Elections cancelled again and devolution plans in chaos
For a second year in a row, the Government has announced that important local elections will be cancelled in parts of England.
Last year, it was Council elections being called off in areas with nearly 6 million voters. This year, it is Mayoral elections in four areas covering 7.5 million voters - these elections will now be held in 2028.
Yet again the Government has come under fire from across the political spectrum and from independent organisations. Not only does the cancellation of elections raise huge questions about our democracy, it also shows that the Government’s flagship devolution plans are running years behind schedule.
Here’s some of the reaction -
“The Government is denying voters in these areas their democratic say - again - all because of a chaotic, damaging local government reorganisation it ordered.”
Tom Brake, Chief Executive of Unlock Democracy
The delay is a ‘backwards step that perpetuates England’s enduring power imbalance. It’s completely unacceptable that 28 million people living in non-metropolitan areas continue to be deprived of the mayoral devolution now given to all urban areas.’
District Councils Network chair Richard Wright
‘The bar for suspending elections should be set very high – and has not been reached’
Institute For Government
‘To delay it two years: that is a deliberate dictatorial cancelling of democracy in the United Kingdom and we shouldn’t tolerate it.’
Richard Tice MP, Reform UK
‘Democracy delayed is democracy denied. We are fighting to end this blatant stitch-up between Labour and the Conservatives over local elections.’
Zoe Franklin MP, Liberal Democrat
‘This is a scandalous attempt to subvert democracy’
James Cleverly MP, Conservative
Even ex-Minister Labour MP Jim McMahon, who had been in charge of the Government’s devolution plan until September, said his party needed “to be better than this” and had “a moral and a legal obligation to honour its side of the bargain”.
Unlock Democracy believe there are two issues at stake -
Governments should NOT have the power to unilaterally cancel elections.
This should be an obvious thing in any democracy, but in the UK, this is the third time in five years that’s seen substantial election cancellations. In 2021, all elections were cancelled during the early days of the pandemic. Now in 2025 and 2026, again large numbers of people are being denied their right to vote. On both occasions, the Government has sought to justify the cancellation because of its devolution programme.
Whether you believe that or not, the fact that the Government is doing extremely badly in local elections right now, has led many people to speculate that its reasons for cancelling elections are more party political.
Government communications around cancelling elections has been confusing at best. When the Government announced that many elections in May 2025 were being called off, they said they didn’t believe in holding elections for councils that were soon to be abolished. Yet, as of now, they are saying that those elections cancelled in May, will take place in May 2026 - even though those councils are a year closer to abolition.
The timetable for the Mayoral elections this May was decided on by the Government earlier this year. It had given no sign at all that they were about to cancel those elections for TWO more years until this week.
It’s a deeply concerning situation and it’s time for the parliamentary rules to be changed so that MPs have to vote on election cancellations - no Government should have this power on their own.
What about devolution?
For decades England experienced a relentless tide of centralisation, making it one of the most centralised countries in the world. Labour’s manifesto and the Government’s early actions suggested that real change was on its way and fast.
The Government told the country that devolution was central to driving economic growth and that they would take power away from Westminster and put it in the hands of new Strategic Authorities led by elected Mayors.
But now, the Government has put back Mayoral elections in four of the six priority areas for devolution. And not just for one year, but two.
That means that devolution will not be delivered in the priority areas until 2028 - which could well be a General Election year. FOURTEEN other counties are also waiting for devolution plans - who knows how long they will take?
It’s a baffling delay for a Government that has made devolution such an important priority for its economic plans. It’s clear that the Minister who was in charge of the plans just a few months ago doesn’t know what the delay is either and is very unhappy with his own Government on this issue!
While devolution seems stalled, the Government does seem to be pressing ahead with its local government reorganisation plans - leading to increased centralisation of power! Over 150 district councils will be replaced by a small number of mega-unitary councils made up of more than 500,000 residents. This will be the new shape of ‘local’ government.
Merging dozens of councils will be both costly and time consuming, at a time when local government is facing yet more cutbacks. It’s an expensive waste of time that does the opposite of what this government said it wanted to achieve.
So why is this happening? Is this incredibly bleak outlook for devolution and democracy all there is to look forward to?
Is the hold up on devolution, as some have suggested, the Treasury refusing to fund it? If that’s the case, then it would suggest Whitehall’s centralisation culture is unchanged, even though a different party is in power now.
But can that be tallied with the Prime Minister saying “devolution is absolutely essential for taking on regional inequality”? And his government’s aim to create “wealth in every community and make people better off” through devolved power, infrastructure, housing, transport and local jobs?
These mixed messages are confusing. That’s why we’re asking Ministers a series of questions, including:
How has the priority gone from devolution to a deeply flawed local government reorganisation that moves power even further away from local residents?
If growth is this Government’s priority, why isn’t the Treasury funding one the key drivers for growth? Especially when the sums of money are quite small comparatively to many other Government expenditures.
If devolution in most of the ‘priority’ areas is going to take until well in 2028, just how much longer will it take to reach the rest of the country?
How many more elections can we expect to see cancelled?
We look forward to hearing some answers soon!