How to watch Britain’s ‘midterm’ election results like a pro

LONDON — Tens of millions of Brits are voting Thursday in elections that could hasten the fragmentation of U.K. politics — and make Keir Starmer’s job as prime minister even more precarious.

Voters will choose more than 5,000 English councilors in 136 councils, including all 32 London boroughs; six mayors in England; all 129 members of the Scottish Parliament; and all 96 members of an expanded Welsh parliament, the Senedd. 

Starmer is not expected to face a U.K. general election until 2029, but these sprawling contests are the equivalent of his midterms. Since a 2024 landslide his center-left Labour Party has plunged in national opinion polls and been overtaken by Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK. Labour now jostles for second place with the left-wing Green Party and center-right Conservatives while the centrist Liberal Democrats lag in fifth, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls.

After an initial wave in the early hours, the majority of results are expected to be declared by Friday afternoon — and by Friday evening the narrative will likely be set, even with final results dripping in on Saturday.

All parties will seize on early results to influence that narrative, so grab a coffee — here is POLITICO’s comprehensive guide to watching the results and what they mean for U.K. politics.

When do the battleground results come in?

1 a.m. Reform’s hopes to crowd out Labour and the Conservatives get an early stress test. The once red/blue battleground Harlow will give an idea of how badly Reform is squeezing the Tories in their Essex heartland, while Labour‑dominated Halton won’t change hands — but will indicate how well the party holds up under Reform pressure in the northwest.

2 a.m: Labour won back Hartlepool in 2024 after its loss of the Westminster seat in 2021 became a symbol of the party’s nadir. A Reform surge here would push the council back into no overall control. Farage’s party is also looking to make gains in Reform mayor Andrea Jenkyns’ patch, taking seats from Labour in Lincoln and the Tories in North East Lincolnshire. A decent night for Labour means defending ground in Bolton, Salford and Wigan. The Lib Dems will be watching to see if they make gains and solidify control in Colchester and Hart — both rare three-way splits of Tories, Lib Dems and independents.

3 a.m. The first “all out” councils declare including Westminster, where Tories are hunting a rare win to claw back the totemic council from Labour — though it’s made more complicated by the Greens hoping to pick up seats. A good night for Reform would mean sweeping most of the 14 seats up for election in Basildon, once so safe for the Tories that the Conservatives parachuted in shadow transport secretary Richard Holden at the 2024 general election. Labour is currently the largest party there.

4 a.m. Labour will be hoping not to lose too much of its hold on traditional bellwether Plymouth under pressure from Reform and the Greens. The Lib Dems hope to extend their dominance in Richmond upon Thames and Sutton. Reform will look for a takeover of Newcastle-under-Lyme, taking equally from Labour and the Conservatives.

5 a.m. Some of the major London battlegrounds come through thick and fast. Bexley is Reform’s clearest London target. Reform will also be keeping an eye on the more hostile ground of Labour’s Hammersmith and Fulham and Tory-run Kensington and Chelsea  — party strategists say if they can win seats here they can win anywhere. The Lib Dems are confident of taking Merton from Labour after capturing Wimbledon at the general election.

6 a.m. Results dry up for a few hours and the spin battle begins. Reform hopes Havering becomes its next London scalp. Labour faces a pincer movement in Wandsworth from Conservatives — looking to win back one of Margaret Thatcher’s flagship councils — and the Greens. The Lib Dems and Reform look to make gains from the Tories in Hampshire.

7 a.m. Go to bed and prepare for the next round.

Friday lunchtime: We start getting a flood of results from Scotland and Wales and should know the rough picture in both parliaments by early evening. (See more on that below.)

1 p.m. The Green Party hopes to win the London mayoralties of Hackney and Newham. Several parties will hope to break through the Labour wall of Manchester, where a third of seats are up, especially the Greens following their victory in the Gorton and Denton Westminster by-election, but also the Lib Dems and Reform.

2 p.m. The strength of Reform’s performance in Essex (all county council seats up) will give one of the clearest indications of how Farage is doing in his mission to replace the Tories. Labour faces pressure on two fronts: Reform expects to take control of Sunderland, and the Lib Dems hope to take Southwark where Labour’s large majority also faces pressure from the Greens. The Greens are also pushing to become the largest party on Norwich council.

3 p.m. It should become clear if the Green Party hype is real in London: the party hopes to win the Lewisham mayoralty, and make major inroads in Waltham Forest and Islington councils where Labour’s grip has already been loosened by Jeremy Corbyn‑linked independents. Epping Forest is another Essex Tory-resilience test against Reform.

4 p.m. We will get a clearer picture of how multi-party politics is realigning the country. Croydon’s mayoralty is on a genuine knife‑edge, with Labour, the Conservatives and Reform all in with a chance. In Newham Labour is under pressure from the Greens, Reform and Corbyn-backed Newham Independents. The Greens, Reform and Lib Dems are expecting to take seats from Labour in an all-out election for Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Also in the northeast, the all-out election for Gateshead is expected to be a more straightforward Labour vs. Reform test. Both Reform and the Conservatives see Hillingdon as a key battleground. 

5 p.m. Reform believes it can replace the Tories in Norfolk before the county council is abolished next year. The Greens aim to be the largest party in Haringey and Hackney, under the new mayoral system. The Tories hope to take back control of Barnet, one of London’s most split boroughs they lost to the Labour in 2022, but are under pressure from the Greens and Reform. It is hard to predict how the Golders Green terror attack will affect people’s views. A great night for Reform would see it winning Barking and Dagenham, the eastern stronghold that has been Labour-held since its creation in 1965.

After 6 p.m. Fourteen months of bin strikes and a bankrupt council leaves Birmingham wide open: all five national parties are competing along with a healthy number of independent candidates. The Greens look to wipe out Labour’s majority in Camden, Starmer’s home patch, and Lambeth — and consolidate power in Hastings where they run a minority administration. Over in Lib Dem land: after targeting Surrey Shufflers the party aims to lead the brand-new shadow-unitary councils of West Surrey and East Surrey. Corbyn-backed mayor Lutfur Rahman, once banned from office for “corrupt and illegal practices,” is expected to retain his control of Tower Hamlets.

Saturday afternoon: The narrative train will have left the station but a dull final dribble will see the Greens and Reform look to make advances in Bradford. Council results will also underline just how splintered Croydon council has become, then a final check on whether Lutfur Rahman’s Aspire party’s control over Tower Hamlets council is still absolute.

Key projections to look out for

Friday also sees dueling statistical models published. The BBC is due to publish its “projected national share” (PNS) from John Curtice and team on Friday afternoon — the exact timing is dependent on how gnarly the results turn out to be. The model extrapolates vote share from around 1,200 key wards across 60 councils to give a sense of the picture across Britain. Its authors stress it is not a seat projection for the next general election, but it’s still a bit of fun for the type of political geeks who read guides on watching local elections.

Sky News is promising a sneak peek of its “national equivalent vote” (NEV) model, run by Michael Thrasher, on Friday morning. The NEV offers a different national snapshot of nation-wide voting intention, and will be updated throughout the day on Sky News —the full version will then be published in this week’s Sunday Times, compiled by Thrasher and long-time collaborator Colin Rallings.

One big health warning: neither model counts the results from Scotland or Wales, as they use different voting systems. So, do not be surprised if PNS and NEV paint a very different picture to the results rolling in from Scotland and Wales.

Battlegrounds in Scotland

Scotland has 73 constituency seats elected by first-past-the-post. Expect these results from Friday lunchtime with most declared by the evening. The SNP dominates in these seats, so it should be clear by this point if it has done enough for a majority.

The other 56 MSPs are elected proportionally in eight regions. These will only start being counted after the constituencies — so expect results late Friday night or Saturday morning.

SNP-Tory marginal Ayr on Scotland’s west coast will be an early test of how well the SNP vote (and an anti-SNP vote among unionists) has held up after the party won a slim majority in 2021.

Scottish Labour Deputy Leader Jackie Baillie will try to keep her slim majority in Dumbarton, an SNP-Labour battleground with affluent and deprived pockets that she has hung onto since 1999. Losing it to the SNP would be a dark day for Scottish Labour in the central belt — Edinburgh, Glasgow and commuter towns that will do much to decide this election. Edinburgh Southern is another Labour seat the SNP will want to win if it is on course for a majority.

Scottish Labour’s best hope of gaining from the SNP (and raising a slim hope of entering government) lies in central belt seats it won in the 2024 Westminster election — including affluent East Lothian Coast and Lammermuirs.

Reform’s best chance of picking up a constituency seat lies in Banffshire and Buchan Coast, historically dependent on fishing and perhaps the only Scottish seat that backed Brexit in 2016. But the Scottish Conservatives would once have hoped to gain this one, and if the right-wing vote is split the SNP could hang on. It’s a similar story in Tory-held Aberdeenshire West.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats’ hopes of playing a kingmaker role will depend on whether they can hold their strongholds in the Highlands and Islands and add a handful of other seats. Strathkelvin and Bearsden is a key target for leader Alex Cole-Hamilton. 

The Scottish Greens have high hopes of beating SNP veteran Angus Robertson in Edinburgh Central, while there’s a three-way marginal between the incumbent Tories, SNP and Scottish Labour in leafy Eastwood, near Glasgow. By a strange quirk, if the Scottish Conservatives retain Eastwood it’s highly likely their leader Russell Findlay will fail to become an MSP. He is standing on the list in the corresponding region — and due to the nature of the voting system he could be punished if his party has too much success in the constituency. 

The list system apportions MSPs to parties depending on their performance across the constituencies in each region. With the SNP expected to dominate the constituencies, the other parties will pick up the bulk of their seats through the list vote. The SNP picked up just two list seats in 2021, with their other 62 seats coming from the constituencies. 

Battlegrounds in Wales 

Wales’ 96 seats will all come in a flurry on Friday afternoon unless recounts push into Saturday. Sixteen super-constituencies will each declare six seats at a time under the new semi-proportional D’Hondt system.

As each batch of six rolls in, check which party wins the coveted sixth-placed seat. Many are a toss-up between Plaid, Reform and Labour. This is where a small change in vote share will make a big difference.

Industrial Blaenau Gwent Caerffili Rhymni and Canewydd Islwyn in south Wales are among the first to declare. Labour is projected to pick up just two of the 12 seats as it’s squeezed by Plaid, Reform and Greens.

First Minister Eluned Morgan is fighting for one Labour seat (her own) in Ceredigion Penfro, which should declare mid-afternoon.

Cardiff (home to Welsh Secretary Jo Stevens) is the best hope for the Greens; Caerdydd Ffynnon Taf and Cerdydd Penarth declare mid-afternoon. Polls suggest the Greens could get anywhere between four and 10 seats across Wales. 

Look out for Reform success everywhere, but especially in northeast Wales, part of Labour’s old “red wall.” Three of Clwyd’s six seats for Reform would be a very good night. Plaid winning two seats (as predicted) in Fflint Wrecsam would show the west-dwelling nationalists are gaining ground right up against the English border.

Conservatives will be relieved with seats anywhere, but rural Pen-y-bont Bro Morgannwg and Sir Fynwy Torfaen in south Wales are the best places to look.

What’s at stake in England?

England’s council map is especially dangerous for Labour this year because it is defending the most seats of any party.

Nearly two-thirds of seats are being fought in London or large metropolitan councils, where Labour won big in 2022 as the Tories faced a row over Covid-19 rule breaches in No. 10. Privately organizers are suggesting Labour could lose more than half of the 2,557 councillors it is defending under a pincer movement from Reform and an insurgent Green Party.

Labour officials are working to lower expectations, insisting incumbents are always punished mid-term. But catastrophe on this scale could reignite a leadership push against Starmer.

Farage’s Reform expects to be the biggest overall winner for the second election cycle in a row. Numbers vary; while analysts Robert Hayward (a Conservative peer) and Peter Kellner both predicted more than 1,500 Reform gains, party aides insist they’ll be happy with anything over 1,000. The party wants to become the main challenger to Labour in the north of England and replace the Conservatives in their traditional strongholds around outer London, but will have to meet sky-high expectations if it wants to be on course to form the next government.

In a traditional election cycle, opposition parties might look to recover some ground at this point. Instead Conservative organizers privately accept losses are inevitable for a third election in a row. The party is defending 1,362 seats and Hayward and Kellner both estimate it will lose around 600. Several of those losses will be in the Essex backyard of senior frontbenchers, including leader Kemi Badenoch, Priti Patel and James Cleverly. 

Tory spinners want to paint this as a “rebuild and recovery” election — a chance to improve on last year’s nadir when they hit 15 percent national vote share, and to show Badenoch has managed to at least stem the bleeding.

Riding a polling lift under populist Zack Polanski, the Green Party senses a path to its best ever results despite a late dip in his personal popularity over his response to the recent attack on Jewish pedestrians in north London, as well as allegations of antisemitism against some council candidates. The map suits the Greens, squeezing Labour’s left flank in liberal parts of London while hoping to gain ground in Wales, the South East and northern cities. Multiplying their 142 seats by a factor of three or four would deepen Labour’s nightmare in cities it once took for granted.

The Lib Dems spy what they call a “mass opportunity” in the old Tory blue wall, exploiting anti-Reform sentiment and tactical voting — despite their national polling looking flat. The traditional third party is defending 684 seats and tipped to make modest gains. While it may not win the most seats this year, it believes a good performance would give it an outside chance of becoming the largest party in local government.

Independents, including those standing on a platform of talking about Gaza, are expected to do well riding a wider anti-Labour mood in pockets of the Midlands and northern England — where Labour lost votes, and some MPs, to pro-Palestinian independents in 2024. Birmingham is the clearest case, where anger over Labour’s Gaza stance in areas with large Muslim populations has fused with frustration over council failure and a prolonged bin strike.

The six mayoral votes are less high-profile than in previous years when more powerful combined‑authority jobs were on the line. But fractured multi‑party politics means a change of regime is possible in places like Hackney, Lewisham and Croydon.

What’s at stake in Scotland?

Every opinion poll predicts a comfortable advantage for the Scottish National Party which has led Scotland’s government since 2007. But the chances of winning the 65 seats needed for a majority — achieved just once in the parliament’s history — hang in the balance for John Swinney’s party.

The SNP will look to rely on the fellow independence backers in the Scottish Greens if it falls slightly short. If the SNP is well short the Scottish Parliament could be set for a chaotic term because the nationalist/unionist split cuts across left and right. Scottish Labour Leader Anas Sarwar would need to rely on Reform MSPs if he wanted to become first minister.

Labour once held high hopes but now faces a tight battle for second place with Reform’s insurgent Scottish setup. Sarwar’s attempts to distance himself from Starmer are yet to bear fruit electorally, and allies suspect a bad result would spell the end of his leadership.

What’s at stake in Wales?

Labour is projected to end a 104-year winning streak — coming third in the national parliament behind Reform and the left-wing Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru. Such a result will prompt soul-searching in Labour and a leadership race if First Minister Eluned Morgan loses her seat.

No party will win the 49 seats needed for a majority, but Plaid is largely expected to win the most seats, and even if it finishes behind Reform it has the best chance of holding power.

The Welsh nationalist party wants to run a minority government which would rely on Green and/or Labour votes to push legislation over the line. This will be messy and fray relations inside Wales and with Westminster. It will also raise the salience of Welsh independence.

Andrew McDonald reported from Scotland and Dan Bloom reported from Wales.