First-Past-The-Post Electoral System Fails Major Parties in Local Council Elections

The first-past-the-post electoral system, long regarded as a bulwark for the Conservative and Labour parties, exhibited an unexpected dynamic during Thursday's local council elections. This system, which elects the candidate with the most votes in each seat, has traditionally suppressed smaller parties with geographically dispersed support, thereby insulating the two main parties from challengers and facilitating periods of untrammelled majority government.

However, the recent results challenge this historical pattern. They indicate Britain has entered an era of multi-party politics. Based on national share projections, Reform would have secured 26% of the vote if the entire country had participated in a local election, with the Greens closely behind at 18%. The Conservative and Labour parties each garnered just 17%, marking a record low joint tally of 34%. The Liberal Democrats were not far behind, with 16%.

This surge in support for third parties suggests that the first-past-the-post system is no longer effectively deterring voters from backing alternatives to Conservative or Labour. Reform and the Greens collectively secured 2,063 council seats, exceeding the 1,864 seats jointly won by the Conservatives and Labour. The Liberal Democrats also gained 842 local council seats.

Crucially, the system appears to have exaggerated the loss of support for the Conservatives and Labour. In wards where Labour was defending seats, its support fell by an average of 25 percentage points compared to 2022. For the Conservatives, this drop was 14 points in defended seats. This pattern led to Labour losing over 1,400 seats and the Conservatives more than 500.

Conversely, the first-past-the-post system enabled Reform to gain majorities in councils such as Dudley, Plymouth, and Rochdale with less than half of the vote. In some instances, Reform secured as much as 67% of the seats with just 36% of the vote. Similar disproportionality was observed for Labour in Ealing and Merton, where 29% of the vote yielded 66% and 56% of council seats, respectively. Even a party losing support, such as the Conservatives in Westminster, could gain control if opponents lost even more heavily.

This fragmentation of the vote means that a relatively low, but winning, share of the vote can still achieve a highly disproportionate reward in terms of seats. Consequently, one in three of the 63 councils where all seats were contested on Thursday now lack overall control, a significant increase from merely half a dozen previously. The results suggest the first-past-the-post system will operate in an unfamiliar manner, potentially ushering in a future of minority or coalition governments even with its inherent winner-takes-all bias.