Labour accused of planning to cancel next May’s elections
News / Fri 19th Dec 2025 at 07:25am
LABOUR has been accused of “manoeuvring” to cancel next year’s local elections including Harlow and Essex.
The accusations came after Local Government minister, Alison McGovern, spoke on the last day of parliament before the Christmas recess.
Dozens of councils are set to be abolished or merged as part of a push towards more unitary authorities.
Ms McGovern told MPs: “Many councils across the country, and of all stripes, have expressed… concerns about the time and energy spent managing elections to bodies that won’t shortly exist, only to run an election a year later.’
Ms McGovern said ministers were ‘minded’ to cancel elections wherever local authorities said they might put pressure on time and resources. She added: ‘To be clear, should a council say that they have no reason to delay their elections, there will be no delay.”
Conservative elections spokesman Sir James Cleverly said Labour was ‘running scared of the voters’, adding: ‘They thought they could completely overhaul local government and stack the deck in their favour. They were wrong.
‘Earlier this month, Labour cancelled mayoral elections and now they are at it again with council elections, fiddling the democratic process to serve their own political interests.’
The decision to cancel elections for a second year in places such as Essex comes despite a warning from the Electoral Commission that they should not be postponed for more than 12 months.
Harlow is set to have local elections in May. But there are many who believe they will be cancelled. In May 2027, there will be elections for the new authority. The new authority will begin in April 2028.
But it could be that the 33 councillors in Harlow sitting now and elected in May 2024, will remain in position until April 2028.
Film of the debate is below.
David Forman
2025-12-19 08:51:38
The quote including delay from Labour's minister Alison McGovern: "To be clear, should a council say that it has no reason to delay its elections, there will be no delay. If a council voices genuine concerns, we will take these issues seriously, and would be minded to grant a delay in those areas. To that end, the Secretary of State is minded to make an order to postpone elections for one year only to the councils that raise capacity concerns. We have asked for representations from councils by no later than midnight on 15 January, and will then be in a position to make an informed decision." See https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2025-12-18/debates/4F80CDF3-B826-4BD5-841E-C719F4F718B0/LocalGovernmentReorganisation
David Forman
2025-12-19 08:57:26
The Conservatives shadow minister Paul Holmes said: "Kevin Bentley, the leader of Essex county council, who has stated clearly in the public domain that he will not ask for elections to be delayed in Greater Essex."
AB
2025-12-19 09:38:14
If a council will only exist for a year, it's seems pointless wasting money on elections. Postponing the vote to 2027, for the election of the new councils makes economic sense.
David Forman
2025-12-19 09:40:29
Conservative MP Mark Francois for Rayleigh and Wickford said: "...but what about the lower tier? What about Labour-led Basildon, Labour-led Thurrock and Labour-led Southend? Are they allowed to run away and hide, just because Labour is tanking in the polls?"
Kim Oconnor
2025-12-19 10:03:21
It's shocking.. Labour are running scared and so they should be.. Labour lied to a nation, they had to ,because they wouldn't of got in otherwise, and the people know it. It's our democratic right to vote . There just running scared, that's what this is about.
Seamus
2025-12-19 10:29:43
Photo I.D., face recognition cameras in every town and city, democratic elections suspended because those in charge currently won't like the result. When did the U.K. turn into the USSR?
Adam
2025-12-19 12:29:35
Seamus in 2020 when everyone accepted the government locking you in your own home, telling you who could visit, if you could open your business etc or even travel. Worse many people turned into informers and were happy to "police" the "laws". When we accepted that without kicking off and when as it turned out it was all lies and deception, and we did not jail them they knew they could do anything they wanted.
Fed up pensioner mark 2
2025-12-19 13:36:36
Because labour will be wiped out,any party is better than this crap.
Ted
2025-12-19 13:59:00
Adam. If you think covid was all lies and deception, I suggest to say that to the hundreds of thousands of people who lost family members. And as far as locking us in our homes , it was only to keep us safe and the pressure off the NHS.
Brian Ashton
2025-12-19 16:38:58
Perhaps this is the "change" that Keir Starmer and Chris Vince spoke about. Removing local democracy.
Val
2025-12-19 17:44:42
I notice the veritable Chris Vince is silent on this matter of democracy, just as he has been on the disgraceful decision of this Labour government to attack our civil liberties by severely restricting our right to trial by jury; a right stemming from Magna Carta. It is hardly surprising that Chris Vince did not appear on the list of 38 more courageous Labour MPs opposing the government's jury plans. It is also not surprising that Chris appeared in an article in this week's 'Spectator' entitled 'Drips' Gallery - Parliament's 20 most insufferable snivellers', where Vince is described as I quote: Chris Vince (Lab, Harlow): sometime maths teacher who could be Norman Wisdom's Norman Pitkin, giggling and rubbing his face, clapping his forehead at his goofs and frequently mentioning that his mum worked for the Inland Revenue. Ministers grind their jaws and pretend to be amused, while quietly wishing that had a custard pie to push in his face'. This is who represents our constituency in these momentous times.
Guy Flegman
2025-12-19 20:09:36
Hell why not cancel all elections forever. Think of the money it would save. Er but we would be living under a dictatorship. The logic for cancelling elections is not sound, not to mention local government restructuring was never in any manifesto nor were the electorate consulted.
Seamus
2025-12-19 21:17:29
Kim Jung Starmer's upto his old tricks of using 1984 as his instruction manual again.
Nicholas Taylor
2025-12-20 08:52:19
Just to remind readers that the Conservative leadership and his Party at Essex County Council took up the Governments invite to submit a case for changes to the way that we are governed in Essex, they did not have to and some within District Councils are now crying crocodile tears. It was inevitable that there would be calls to postpone elections next May, afterall the Conservative fear being ousted from power. The Harlow Residents Alliance repeat that these changes should never take place, making changes based on centuries old County lines was never a good starting point. In Harlow's case we could end up linked with Maldon, based on the case that the A414 forms a link between the two!
David Forman
2025-12-20 09:13:59
Seamus, the political Juche ideology in North Korea is not the same as the USSR. Many communists view N.Korea's system as a departure from Marxist-Leninist principles. Juche ideology, which relates to "self reliance", was an antidote to the revisionist policies of Nikita Khrushchev which undermined the alleged cult of personality of Joseph Stalin. Juche ideology enabled Kim Il Sung to cement an isolationist philosophy applied in economic, military and diplomatic spheres. George Orwell was dead before Juche got going following the end of the Korean War. Had he lived longer, Orwell would have felt compelled to write a whole new 1984. See article on Juche at https://time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/korea1.pdf
Val
2025-12-20 17:20:45
Harlow had all out elections in 2024 following the Electoral Commission boundary review. If Harlow operated on 4 year cycles like the majority of English councils, elections would not have been held until 2028 anyway. The only reason these elections are being held is because the Labour opposition councillors voted against the sensible proposal to move to 4 year all outs and retain the inefficient and expensive system of annual elections by thirds. It was a case of turkeys voting for an early Christmas only to get a stay of execution by the Labour government in a blatantly undemocratic manner. No wonder Chris Vince and James Griggs have gone into hiding.
peter henegan
2025-12-20 17:41:06
We already have democratically elected councilors so postponing elections doesn't end democracy it merely postpones potential change in representation. Only about 30-35% of the electorate actually vote in our Harlow local elections so it doesn't seem a big deal for most people. Only one third of council seats should be up for grabs in the first election I believe, I am not sure if last year's postponement means that two thirds will be up for grabs this time around, perhaps someone can tell me, please. The people most upset seem to be those who think their favoured party will win, not guaranteed of course. Who expected the conservatives to win locally when nationally they were in wipe out?
peter henegan
2025-12-20 17:45:56
David Forman, the stuff you come up with fascinates me, re your comment on Juche and Seamus's comment re USSR, are we talking about Russia or USSR. Its seems to be that however it gets described the thing that dictatorships have in common is their willingness to murder their own citizens to protect their position. I don't see that we are there yet.
Nicholas Taylor
2025-12-21 10:31:59
Val, the reason why elections should be held is that neither Labour or the Conservatives have any mandate to change the way we are governed in Essex, indeed across the county they cannor even agree amongst themselves. Every other political Party is against these changes and the subject may well be a key one at the next election. Both of these Parties fear being wiped out, I hope they are and we can get our councillors back to focussing on the real issues which affect residents in their daily lives. Moving the deckchairs will not solve any of them.
Val
2025-12-21 19:10:52
Nicholas Taylor, this entire dangerous fiasco is solely attributable to the Labour Government's ill-thought out and over hasty legislation to restructure local government with no proper consultation or viability analysis. Now they are changing the rules to defer electoral annihilation. If the elections are cancelled, it will just be a stay of execution. Interesting that Chris Vince MP is hiding under the parapet; even he is not that stupid!
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