1st May 2025: the most important local elections in decades?

The elections of 1st May could decide the next four years in a way other mid-term contests don't

“It’s not an exaggeration to say this from Tim Shipman is an exaggeration.”

The words from John Rentoul to Tim Shipman on his Sunday Times piece of two weeks gone, who has written that what comes on the 1st May will, in no exaggeration, be as significant as the moment Labour eclipsed the Liberals in parliament.

Okay. A bit of an exaggeration, I agree. No council contest or by-election counts as much as a literal sea change in parliament.

But there is some truth in saying this: what comes on the 1st May may define the direction of politics for the next four years in a way other mid-term parliament protests usually don’t.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s always the hasty reshuffle. The passive aggressive briefings. The magazine thinkpiece. But this year’s contests are different.

The Runcorn and Helsby by-election will be the most important of the elections up on that day. Not because of what it is, but because of what it will do. A Reform win in part-Cheshire part-Merseyside would be significant. A Reform win in a part of the world Ukip never amassed councillors in would be significant. A Faragista win in a sort of contest his outfits have forever performed poorly in would be significant.

And the response would be the defining point.

Because a Reform win in Runcorn would say to 150-plus Labour MPs fresh to the benches: if it can happen there, it can happen here.

It would mandate them to think that by erring rightwards they’d be able to offset Reform. As I wrote in my preview piece for the New Statesman, Blue Labour - and its many iterations - would become the factional norm, not the factional fringe.

It would say that for the next four years, the voters in contention are those entertained by Mr Farage, not the progressives, not the mortgage paying moderates.

Which in an of itself would strain the broad church of the Labour Party even further. And render its central appeal towards… who, exactly?

The thing to forever remember about parties and their members is they tolerate their leaders on the assumption the leader is their guarantor of victory. Lose that bond, and the loyalty dissipates. The panic sets in. And a Reform win in Runcorn would let loose that sort of panic a slew of council defeats wouldn’t.

Now, if Reform were to lose…

And let’s be clear: this by-election looks likely to come down to the wire - both based on my own rare¹ forays into the seat, and the modelling I’ve thus far published. If Reform were to lose, and Labour to scrape home by a few hundred votes, then this Blue Labour debate stays surface level. It stays academic. And the attention instead turns to the Faragistas. It reopens the Rupert Lowe saga. And rather than covering panicked Labour MPs, the news coverage affixes itself on: “governments always lose by-elections, Mr Farage. How on earth did you stumble this?”

Which may do damage to Reform’s numbers in the opinion polls. And deflate their potential in the eyes of voters, temporary or otherwise.

That’s why Runcorn is important.

The local elections this year are, as I’ve written elsewhere, and you’ve no doubt read elsewhere, not as great in number as other elections. There are only 1,600 seats up for grabs, compared to the 6,000 plus in 2023. These 1,600 were last up in 2021 too, a Conservative highpoint for election success - a virtual repeat of their 2019 general election win.

And so inevitable losses to the Lib Dems, losses to Reform, and maybe even losses to Labour, all at the same time as Reform emerging victorious in Runcorn, would put to the voters that in this year, in 2025 - the first Labour year since 2010, that the Conservatives are… sorry, where are they?

What that would do to voters on the right looking to give Labour a kicking is for time to tell. But it might not be to Kemi Badenoch’s benefit. A Reform win in Runcorn would give license to many to consider Reform as the main party of opposition to Labour, not the Conservatives. The Faragista genie would be out of the bottle.

And so I end this piece wondering aloud to you all, might a Labour hold in Runcorn and Helsby… be in the Conservative Party’s best interests?

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1. It’s been a less than ideal month. I haven’t been as free as I would like - I’m in the middle of a house move with my eviction date set for the… 1st May! 🎉