The number of councils controlled by each party following the election are shown in the table below. Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats made modest gains in terms of their respective number of councillors, whereas the Conservatives made a net loss of 35 seats. UKIP lost nearly all of the 126 seats they were defending, with only 3 councillors elected. The turnout for the election was 35.0%.
Overall results Results in London The following table shows the aggregate results for the 32 councils that were up for election in London. †Due to boundary changes, the figures for seat losses/gains are notional changes calculated by the BBC, and do not match up precisely to the London-wide results in 2014.
Results outside of London The following table shows the aggregate results for the 118 councils that were up for election outside of London. Only four councils switched from a majority for one party to another. The Conservatives gained
Redditch from Labour, and lost control of three councils to the Liberal Democrats:
Kingston upon Thames,
Richmond upon Thames and
South Cambridgeshire. The Liberal Democrats also gained
Three Rivers District Council from no overall control. Labour gained a majority on three councils that had been under no overall control (
Kirklees,
Plymouth and
Tower Hamlets) while losing their majority on two (
Derby and
Nuneaton and Bedworth). The Conservatives gained a majority on one council that had been under no overall control (
Basildon) while losing their majority on two (
Mole Valley and
Trafford). Labour won the inaugural mayoral election for the
Sheffield City Region. Five other mayoral elections saw no change in the winning party: Labour held four and the Liberal Democrats held one.
Analysis This was the first set of local elections since the
2017 general election. Most of the seats up for election had last been contested in the
2014 local elections. Because the group of local councils varies with each cycle of local elections, the BBC and other analysts calculated a projected national vote share, which aims to assess what the council results indicate the UK-wide vote would be if the results were repeated at a general election. The BBC's estimate put Labour on 35% of the vote (up 8% since 2017), the Conservatives on 35% (down 3%), the Liberal Democrats on 16% (down 2%). In the
May 2017 local elections, the projected national voteshare was 38% for the Conservatives, 27% for Labour, 18% for the Liberal Democrats and 5% for UKIP. When votes were still being counted, media reports widely described the result as "mixed" for both Labour and the Conservatives. The results suggested that support for the parties had not moved much since the general election 11 months earlier. Some reports considered the results a relief for Theresa May and the Conservatives. Ben Margulies, a research fellow at the
University of Warwick, noted how the
UK Independence Party's collapse in vote share directly benefited the Conservatives as they committed to
exiting the European Union. Margulies stated that the Conservatives' position with the electorate will "remain perched on a precipice". Matthew Mokhefi-Ashton, a politics lecturer at
Nottingham Trent University, argued that Labour had set their expectations too high and thus made the actual result look disappointing by comparison. David Cutts, a professor of political science at the University of Birmingham, described the Liberal Democrats' performance in the election as "underwhelming" in contrast to the media response, arguing that the party only made moderate gains in their strongholds from before the
Liberal-Conservative coalition and council areas that were seen as "Strong Remain" and "Strong Leave". Cutts argued that the
next local elections in England are a greater test of their stability as they feature substantially more strongholds. ==London boroughs==