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In May 2021, Keir Starmer will face his first electoral test as Labour Leader. Because the 2020 local and regional elections were delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, the 2021 elections will be one of the most packed and varied set of contests in quite some time.
In this article, I’ll explain what elections are being held, look at the balance of the parties going into these contests, and focus on some key contests that will give us important indicators about Keir Starmer’s popularity.
What elections are being held?
In May 2021, voters will be asked to elect:
- 5,000+ councillors on 149 local councils in England
- 5 local Mayors in England
- 8 regional Mayors in England
- 40 Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) in England and Wales
- 129 members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs)
- 60 members of the Senedd / Welsh Parliament (MSs)
- 25 members of the London Assembly (AMs)
All in all, every voter in England, Wales and Scotland will have the opportunity to vote in an election of some kind – and many will have the chance to vote in multiple elections on the same day. Voters in the city of Bristol, for example, will be asked to elect a city councillor, a city Mayor, a regional Mayor and a Police and Crime Commissioner all on the same day.
How did the parties perform last time?
The previous elections for these councils, Mayors, PCCs, Parliaments and Assemblies were mostly held in 2016 and 2017. The previous results were as follows (note that "NOC" stands for No overall control, i.e. when no party has a majority):
Local elections
Regional elections
Devolved elections
Key races to watch – local government
County Councils
In May 2017, the Conservatives won a decisive victory in the county council elections: of the 24 county councils, the Conservatives won a majority on 21 of them, with Labour winning none. The Tories won 66% of county council seats, with Labour winning just 15%.
As a result, there are lots of opportunities for Labour to gain seats in 2021. Four county councils in particular are key targets for Labour: Cumbria, Derbyshire, Lancashire and Nottinghamshire.
Labour has a real chance of becoming the largest party, or winning a majority, on all of these councils. Notably, all four councils are in the North or the Midlands – key areas where Labour has to rebuild its support in order to win back “the Red Wall” – and all of them voted Leave by a higher margin than the rest of the UK in 2016.
Unitary Authorities
Labour also has a real chance of winning majorities or becoming the largest party on 9 unitary councils. These include the following key targets, all of which voted Leave in 2016:
Labour has a real chance of winning Derby (57% Leave), Peterborough (61% Leave) and Swindon (55% Leave) – all of which contain marginal, pro-Brexit constituencies that Labour lost to the Conservatives in 2019. How well Labour does in these councils will thus be a very important indicator as to how well Starmer is doing in winning back “the Red Wall”.
District Councils
Labour also has a high chance of winning majorities on 8 district councils in pro-Brexit areas that it lost in 2019, including Newcastle-under-Lyme (63% Leave), Great Yarmouth (72% Leave), Nuneaton & Bedworth (66% Leave) and Burnley (67% Leave).
Metropolitan Boroughs
Finally, Labour has a strong chance to win majorities on 7 metropolitan district councils, including Dudley (68% Leave), Walsall (68% Leave) and Bolton (58% Leave).
One other notable council that’s worth watching is Solihull, where the Green Party is currently the second-largest party and could win enough seats to form a minority administration in 2021.
All in all, of the 28 councils that Labour has a chance of winning, 24 of them voted Leave in 2016.
Key races to watch – regional government
Police and Crime Commissioners (40)
In England, voters will have the opportunity to elect forty Police and Crime Commissioners. In 2016, Labour narrowly won two PCC areas and narrowly lost several more; these are listed in the table below, as well as the result in Kent, where UKIP came within 9pts of victory.
Regional Mayors (8)
Voters in England will also elect eight regional Mayors, including the new Mayor of West Yorkshire and the Mayor of London. Labour lost three of these Mayoral elections by narrow margins in 2017; the West Midlands Mayor, the West of England Mayor and the Tees Valley Mayor.
The top opportunity for a Labour gain is in the West Midlands, where Labour lost the previous election by a margin of less than 1%.
Key races to watch – devolved government
The Scottish Parliament, Welsh Parliament and London Assembly are all elected through proportional representation; as a result, individual constituencies matter far less in determining the overall result (although they are still important, especially in Wales where two-thirds of seats are elected through first-past-the-post).
Scottish Parliament
Labour realistically has no prospect of forming the Scottish government in 2021 – in fact, nobody other than the SNP has any chance of forming the government. In the most recent Panelbase poll, the SNP are 32pts ahead in the constituency ballot and 29pts ahead in the regional list ballot – a result that would lead to an SNP overall majority of 17 seats.
It is possible, however, for Labour to become the second-largest party again. My seat estimate for the most recent poll shows the SNP on 74 seats (+11), the Conservatives on 29 (-2), Labour on 18 (-6), the Lib Dems on 5 (-) and the Scottish Greens on 3 (-3).
A 6-seat swing from the Tories to Labour compared to this poll could therefore see it become the second-largest party in the Scottish Parliament, and this is probably the most that the party can hope for in 2021.
Welsh Parliament
The Welsh Parliament election is simultaneously one of the best chances for a Labour win and also an election that Labour could very well lose.
By May 2021, Labour will have been the Welsh government – either in coalition or as a minority government – for an astonishing 22 years. It would be quite remarkable for Labour to win in 2021 and extend its total time in office to 27 years, so whilst Labour historically does well in Wales, we should not underestimate the possibility of change.
A recent Survation poll suggested that Labour is 14pts ahead in the constituency ballot and 13pts ahead in the regional list ballot, which I estimate would result in Labour winning 29 seats (the same as in 2016). This would be enough to form another minority government with the support of the Liberal Democrats (1 seat). However, a YouGov poll conducted just a few days later suggested that Labour would perform well enough to win just 25 seats (-4), with the Conservatives winning 19 seats (+8), Plaid Cymru winning 15 seats (+3) and the Lib Dems winning 1 seat (-). Plaid Cymru would thus hold the balance of power.
One interesting fact about the Welsh Parliament elections is that the 40 constituency seats have the same boundaries as the 40 Welsh seats in the UK Parliament. In 2019, the Conservatives gained 8 seats from Labour in Wales; in 2016, all of these seats (except one) voted Labour in the Welsh Parliament elections.
How Labour performs in these eight seats in 2021 will thus give us some indication as to how well Starmer is doing in rebuilding Labour support in marginal constituencies. The table below shows the 2016 Welsh Parliament results in these eight marginal constituencies.
London Assembly
So far, there has only been one poll for the London Assembly election (in March 2020), which by my estimate would lead to a seat result of: Labour 12 (-) Conservative 8 (-) Green 3 (+1) Lib Dem 2 (+1). If Labour performs 3pts better on the regional list vote, however, the party would win 13 seats – an overall majority – for the first time.
Since March, Labour has risen from 29% in GB-wide polls to 37% (+8), so if this increase in Labour support is reflected in London, the party could win a majority.
Conclusion: what would a good result look like?
So, having reviewed the key elections, what would a good performance look like for Labour in 2021?
Council elections
The graph below shows the net gains / losses achieved by Leaders of the Opposition in local elections since 1993. Because different numbers of council seats are up for election in different years, I have shown the changes as a percentage of seats up for election.
Making net gains of any kind in the council elections would be good, but it would not be surprising. Of the last eight Leaders of the Opposition, seven made net gains in their first local elections. The two who became Prime Minister (Blair and Cameron) made net gains representing over 7% of total seats in their first local elections (+14% for Blair in 1995, and +7% for Cameron in 2006).
A good council election result for Starmer would thus be net gains representing over 5% of seats up for election (+250); an excellent result would be gains representing 10%+ of seats up for election (+500).
Obviously any net losses would represent a very bad result – in the past 27 years, the only Leader of the Opposition who failed to gain seats in their first local election was Jeremy Corbyn.
Police and Crime Commissioner elections
In 2016, the Conservatives won 20 PCCs to Labour’s 15, with Plaid Cymru (2) and independents (3) winning the rest.
There are eight PCC elections that Labour could win with only a small swing (seven of which were won by the Tories in 2016). If Labour gains all of these PCCs, and does not lose any others, it would win a majority of PCCs. Labour only needs to win 3-4 of these elections to win the most seats, so failing to win the most seats in the PCC elections would arguably be a poor result.
Regional Mayors
Of the eight regional Mayors that are up for election, the Conservatives won four in the previous election, Labour won three and one Mayor is entirely new (West Yorkshire).
Labour only lost three Mayoral elections by a margin of 3pts or less in 2017, whilst in West Yorkshire Labour won the popular vote in the 2019 general election (Labour 46%, Conservatives 40%, Lib Dems 6%, Brexit Party 4%, Greens 2%, Yorkshire Party 1%, Others 1%).
Given that Labour lost in the West Midlands by a margin of just 1% in 2017, and won the popular vote in West Yorkshire by 6pts even in 2019, I think that it is reasonable to expect Labour to make at least two gains in the regional Mayoral elections, thus bringing the overall totals to 5 Labour (+2), and 3 Conservative (-2).
An excellent – and not entirely unrealistic – result would be if Labour won all of the Mayors that it narrowly lost in 2017, plus West Yorkshire, thus bringing the overall totals to an impressive 7 Labour (+4) and 1 Conservative (-3).
Devolved elections
As outlined above, becoming the second-largest party is the best that Labour can hope for in the Scottish Parliament elections. It lost so badly in 2011 and 2016 that it really has no realistic hope of forming the Scottish government.
In Wales, however, there are a range of results that could be regarded as good. Considering that Labour has been the government in Wales for 21 years, simply continuing to form the government (whether as a coalition or a minority government) would be an impressive achievement. Winning the same number of seats as in the 2016 election (29 seats) would be an excellent performance, whilst winning a majority of seats (31 seats) would be an incredible result – Labour has never won a majority in the Welsh Parliament.
In the London Assembly, Labour fell 1 seat short of a majority in 2012 and 2016; repeating this result in a proportional election would be very impressive, and winning an overall majority (13 seats) would be an unprecedented and incredible result.
Summary
The table below shows a summary for what I consider a terrible / poor / mediocre / good / excellent result in each of the elections that will be taking place in 2021:
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