In May 2025, all 21 county councils, and 9 of the unitary authorities, in England will have all-out elections. 

Want to get involved? All our work on the ground at elections happens through our local groups. Check this page or get in touch to join or start a group where you are.

Why do the 2025 local elections matter?

What they do

Local elections are important for communities up and down the country for reasons that we’re all familiar with. 

• County councils are responsible for transport, social care, education, waste management and much more.
• Unitary authorities have these same responsibilities, plus the ones usually overseen by district and city councils, such as planning applications and waste collection. 

County councils and unitary authorities are empowered to make decisions in areas of policy with immediate impact on people and the environment.

 

Conservative dominance

All but 2 of the UK’s 21 county councils are Conservative-led. Of the 9 unitary authorities up for election in May 2025, all but 2 of them are Conservative-led too.

Local government is a stronghold for the Conservative Party. In terms of governance, this means that Conservatives are responsible for the delivery of crucial services across the UK – rarely a good thing!

But the strength of the Conservatives in local government is important, and troubling, for political reasons too. The comeback of the Conservative Party nationally will probably be bolstered by the Conservative Party at the local level. Its councillors will no doubt portray their party as service-driven and repentful for its failures nationally, and make use of increased funding and devolved powers from the Labour government to claim that they can be trusted once more to govern. 

 

Reform UK

It is not implausible that Reform UK will stand candidates in the local elections. If progressive parties aren’t prepared to cooperate, and the progressive vote as a whole fractures, we could see Reform councillors elected, on a minority of the vote, across the country, 

If we’re serious about consolidating progressive power, and preventing the consolidation of the political right, then we must be alert to the threat of Reform UK at the local level and organise against them effectively.

 

Cooperation was key at the 2024 General Election – but who’s going to cooperate now?

There was no formal “progressive alliance” between Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and the Greens at the 2024 General Election. Given this, and that all three parties increased their number of seats in Parliament, some have come to the conclusion that progressives don’t need to cooperate to win. 

This assessment is not strictly true. Cooperation, though of a form short of a true progressive alliance, was crucial at the election. In all but name, Labour committed to non-aggression in Tory-Lib Dem marginals by way of its publicly available list of non-battleground seats. The Lib Dems essentially reciprocated by running an extremely targeted campaign which did not encroach on Labour’s list of battleground seats.

This centralised, top-down type of cooperation did away with the need to push for local cross-party cooperation at the grassroots. In many areas where Compass groups might have previously attempted to facilitate progressive cooperation between local parties in order to minimise progressive-on-progressive fighting, local parties had been deprioritised such that they couldn’t have engaged in progressive-on-progressive fighting even if they had wanted to. Non-aggression was widespread, though not because local members had negotiated this with other progressives locally. Rather, non-aggression was widespread as the national parties were highly selective in which local parties they gave resources to, and which they did not.

There is little reason to think that the national parties will replicate the non-battleground strategy at the 2025 local elections. One of the main reasons for this is that many local parties were dismayed by the often heavy-handed approach to resource allocation taken by their national parties during the general election. The national parties are aware of discontent amongst the membership on this matter, and are unlikely to risk stoking this discontent. 

On the ground, this means that there is, once more, fertile ground for fostering cross-party cooperation at the local level in the 2025 local elections. Compass local groups may fruitfully foster cooperation that is otherwise likely not to materialise.

 

The next general election

In July, Labour won 63% of the seats in the House of Commons with 33.7% of the popular vote. A remarkable, if undemocratic, result. As analysts and commentators have pointed out, though, this means that progressives stand on shaky ground. At the next general election, it would only take a more ‘efficient’ regressive vote for the Tories to regain power, or the Tories and Reform UK. 

The events of the forthcoming parliament will dictate the strategy required for progressives to keep the Tories out at the next election. But on the balance of probabilities, some level of progressive cooperation will be required – even if this cooperation is as minimal and discreet as it was at the 2024 General Election. 

With all of this in mind, the case is as strong as ever for progressives to continue to practise a new kind of collaborative, consensus-building politics wherever possible. Even if you don’t believe in pluralism as a good in itself, it might just be key to stopping the Tories in 2029. For this reason, we shouldn’t forget how to work together and cooperate. The 2025 local elections are an opportune moment to cultivate the skills and culture that will be relied upon in 2029. 

 

Cooperation makes our councils better

As part of our programme of events and campaigns at the 2024 local elections, Compass ran a series of events called ‘Local Leaders Spotlight’ and an individual webinar on democratic innovations in local government, and at the local level more generally. 

Cooperation between progressives is often thought to entail ‘lowest common denominator politics’ – agreement over the most pedestrian and inconsequential policies, with consensus not reached on more substantive and ambitious matters. We disagree! The conversations we held for the 2024 local elections intended to combat this misconception and shine a spotlight on how cooperation can facilitate new ways of thinking and governing, especially given the pressures and constraints imposed on local government.

Not yet convinced? Listen back to some of those events yourself, with speakers such as Cllr Lucy Nethsingha of Cambridgeshire County Council, and Matthew Brown of Preston City Council.

 

Want to get involved? All our work on the ground at elections happens through our local groups. Check this page or get in touch to join or start a group where you are.