UK Local and Devolved Elections Scheduled for May 7, 2026

Local and devolved elections are scheduled for Thursday, May 7, 2026, across England, Wales, and Scotland, marking a significant test for Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labour Party two years after its landslide victory that ended 14 years of Conservative rule.

Voters in England will elect thousands of local councillors, while representatives for devolved parliaments will be chosen in Scotland and Wales. These contests come as a YouGov poll from April 2026 showed 70 percent of respondents believing Starmer was doing badly, with another YouGov voting intention poll for The Times and Sky News indicating Reform UK as the most popular party if a general election were held now in May 2026.

Starmer met European Union leaders in Armenia on May 4, 2026, amid efforts to strengthen ties with the bloc. In an article for The Observer before the trip, Starmer wrote that Brexit had damaged the UK economy and that strengthening economic links with the continent was key to recovery.

The EU approved a €90bn (£78bn) loan scheme for Ukraine last month, set to cover two-thirds of Ukraine's needs for the next two years, with the bulk for military spending.

The UK will impose further sanctions on Russian firms to disrupt military supply chains later in the week after May 4, 2026, according to Downing Street. European negotiators require the UK to make annual payments of about £1 billion to European budgets as a condition of further access to the EU’s single market, as of May 4, 2026.

Labour faces losing three-quarters of the council seats it is defending in England in the May 7 elections.

The government decided to cut the winter fuel allowance, a sum given to people of state pension age to help with heating costs. 5 billion more in cuts, while Starmer earmarked £18 billion for war-footing defence that was diverted elsewhere. In February 2026, revelations from the Epstein files about Peter Mandelson came to light; Mandelson was appointed by Starmer as the UK’s ambassador to the US in December 2024.

Starmer apologised to Jeffrey Epstein’s victims and acknowledged it was a mistake to appoint Mandelson in response to pressure in February 2026. He stated he had been misled about the extent of Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein. The Green Party defeated Labour in a parliamentary seat election in one of Labour's former strongholds in February 2026.

Most elections in England use the first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting system, where the candidate with the most votes wins without a majority. Scotland and Wales have devolved governments with powers over areas such as health and education, while Northern Ireland uses a different electoral cycle from the May 7, 2026, elections.

The Welsh parliament, the Senedd, was established in 1999, and Labour has dominated politics in Wales since then.

Scottish National Party First Minister John Swinney indicated a second independence referendum could be held as early as 2028. 42 percent of Scots voted against breaking the union with England. Angela Rayner has an unpaid £40,000 stamp duty bill on her flat in Hove, which she is waiting to resolve with HMRC as of May 4, 2026.