Do the local elections strengthen the case for electoral reform?

On 21 May 2026, a full house gathered in Parliament to hear Sir John Curtice assess what May’s local election results meant for elections held under First Past the Post.

His warning was blunt: “If at the same time your vote goes down and becomes more geographically spread, the system will murder you.”

Chaired by Zoe Williams, the panel also featured Professor Tim Bale and APPG member Lizzi Collinge MP. Bale said the elections had produced “a very, very fragmented result”, with the combined Labour and Conservative vote share falling to little more than 30%.

The expert panel highlighted how First Past the Post can generate highly arbitrary outcomes in a five-party system. In February, more than 50 leading academics warned that the system was likely to produce increasingly unpredictable results. The May elections confirmed that concern, with relatively small shifts in vote share translating into large and uneven changes in representation and, in some cases, striking “wrong-winner” outcomes.

Bale noted that First Past the Post had historically benefited Labour and the Conservatives, but that Britain now had “a five-way split of votes”. He warned that the next general election could produce “a very strange outcome”.

The discussion highlighted a growing political and academic consensus: First Past the Post is increasingly unable to produce fair, reliable and representative election results.

Curtice closed by stressing the need to prepare for reform before the political opportunity arrives. “If you haven’t done the groundwork before the moment of political opportunity then you won’t seize it effectively,” he said. A commission, he argued, could help provide that groundwork.