The 2023 United Kingdom local elections were held on Thursday, 4 May 2023 in England and on Thursday 18 May 2023 in Northern Ireland. These included district councils, unitary authorities, and directly elected mayors in England, and included all local councils in Northern Ireland. Notably, these elections were the first to be held under the Elections Act 2022, a new voter identification law that required voters to show photo ID when attending a polling station, and was a cause for controversy. No local elections were held in Scotland or Wales.
The elections in England saw significant losses for the governing Conservative Party, which lost over 1,000 council seats. The Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party of England and Wales all made gains, with Labour becoming the party with most members elected to local government for the first time since 2002. The Greens won majority control of Mid Suffolk District Council, the party's first ever council majority.
In Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin emerged as the largest party in local government for the first time. These elections were also the first since the creation of Northern Ireland in which nationalist candidates received more votes than unionists.
England
Background Policy These elections were to be the first under the new voter identification laws. This meant voters would be required to show photo identification when attending a polling station. These new laws were controversial and led to accusations of voter suppression. There were concerns that turnout would be extremely low at the elections due to a combination of lack of ID held by some voters, and many members of the public remaining unaware of the new requirements. The police had been alerted to the possibility of anger and confrontation over these new rules, and polling station staff had been trained to de-escalate situations.
Since late 2021, the cost of living crisis had been growing, leading to government support for help with bills. Changes to waste collection and recycling had been delayed by the Government until after the elections.
Narrative A majority of the seats up for election were last elected in 2019. At those elections, the Conservative Party lost over a thousand seats and control of several councils while the Liberal Democrats managed to make the most gains at their expense. The Labour Party also lost seats and control of some councils at the 2019 local elections. In terms of seat numbers, this day of local elections was the biggest since 2019. Many wards had new boundaries.
The year up to the 2023 elections included the political crisis leading to Boris Johnson's resignation, the market turbulence caused by the "mini-budget", and the subsequent credibility crisis leading to Liz Truss' resignation and Rishi Sunak's appointment.
The cost of living crisis and a surge in inflation were significant contributing factors to several strikes in the public sector, with high-profile strikes in the transport sector and the health service. There were also extensive strikes in the postal services, education sector and amongst the civil service. In mid-February 2023, Conservative member of the House of Lords, Lord Hayward, said that the strikes had popular support and were therefore damaging the government and party's chances in the local elections. He argued the strikes needed to stop in order to improve their chances.
The Liberal Democrats had been utilising comments from senior Conservative MPs as part of their advertising in the so-called "blue wall" to draw attention to their undesirable and "toxic" opinions, such as support for the death penalty.
The Labour Party had stated to the press that they want to use these local elections to prepare for the 2024 general election.
The Green Party of England and Wales stood 3,331 candidates, 41% of all seats that were up for election, the most they had ever contested. Over half of the party's 536 total local council seats were to be defended at these elections. The Greens launched their national local elections campaign in Stowmarket, Mid Suffolk, where they were aiming to win majority control, which would be the first time the Greens had won a majority on any council. The Greens were said to have been aiming to win at least 100 new seats, with their appeal spreading to both left and right-wing voters due to dissatisfaction with the main two parties.
Predictions The Conservatives had been performing poorly in national polls leading up to these elections. They had been more than 20 points behind the Labour party in national opinion polling, though the gap had been narrowing. Conservative Party chair Greg Hands MP publicly recognised that this election would be difficult for the party and referred to analysis that suggested they would lose more than 1,000 seats. This estimate was based on comments by British academics Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher, who said current polling would put conservative seat losses at around 1,000, while Labour would gain around 700 seats. President of the British Polling Council Sir John Curtice had described the electorate as "increasingly sophisticated" in using tactical voting to defeat the Conservative party candidates. For this reason Sir John Curtice said the Conservative Party could actually end up losing well over 1,000 seats if the tactical voting is a big factor, which director of polling company Savanta, Chris Hopkins, agreed with. A website was created to inform voters how to vote to have the best chance to unseat the Conservatives in their local area, and it received publicity thanks to endorsements from several public figures.
Labour NEC member Luke Akehurst stated that he expected the party to make its best gains in seat numbers since 2012, when it gained 847 seats (next best being a net gain of 288 seats), but expected varied results in terms of council control.
Sky News reported that YouGov predictions were pointing towards Labour gains in the North and the Midlands. That same report showed that Conservative-controlled Swindon council looked set to switch control to Labour, and some other councils would move into Labour control from no overall control, or move to no overall control from Conservative. East Cambridgeshire was predicted to switch from Conservative control to Liberal Democrat. Sky News also reported that if the Conservatives only lost 500 seats they may feel "relatively unscathed"; if they lost 750 they could argue that Labour was not performing as well as the polls suggest, but over 1,000 seat losses would be "difficult to spin".
Campaigning
The Conservative Party launched its campaign on 24 March 2023 in the Midlands when Rishi Sunak visited some local sites along with West Midlands Mayor Andy Street and local MPs. There was some confusion as to whether this had been the campaign launch, but Conservative headquarters later confirmed the launch had happened.
The Liberal Democrats launched its campaign on 29 March 2023 in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, when the party leader, Ed Davey, drove a tractor into a ‘Blue Wall’ of hay bales.
Labour launched its campaign on 30 March 2023 in Swindon with speeches from Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves.
The Green Party of England and Wales launched its campaign in early April 2023 in Stowmarket, Suffolk, with speeches from co-leaders Adrian Ramsay and Carla Denyer.
On 31 March 2023, Rishi Sunak was photographed looking at a pothole in Darlington to raise awareness of new powers to prevent potholes from forming and to help fix them.
There were rumours that the Conservative Party would turn to Boris Johnson to help boost the parties chances by having him join the campaign trail. There had been earlier reports stating that the Conservative Party election leaflets and campaign material did not show pictures of Rishi Sunak, but instead showed images of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Suella Braverman.
Amid the campaign, Sunak was accused of a conflict of interest over his wife's shares in a childcare agency that benefits from the latest budget policy. This led to Sunak declaring his wife's shares as a financial interest on 19 April 2023.
Whilst there is no fixed date for the pre-election period to begin, the UK government's guidance was that special care should be taken from 13 April 2023, three weeks before the election date in England. The Liberal Democrats called for an investigation into Sunak's alleged flouting of these rules by making a speech on his proposed "maths to 18" policy after this date, although a spokesperson for the government said the announcement was within the rules.
A further distraction to the election campaign came in the form of the Dominic Raab bullying scandal. In February 2023 Raab said he would quit if the government's independent ethics adviser, Adam Tolley KC, upheld the bullying claim against him. Sunak received the report on 20 April and Raab resigned the next day.
The list of candidates put forward in strongly Tory-held Bracknell Forest Council led to local Labour and Liberal Democrat parties being accused of going against their national party leaderships by forming a de facto 'progressive alliance' to defeat the Conservative candidates. The local parties denied this was planned and suggested a struggle for candidates and cash had led to the choices of which seats to challenge for. The Greens were also said to be involved in this arrangement; however, they only stood three candidates in the 2019 locals in Bracknell yet were standing seven in these elections, including in seats also contested by Labour or the Liberal Democrats.
Rishi Sunak attack ads A month before the local elections, several attack ads were produced by Labour targeting Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party's record in government as a whole, focusing on issues such as crime, the economy, and health and social care. One of these ads featured the controversial claim that Sunak did not want child sex abusers to be jailed, which referred to the Conservatives' record on prosecuting child sex abusers. The figures covered the period starting in 2010 - five years before Sunak became an MP and 11 years before he became prime minister - and ending in 2022. Other attack ads accused Sunak of being soft on gun crime and suggesting thieves should not be punished, and another referred to Sunak's wife Akshata Murty and her previously held non-dom tax status.
Labour's decision to target Sunak personally caused upset amongst current and former MPs from a wide range of parties, with Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey saying that parties "should not have personal attacks on other politicians". Senior Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood called the attack "appalling" and said politicians "should be better than this", while former Labour Home Secretary David Blunkett said it was "deeply offensive". Journalist Andrew Marr called the attack ads "disgraceful", saying "Attack ads are fundamental to politics. But the smear campaign against Rishi Sunak is a strategic and moral error."
When asked about the controversial claim, Sunak said politicians should offer "less talk, more action". Starmer responded by backing the message "no matter how squeamish it might make some feel" by saying: "I make no apologies for highlighting the failures of this government. This argument that because they've changed the prime minister five times that somehow the PM doesn't bear responsibility for 13 years of grief for many people I just don't think stacks up." Wes Streeting said it was "perfectly reasonable to challenge a Conservative prime minister on the abysmal failure of 13 years of Conservative government".
In September 2023, another attack ad targeting Sunak was released, this time accusing him of not believing schools should be safe. The ad was released amid the government's investigation of the extent of problems with crumbling concrete, which effected dozens of schools.
Election day