Name: UK government abandons plans to delay 30 council elections | BBC News
Uploaded: 2026-02-17T21:37:31.000Z
Duration: 5 min 44 s
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Now, here in the uk, local election administrators have warned that councils face an uphill struggle to be ready in time for the May local elections after the Government reversed its plan to delay some votes.

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Local government secretary Steve Reid had initially approved delays in 30 council elections in England until 2027, affecting four and a half million people.

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The Government argued some councils were worried about the cost of running elections for authorities, which are due to be abolished in a major reorganisation of local government.

But following legal advice, the government abandoned its.

After a legal challenge brought by Reform uk, our political correspondent Joe pike explains why the Government's changed position has been very embarrassing from the government.

Speaking to some of those involved in Whitehall over the past few hours, they seem downbeat, they seem frustrated, annoyed.

Their argument, though, is when the legal advice changes, you need to change your position.

And of course, by reversing their position yesterday afternoon, they have avoided what could have been a pretty embarrassing High Court battle with Reform uk.

We could have seen the Government's argument being picked apart by lawyers on the other side and we could potentially seen a judge make some painful conclusions for the government.

Their argument has always been that this postponement of elections was necessary because why hold elections to councils that may not exist in one or two years?

Government ministers deny that they were postponing elections to avoid elections that they might lose.

But certainly there would have seemingly been an advantage to the Labour Party because of these 30 councils we're talking about, Karen, 21 of them are held by Labour.

And certainly if we look at the opinion polls where Reform UK are doing Basildon and thoroughly could be councils that that party might be interested in.

Actually, there are areas of the country, perhaps Norfolk and Suffolk, that can be Badenoch's party have traditionally held that may be under threat from Reform or other parties.

As I say, Labour have denied that their own personal and political interests were the reason behind this legal position.

Joe pike well, the Care Minister, Stephen Kinnock, says although this u turn is not ideal, the Government's always followed legal advice.

I'm not going to stand here and pretend that it's ideal that the legal advice has changed, but

we are a government that works on the basis of legal advice.

We will always respect the rule of law and when the legal advice changes, we are obliged to change our position.

But I think that what really matters to people out there in the country is that we are delivering public services, from housing to adult social care to parks and recreation to local libraries, all of Those vitally important local services, we should be delivering them in the most streamlined and effective and efficient way possible.

That is the spirit of the reforms that we're pushing forward.

And those reforms will be pushed forward.

And in two to three years, I think people will really see the benefits of the changes that we're making.

Reform uk Zia Yousef brought the legal challenge to the government's postponement of those local elections.

Look, yesterday was a historic day for the country because four and a half million people who would otherwise have been denied their right to vote, their democratic right, that's what Starmer's government, in collusion with several Tory councils, were trying to do.

Reform uk Nigel's instruction had launched a judicial review.

That High Court hearing was supposed to begin in two days and yesterday was.

Was the deadline the judge had given the government to submit its defense.

Instead they threw in the towel, waved the white flag and said, yep, fine, kicking and screaming.

Now they're being dragged into allowing these elections to go ahead.

And it was really interesting that in the letter it said that this decision was made as a result of, quote, new legal advice.

I can tell you what I think that legal advice told them, which is that they were about to lose and lose handsomely in court.

So it's a great day for democracy, great day for everybody, all of those four and a half million people, regardless whom they're going to vote for.

The reason why the government was doing this is because, as the Telegraph independently published, north of 80% of the seats the polling suggests reform were going to win.

So I think this is another catastrophic U turn from Starmer's government.

Shame on the Tory councils who colluded with him to try to prevent democracy.

The government argued why hold elections in councils, councils that are due to be abolished in a year or two.

The government now has to find £63 million to do that.

Are you comfortable with the financial implications?

The notion that we can't have democracy and people should be denied their right to vote because we can't afford it is an extraordinarily draconian and frankly, terrifying argument.

It is unprecedented in the history of this country for.

For millions of people to be denied their right to vote two years running.

That has never happened without primary legislation, that is MPs in the House of Commons voting for legislation and they're accountable to their electorates.

And that's one of the reasons why even the Electoral Commission had come out and said, this is an independent body, of course, had said they saw absolutely no justification for this.

It's simply not acceptable to just allow elected officials, when all the polling, by the way, saying they're about to lose their seats, just decide that they don't think it's worth spending the money on an election.

That's the sort of thing the banana republic does.