a little below the headline figures and the picture becomes a little murkier. Reform’s projected national share (an estimate of the party’s nationwide vote share based on the local election results) was only 26% - hardly a dominant performance. For context, no party has won a UK general election with less than 33% of the vote in the era of universal suffrage. 

The reality is that Reform is benefitting from the unprecedented fragmentation of British politics. With their opponents split almost evenly, the effect of the first-past-the-post electoral system is to hand swathes of seats to Reform as the largest party. 

So while Reform’s position does not yet look like dominance, as it stands they are clearly on course to win power nationally and form the next government. 

 

A Prime Minister on borrowed time 

If Reform were clearly the biggest winners, then equally clearly were Labour the biggest losers. The governing party ended up losing almost 1500 council seats, representing around three fifths of all the seats they were defending. 

The fallout for Keir Starmer was immediate and significant. As of the time of writing, nearly a fifth of Labour’s MPs have publicly called for the Prime Minister to step down, and Miatta Fahnbulleh has become the first government minister to resign their position in an effort to force Starmer out. 

Things are moving fast and it is possible by that by the time you read this Labour’s general election victor may have already folded and announced his departure. It certainly seems unlikely that he can hold on for much longer. 

 

An overshadowed King’s Speech 

The timing is unfortunate for the Government, which is due to unveil its legislative programme for the year ahead at Wednesday’s King’s Speech. Much of the content of the speech was decided well before last week’s elections, so the events of the last few days are unlikely to have changed much. Nonetheless, the uncertainty at the top of government will cast a shadow over the promises of new legislative action. 

For CIPD members, the speech is set to include the Equality (Race and Disability) Bill, which will introduce mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting on a similar basis to existing gender pay gap reporting requirements. In a speech on Monday, the Prime Minister also promised to “go much further on our investment in apprenticeships, in technical excellence colleges, in special educational needs” and “make sure that every young person struggling to find a job will get a guaranteed offer of a job, training or work placement”, so new legislation in this area is also a strong possibility. 

 

So what comes next? 

With so much up in the air it’s hard to say what even next week might bring for the Prime Minister and his government.

Regardless of what happens to Starmer, the King’s Speech will go ahead as planned on Wednesday, but a leadership contest would likely see the work of government grind to a halt while a new Prime Minister is selected. 

A change of Prime Minister of course could also bring a change of government policy – and with employment and skills an increasingly important and politicised area, this could have ramifications for CIPD members’ work. 

The CIPD’s public affairs team is poised to respond to any eventuality, and will be making the case for supporting the work of the HR and people profession to whoever ends up leading the country.