Nigel Farage today claimed Britain is turning into a ‘banana republic’ as Labour prepares to delay local council elections again for millions of voters.
Ministers said they were asking 63 local authorities across England whether they want to postpone contests scheduled for May next year until 2027.
Some council leaders were said to have expressed fears that holding elections in 2026 could derail their efforts to deliver Labour’s reorganisation of local government.
Labour wants to abolish the two-tier system of county and district councils in favour of new unitary authorities, which are expected to be up and running in 2028.
The 63 local councils have been given until the middle of next month to lodge a request for a 12-month-delay to their elections scheduled for 2026.
This includes county councils in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Hampshire, East Sussex and West Sussex, who previously postponed elections from this May to next year.
Mr Farage, the Reform UK leader, claimed these Tory-led councils were ‘colluding’ with Labour to delay contests – in which his party is expected to perform well – for a second time.
Earlier this month, the Government delayed elections for newly-created mayors across the same areas until 2028.
The latest YouGov opinion poll on Westminster voting intention, published this week, showed Reform with a 10 percentage point lead over Labour, with the Tories and Greens a point further behind.
There is growing speculation that Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer will face a leadership challenge if Labour suffers a disastrous set of results in May’s local elections in England, as well as contests in Scotland and Wales.
Mr Farage said: ‘Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas. Tory county councils look set to collude with Labour to keep their control until 2027.’
He added that ‘only a banana republic bans elections’ as he called on Tory leader Kemi Badenoch to ‘instruct her council leaders to allow elections to go ahead’.
Sir Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, also expressed his anger at the prospect of local elections being suspended once more.
He said: ‘This is looking like yet another Labour and Conservative stitch-up to deny people their votes in May.
‘Kemi Badenoch must stop her Conservative council leaders from delaying elections yet again just because they are running scared of the Liberal Democrats.’
Senior Tory MP Sir James Cleverly, the shadow local government secretary, noted how ministers recently said they intended for all elections set for May 2026 to go ahead.
He said: ‘Labour promised council elections would go ahead as planned as recently as last week. Now they’re saying they won’t. Another broken promise.
‘Voters will now be denied the right to elect their own representatives – and not for the first time under this Labour Government.
‘Labour are scared of the voters. They thought they could completely overhaul local government and stack the deck in their favour. They were wrong.’
Sir James added it ‘cannot be right’ that some councillors might now serve seven-year terms.
‘The Electoral Commission warned the Government that elections should not be delayed by more than a year, but that has clearly fallen on deaf ears,’ he continued.
‘Labour pushed these changes through at an unrealistic pace and are now blaming local leaders for not being ready.’
Labour’s Alison McGovern, the local government minister, said: ‘We have listened to councils who’ve told us of the challenges they face reorganising while preparing for resource-intensive elections for areas which may shortly be abolished.
‘Several have submitted requests to postpone elections so it is therefore right we let them have their say so they can focus their time and energy on providing vital services while planning for reorganisation.
‘Our goal is to create new councils who can improve services for residents and it is only right that we listen to councils.’
Ms McGovern told MPs on Thursday that the Government does not wish to dictate local decisions without consultation and they will ‘listen to local leaders’ on what is right for each area.
‘To be clear, should a council say that they have no reason to delay their elections, there will be no delay,’ she said.
‘If a council voices genuine concerns, we’ll take these issues seriously, and would be minded to grant a delay in those areas.’
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said there were a total of 204 councils across 21 areas that were undergoing reorganisation.
Surrey County Council postponed elections last year until May 2026, but is said to be on a ‘faster timetable’ for reorganisation and so has not been asked whether it wants to delay its contests again.
If councils do postpone their elections next year then elections to new unitary authorities will be held in May 2027.
Cllr Richard Wright, chair of the District Councils’ Network, said: ‘England’s local democracy is built around every councillor being elected for a four-year term, a cycle which should be broken only in the most exceptional circumstances.
‘Local government reorganisation means that many councils will soon cease to exist and legitimate questions can be asked about whether the electoral cycle should be adapted in response.
‘However, the Government has fallen into a pattern of failing to anticipate obvious issues with how council reorganisation impacts on local democracy, making promises on the timing of elections that cannot be fulfilled and then changing policy at the last minute.
‘Electoral officers are operating in a climate of uncertainty, which wastes time and money – for instance when venues have to be booked for election counts that don’t take pace.
‘Most seriously, the electorate will be understandably confused by the constant shifting of the goalposts and broken promises.
‘This has the potential to undermine faith in our cherished local democracy.’
In heated exchanges in the House of Commons, Tory shadow local government minister Paul Holmes said Labour had taken the decision as it was afraid of fighting elections.
Mr Holmes asked what the Government ‘has against democracy’ as he also compared Labour’s approach to the fictional Christmas figure, the Grinch.
‘While many people gather around their screens to watch movies like How the Grinch Stole Christmas, we’re sitting here discussing how Labour is trying to steal the elections,’ he said.
‘Earlier this month Labour cancelled mayoral elections because they were worried they wouldn’t win them.
‘Now they are doing the same with local elections, pausing the democratic process to serve their own political interests, creating for themselves a true nightmare before Christmas.
‘This process has been a mess from start to finish, not wanted, not in their manifesto and centrally dictated. It’s time it was scrapped today.’
Ms McGovern replied: ‘The position on elections is as it has always been, is that the starting point remains that elections go ahead unless there is a strong justification.’
Florence Eshalomi, the Labour chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee, said she was unhappy with the timing of the announcement on the final day before Parliament goes on its Christmas break.
‘This an issue of grave importance to so many members right across this chamber, many of them will not be here today to be able to raise their concerns with the minister,’ Ms Eshalomi said.
She also asked what had happened days after Local Government Secretary Steve Reed said elections would go ahead.
Ms McGovern said: ‘The majority of councils who are reorganising are not due to have elections in any case.
‘So this is a minority of those councils, but we have received representations from them, and we think it’s important that we take stock and check what their view is of capacity.’
