This week (Thursday, May 2) are the local elections in the UK.  While city councils (and the functional equivalent for areas outside of the cities) have some powers, the primacy of the UK parliament (especially in England) often leads the vote for council members to be a way to express disapproval of the current government.  While some share of that “protest” vote comes from some otherwise loyal supporters of the governing party who will return to the fold for the next general election, the results in the council vote is often seen as a referendum on the current government.

The vote this year is particularly significant.  In the U.K., the national parliament is elected for a term of up to five years.  While for a period of time, the U.K. flirted with having a fixed term similar to Congress, the “fixed term” law allowed for parliament to agree to an early election.  In practice, it was impossible for the opposition to vote against an early election although the opposition could, to a limited extent, get some input on the date of the election.  So the U.K. went back to the old law which allows the government to call an early election.  We are now nearing the end of the current parliament’s term.  The last election in the U.K. was in December 2019.  In theory, the government could wait until the term ends to call the next election (which would then fall at the end of January 2025), but that would have the election period run through the holidays which would cause havoc with some of the deadlines related to the election.  As such, the expectation is the government will schedule the parliamentary elections in the early fall.

Generally speaking, council terms in England are for four years.  City councils fall into three basic types.  Some councils elect the full council every four years.  Some councils elect half their membership every other year.  And some councils have a four-year cycle in which they elect one-third of their members every year (with a fourth “off-year” in which no members were elected.  But vacancies can require special elections as part of the council elections to fill vacancies and boundary changes can require the full council to stand under the new ward lines even if the council election is normally for one-third of the council. Continue Reading...