𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Sir Keir Starmer has broken his silence after his U-turn on delayed local elections.

The Prime Minister insisted the decision to postpone dozens of May’s ballots had been “locally led”.

He defended the climbdown on the plans, saying the Government “followed further legal advice” amid a Reform UK legal challenge.

Put to him during a visit to South Wales that the reversal had left local councils scrambling to organise polls at short notice, the Prime Minister said: “Well, I think it’s important to remind ourselves that the decision to cancel was a locally-led decision in the sense that each authority could decide.

“And, yes, Labour authorities came forward to say, ‘please delay’.

“But so did Tory authorities, so did Lib Dem authorities.

“In relation to the position, we took further legal advice, and as you would expect as a government, having got further legal advice, we followed that legal advice.”

The u-turn was announced by the Deparment for Local Government on Monday, ahead of a scheduled courtroom showdown this Thursday.

Reform UK brought the legal action against the delays, with the government eventually claiming it had reexamined its own legal advice.

Responding to the news, Nigel Farage said: “We took this Labour government to court and won.

“In collusion with the Tories, Keir Starmer tried to stop 4.6 million people voting on May 7th.

“Only Reform UK fights for democracy.”

Polling experts had forecast that Reform would have won hundreds of seats in the councils set to be delayed this May, offering the party a fresh opportunity to give Keir Starmer a bruising at the ballot box.

Last month, fresh research from JL Partners said Reform would have won big in the 30 council areas that will now go ahead as planned.

They found that Mr Farage’s party is set to take 28% of the vote, beating both the Tories’ 21%, Labour’s 17%, and the LibDems’ 15%.

Following the U-turn announcement, a spokesman for the elections department said: “Following legal advice, the Government has withdrawn its original decision to postpone 30 local elections in May.

“Providing certainty to councils about their local elections is now the most crucial thing and all local elections will now go ahead in May 2026.”

Steve Reed, the Local Government Secretary, is now facing calls to either publish his legal advice, or resign for trying to take away voters’ democratic rights.

Yesterday the Conservatives wrote to Mr Reed accusing him of having “manipulated the democratic process to serve Labour’s political interests.”

Sir James Cleverly issued demands for the department to publish its evidence on which the original decision to delay the elections was take, and whether any political considerations lay behind it.

He said: “The reality is that Labour are scared of voters. I believe that you have manipulated the democratic process to serve Labour’s political interests.

“There are now serious questions about your personal propriety as a Minister. The sunlight of transparency is the only way forward to address the way in which our democracy has been tarnished. If you are unable or unwilling, you must resign.”