JBP’s Political Analysis team has delved into the outcomes of the recent local elections, highlighting the standout winners, notable changes in the political landscape and what these shifts could mean moving forward.
Explore their insights and area-by-area breakdowns below.
South West
Exeter
Exeter loses its Labour majority, but nibbles on a crumb of comfort
Once a sea of red, Exeter has become a political kaleidoscope, with almost every group represented somewhere in the chamber. With only a third of seats contested, a Labour wipeout was never possible. Even so, holding four seats offered a crumb of comfort after Devon County Council in 2025, when Labour was left without a single Exeter seat, and on a poor night nationally.
Click here for our full analysis.
Plymouth
Labour majority cut to the bone
No seat is safe for the party in Plymouth, losing 9 seats on the night, including many of their strongholds, such as Devonport and Ham.A party that commanded a handsome majority on the Council just two years ago will now be looking nervously over its shoulder at what the next set of elections in Plymouth will bring
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Swindon
No easy route through Swindon’s special roundabout
Swindon may be best known for its Magic Roundabout, but this election has left Labour shifting into reverse losing control of the Council after falling from 41 seats to 19, while the Conservatives have moved up from 15 to 23 and Reform has entered the chamber at speed, winning 14 seats from a standing start. With no overall control, the town’s political traffic now looks much harder to direct.
Cheltenham
While other south west councils have generated headlines, Cheltenham has remained quiet with the Lib Dems maintaining their overwhelming majority. No other party is in a position to challenge the Lib Dems though Reform and the Greens will be hoping to build on their (albeit limited) success in the elections to come. However, with Gloucestershire local government reorganisation now moving through the system, the next major electoral test may be for a new unitary authority rather than Cheltenham Borough Council as voters know it today.
West Midlands
Newcastle-under-Lyme
For decades, Newcastle has been fought over between the Conservatives and Labour, with periods of majority control for each and no overall control in between. No other party has really challenged that duopoly until now. Reform has come from a standing start to take a comfortable majority on the Council, chiefly at the expense of Labour.
Click here for our full analysis.
Nuneaton & Bedworth
The old pattern unravels
In a borough long associated with ribbon weaving, Nuneaton and Bedworth’s political pattern has been pulled apart. The old red-blue contest between Labourand the Conservatives has given way to a turquoise thread running through the electoral map. Reform won 15 of the 19 seats contested, leaving the Council under no overall control but with Reform as its largest party. For a borough often treated as a political bellwether, this result points well beyond the Town Hall.
Click here for our full analysis.
Rugby
There’s still no overall control after this election cycle in the Borough, with no party able to establish dominance. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats largely held the line, while Labour suffered damaging losses to Reform UK in key battleground wards. Although the Lib Dems’ double gain in Bilton was one of the headline moments of the election the overall balance of the Council remains delicately poised, with the most likely outcome being the continuation of the existing Lib-Dem/ Labour coalition. More broadly, the result confirms Rugby’s transformation from a traditional two-party battleground into a volatile four-way contest where alliances, not outright victories, are now the key to power.
Walsall
Birmingham
London
Wandsworth
Wandsworth’s 2026 election is a story of Conservative recovery, as one of London’s most wrought battlegrounds between the two traditional parties of power. Whilst the Conservatives regained their position as the largest party, they did so despite their vote share falling almost ten percentage points.
Click here for our full analysis.
Westminster
Westminster City Council has again fallen under Conservative control after just four years of Labour rule, signifying a return to the ‘status quo’ in the political heart of London. Labour’s 2022 victory, the party’s first since the council’s creation in 1965, was always viewed as politically extraordinary. Its reversal marks the restoration of one of the Conservatives’ most historically important boroughs at the very centre of London.
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Southwark
Labour’s South Bank slump
In a result that was less easy to foresee as in Hackney or Westminster, Labour has lost its grip on Southwark Council for the first time in 16 years, keeping the largest number of seats but no overall control.
Labour’s retention of eight whole wards and several further split wards could almost be considered formidable, given the close targeting of at least one other political party on almost every defending seat.
The Tories and Lib Dems had eyed up the south of the borough in Dulwich, the Greens went all out in the middle around Nunhead and Peckham, and Liberal Democrats held firm in the north around Bermondsey and Borough.
Click here for our full analysis.
Camden
Trouble in the Prime Minister’s backyard
Elections in Camden in the current political climate were always going to be a tense contest for the Labour administration. Growing animosity towards Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the constituency MP for Holborn and St Pancras, instilled fear in Camden Labour that voters would send Starmer a strong message in the polls – and they did. The Green and Liberal Democrat groups carved up much of Labour’s territory in a pincer movement that saw Labour’s vote split even in its heartlands.
Click here for our full analysis.