International Socilaist League
In the May 2025 elections were held for six mayoral places, 1,650 local councillors (23 Local Authority areas), and a by-election in Runcorn and Helsby. Reform UK gained 677 council seats making a total of 803. With a turnout of 35 per cent this is a little higher than generally achieved in previous local elections.
Despite a colossal victory ten months ago, Labour took a hammering, whilst the Tories were devastated.
Both lost hundreds of seats amounting to two-thirds of their 2021 seats on local councils. In 81 electoral wards there was not a single vote for Labour (mainly within Cornwall and Wiltshire). Reform received 31% of the vote, Conservatives 23%, Liberal Democrats 17% and Labour 14% across all the councils holding elections. Reform secured majorities and control in 10 councils, as Labour obtained no majorities at all.
Both the Greens and Liberal Democrats increased the number of councillors with the Liberal Democrats making significant gains particularly in the south-west of England.
What does this mean?
When in government for just 4 weeks the Labour Party cut the winter fuel allowance from pensioners not in receipt of Pension Credit (a means-tested benefit); the March budget attacked the disabled people and sick; the Treasury halved the money paid to new claimants of the incapacity benefit element of Universal Credit and froze its current levels until 2030. With plans to remove eligibility to the extra incapacity benefit payment on universal credit and Personal Independence Payment from people under 22-years (paid to people whose health conditions or disabilities limit their ability to work), Labour say they aim to raise £5bn by the end of the decade, by attacking the most vulnerable and poorest in our society. According to Oxfam there are a record 4.5 million children in UK today living in poverty today and this alarming figure will increase as the cuts continue to take their toll.
Labour’s so called drive to get people into work by making cuts is not about getting people into jobs, but about slashing money from the welfare budget so that the chancellor can meet her fiscal challenges to spend more on warfare and maintain the wealth of the richest.
Reeves, Keir Starmer and the cabinet are set on impoverishing millions of disabled people and working class families. The health secretary, Wes Streeting, endorses the idea that mental illness is “over diagnosed”, that they may not actually be as sick and disabled as they say!
But there is a real crisis of public health – manifested in conditions such as obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. And a national emergency centred on a genuine epidemic of anxiety and depression. These are deep social issues that need to be addressed not punished.
With terrible Labour losses and staggering Tory losses in the local elections, the right-wing populist Reform UK are the beneficiaries with their ideology based on anti-immigration, patriotism, xenophobia, and support for Trump. Voting Reform can be interpreted as a scream of protest and disillusionment with the 2 parties and the state of everything. However, Reform will do nothing to halt austerity for the working class.
As we see Labour move even further to the right, viciously attacking immigrants, criminalising trans people, attacking benefit recipients and waving the union jack, there is little difference with the far right and nothing that can alleviate the desperation, suffering and anger of workers. Neither Labour nor Reform will tax the rich nor will they increase spending on public services as they are both in the pockets of billionaires and millionaires. Labour’s cuts to welfare and services are being used to maintain the wealthy elite and increase military expenditure that will be used to kill workers and oppressed people across the world.
Workers have had enough of high living costs, precarious and low paid work, attacks on benefits and increasing austerity, with growing concerns over the crises in the NHS, schools and housing.
The working class is the only force to resolve these crises, so that means we must build alliances and bring together all who are fighting for their rights. This will mean building a new party of the working class. To succeed this party must be based in all sections of the working class and oppressed groups, taking a principled international stand.
We have to build a united mass struggle, based on democratic functioning. We urge our contacts to read the material of the ISL, come to our meetings, join us and help build inside rising movements – over Palestine, over trans rights, workers’ picket lines and community struggles.
10-point program for a Workers Party
1) Defend unions and workers’ rights to organise! For an independent workers’ party based on a democratic, fighting workers’ movement! No support for Tories, Lib Dems or Labour!
2) End all immigration controls! Safe and legal routes for all immigrants! No to Rwanda!
3) End racism! End violent policing! Reparations to all former enslaved and colonised peoples! Self-determination for all peoples!
4) Reproductive justice: Free, accessible contraception and abortion on demand! Defend bodily autonomy, whether for childbearing, abortion, or gender-confirming therapy! End sexism and domestic violence!
5) Free quality universal public health care now! Quality free public child care and elder care for all, 24-7! End reliance on unpaid labour! Free education for a lifetime!
6) Full civil and human rights for the LGBTQIA+ community!
7) For climate justice! Public ownership of the energy industry under workers’ and community control to achieve emergency conversion to 100% renewable energy!
8) No British military interventions! Dismantle the war machine! End diplomatic, commercial and military relations with Israel! For a democratic secular Palestine! The right to self-determination of all peoples.
9) For the full integration of disabled people into social, political, and economic life!
10) Public ownership, under workers’ control, of big industry, transport, water and the banks! For a workers’ government and a planned economy—for socialism!