Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer left 10 Downing Street on Wednesday, February 11, 2026, to attend the weekly Prime Ministers’ Questions session in parliament in London. However, the government is now facing fresh backlash after a U-turn on their plans to postpone elections for 30 local authorities.
Initially, Labour had offered 63 councils the chance to delay their May local elections as part of wider plans to re-organize local governments. The government cited the cost of holding elections during the council rejig as the reason for the delay, with 30 councils agreeing to postpone.
Critics, however, claimed that the government’s decision was motivated by a fear of losing those local elections, which Labour denied. But now, local government secretary Steve Reed has decided to “withdraw his decision” to postpone the elections “in the light of legal advice.”
This sudden reversal came as Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, prepared to take the government to court. Farage is hailing this as a victory, and the government is now looking to “agree an order” with Reform to end the case. They have also promised to “pay the claimant’s costs of these proceedings.”
As a result, a total of 136 local authority areas across England will now hold elections in the spring, along with elections to the Welsh Senedd and the Scottish Parliament. To help with the reorganizing, the government has announced £63 million in new funding.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government stated, “Following legal advice, the government has withdrawn its original decision to postpone 30 local elections in May.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.”
Farage, in an interview with Sky News, called the U-turn “extraordinary” and claimed, “We were due [in court] this Thursday. They’ve caved, they’ve collapsed. It’s a victory for Reform. But more importantly, it’s a victory for democracy in this country.”
He also questioned Reed’s future in the government, saying, “What I do think now is the minister, Steve Reed, has clearly acted illegally. And given that the government has now given in, knew they’d lose to us in court, I think Steve Reed’s question as a minister should now be debated.”
Meanwhile, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch criticized the government, saying, “This is a zombie government. U-turn, after U-turn, after U-turn. No plan or program to deliver anything. Even the simple stuff that should be business as usual gets messed up. And we’ve got three more years of this, because Labour MPs don’t want an early election – they know they will lose their seats.”
Badenoch also raised concerns about Reed’s decision, saying, “He must come clean, or we will use every means at our disposal to get to the truth.”
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey also welcomed the U-turn, saying, “The Liberal Democrats have fought tooth and nail to stop this stitch-up, and the government has been forced into a humiliating U-turn. Labour is terrified of Reform, and we are the only party willing to stand up to Farage and beat him, as we do week after week in council by-elections.”
Davey also called on Starmer to support his party’s plans to prevent governments from being allowed to “cancel elections on a whim ever again.”
Labour MP Florence Eshalomi, Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government (HCLG) Committee, expressed her support for the decision, saying, “I welcome this development. As I argued previously, democracy is not an inefficiency that should be cut out during the local government reorganization process.”
She added, “Councils should not have been put in the position of choosing between frontline services or elections. I welcome the indication that the government will provide additional resources to ensure that local council elections can take place and look forward to seeing more detail on this.”
Councilor Richard Wright, Chair of the District Councils’ Network, also weighed in on the matter, saying, “Council officers, councillors, and local electorates will be bewildered by the unrelenting changes to the electoral timetable. Councils were assured by the government that elections could be legally canceled, but now it seems ministers have come to the opposite conclusion.”
He added, “It’s the
