Local elections are often regarded as a referendum on the sitting government, with many previous administrations taking a bloody nose from the electorate but successfully fighting back by the next general election.<\/p>\n
Senior Labour<\/a> figures have taken to reeling off a list of midterm results \u2013 1999, 2003, 2012 \u2013 to prove that point. \u201cAs we get closer to the general election, it will be less about people\u2019s view of the parties generally and more about the actual choice in front of them,\u201d one said.<\/p>\n But even against that backdrop, this May\u2019s local and devolved elections look to be a uniquely negative series of contests, in part because Nigel Farage now generates as much ill feeling across the country as Keir Starmer.<\/p>\n Some voters are urgently hoping to teach the government a lesson, but others want just as strongly to keep Reform UK<\/a> out of power. Rather fewer appear likely to cast their ballots with a positive view of who they support.<\/p>\n Whether that sentiment translates into an \u201canyone but Labour\u201d choice or an \u201canyone but Reform\u201d one, the pattern looks clear: This will be an \u201canyone but\u201d set of elections.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s rare to hear so much discussion about tactical voting among the public. But across the country more and more people are describing their vote in terms of who they want to stop rather than who they want to win,\u201d said Luke Tryl, director of More in Common.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the Gorton [and Denton] byelection we heard repeatedly from progressive voters that they just wanted to know who was the best \u2018stop Reform\u2019 choice, and that is something we now hear from progressives right across the UK.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the same time in many English councils that will be voting in local elections, we are repeatedly hearing from voters who just want to back the \u2018punish Labour\u2019 option, be that Greens and Gaza independents on their left or Reform on their right.<\/p>\n \u201cIn counties like Essex, voters on the right still want to punish the Conservatives<\/a>, in what used to be a traditional stronghold, for the legacy of the last government and failures to control migration, and so are backing Reform.\u201d<\/p>\n As Reform has plateaued in the polls, the number of people saying they would vote against Farage\u2019s party has grown. Overall, 38% of Britons would do so, up nine points since November last year.<\/p>\n It is the first time More in Common\u2019s polling has had Reform, rather than Labour, as the most unpopular party. Labour was on 34%, down four points, and the Conservatives and Greens were on 7% each, down one and up four points respectively. The Lib Dems stuck at 3%.<\/p>\n graphic<\/a><\/p>\n Reform acknowledges that many centrist and left-leaning voters may vote tactically against it, but suggests that shows the \u201cmainstream\u201d parties are all the same and only it offers a true alternative.<\/p>\n Prof Tony Travers, a local government expert at the London School of Economics, suggested the \u201canyone but\u201d sentiment would not apply towards Reform universally, because the appetite for tactical voting appeared to be uneven across the political spectrum.<\/p>\n In the inner cities, for example, Labour would be more vulnerable to parties such as the Greens or the Workers Party of Britain, he said. But that meant there was an opportunity for Farage to win big where Reform\u2019s support was already concentrated.<\/p>\n The two main parties have held a firm grip on the electoral system for decades, picking up the majority of the vote between them. But in the 2024 general election Labour and the Tories only accounted for 57% of votes between them, the lowest on record, as the system fragmented.<\/p>\n Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, believes voters are sending a message to what he describes as the legacy parties.<\/p>\n \u201cThey sent it in last year\u2019s local elections. They sent it in Gorton and Denton. And they\u2019re going to be sending it in the devolved elections coming up as well. \u2018We really don\u2019t like you. We\u2019re not going to vote for you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n He told the Guardian\u2019s Politics Weekly podcast: \u201cThe question that we\u2019ve got to hash out is: where is this all leading when we come to a general election? And the honest answer is, we don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n Given the public mood towards the \u201cpro-system\u201d parties, the election of more than 5,000 councillors and six mayors in England, as well as the Scottish and Welsh elections, on 7 May brings a moment of deep uncertainty.<\/p>\n Labour is braced for heavy losses to Reform and the Greens across England, including in the party\u2019s former heartlands in the north-east, West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester. In London, where the party holds 21 of the 32 councils, party insiders fear a bloodbath.<\/p>\n In Wales, where Labour has dominated for more than a century, it looks to be squeezed from left and right, with Reform challenging in traditional working-class communities while Plaid Cymru<\/a> takes the progressive vote.<\/p>\n It will be in the interests of both insurgent parties in Wales<\/a> to portray the election as a battle between the two of them. That could win over voters to Plaid, in particular, who might not usually back the party, and set it on course to be the biggest in the Senedd.<\/p>\n