An electoral 'super Thursday' tests Keir Starmer's political future

LondonLess than two years after the general election that brought Keir Starmer to power, the premier is playing a large part of its political future this Thursday. The United Kingdom celebrates a Polls predict that the party could lose between 1,500 and 2,000 councillors in England's municipal councils; that it will struggle to remain the second political force in the Holyrood Parliament (Scotland); and that it could also lose the Welsh Assembly after a century of dominance. If these polls are confirmed, and the party suffers an unequivocal defeat on all three fronts, the voices already calling for an orderly succession of Starmer

could grow even stronger and become widespread.

Critics, in fact, have for weeks been suggesting, through all sorts of leaks to the media, that Starmer's hypothetical replacement should be at Downing Street by the end of September, coinciding with the party's annual congress.

The triple electoral appointment comes in a context of great wear and tear for Keir Starmer due to the scandal of

the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the United States

; also due to a series of constant changes in social policies during his twenty-two months in power that have alienated his more progressive voters.

All this has contributed to the spread of the feeling that there is neither captain nor compass in the engine room of Westminster, with a government subjected to a very uncertain international juncture that greatly burdens the economy.

The threats to Labour are of three different types and in each of the three mentioned territories they have specific characteristics. We see, below, what they are:

The pincer between Reform and Greens in England

The English local –and partial– elections last year showed that the Reform Party, led by the populist and xenophobic Nigel Farage, could seriously undermine the power of the conservatives. This Thursday, Farage's big challenge is to also establish himself as a threat to Labour, with the 2029 general election on the horizon.

The Reform Party, which now has eight MPs in the House of Commons, has topped polls in England since May 2025, when it gained almost 700 new councillors. Polls suggest that the vast majority of Labour's losses (1,791 councillors) will swell Farage's personalist party, which could gain around 1,750.

But this is not the only danger facing Starmer and his party in the various English town halls. Labour is also being attacked from the left by the Green Party, which has had a new leader since last September, Zack Polanski. It is in the 32 districts of London where the Greens could deepen the wound that Reform can inflict on Labour in the more rural areas.

Wales, the end of hegemony?

For months, winds of change have been blowing in Cardiff. In mid-October last year, Labour lost one of its most solid strongholds in Wales for the first time in over a century in a by-election to the Senedd (the Welsh Parliament). The defeat, largely brought about by the enthusiasm and desire for change among the younger population, was sealed at the hands of the independentist Plaid Cymru, and it was a real wake-up call for Downing Street. The Labour First Minister, Eluned Morgan, attributed the failure to the burden that is Starmer's management of the central government, according to sources very close to Morgan herself, confirmed by ARA.

And the weight of the slab has increased since last autumn in light of the aforementioned scandals affecting Starmer. The Labour Party's prospects are slim, according to polls. A Plaid Cymru that has lowered the tone of its independence has many possibilities of dislodging Labour from power in a territory that has been the ideological laboratory and the main bastion of the party for more than a century. These same polls place Reform as the true rival of the separatists. The labour would come in third place, which would represent a disaster of historic proportions.

The modification of the electoral system, adopting the D'Hondt law, the expansion of the number of seats to 96 (from the previous 60), in sixteen districts, and the reduction of the voting age to sixteen years makes many observers look at the polls with skepticism. In any case, the average of the polls grants 29% of the votes to Plaid Cymru and between 30 and 35 seats, while it grants Farage's formation around 27% of the votes, with a similar number of deputies.

Will the SNP's hegemony in Edinburgh continue?

In 2024, in the general elections, Labour won 37 out of 57 seats at stake in the country's constituencies in Scotland. The Scottish National Party (SNP), hegemonic north of Hadrian's Wall since Alex Salmond's first victory in 2007, seemed to have gradually reached the end of its dominance.

However, polls indicate that Scottish independence supporters will achieve an extraordinary fifth term, with between 55 and 65 deputies. If they reach this maximum figure, they would secure an absolute majority which, according to the Scottish First Minister, John Swinney, would open the door to a second independence referendum.

What can explain the SNP's continuity in power? In large part, the division over the independence debate. Unionism is shattered among the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, and the Reform Party, and the Scottish electoral system, which is mixed, penalizes division. For its part, with the death of Alex Salmond a year and a half ago, the independence vote has once again unified mostly around the SNP, and marginally around the Greens, putting an end to the bleeding unleashed by the fratricidal fight between Salmond and his successor, Nicola Sturgeon, putting an end to the bleeding unleashed by the fratricidal fight between Salmond and his successor, Nicola Sturgeon.

Beyond the incógnita about whether the SNP will achieve an absolute majority or not, the other big question to be resolved in Scotland is whether Labour will come in second or third place, behind the Reform Party. In early February, and following the aforementioned scandals regarding Mandelson's appointment, the leader of Scottish Labour, Anas Sarwar, called for Starmer's resignation.

If Sarwar comes in third place, his resignation will indeed be inevitable.

But without standing in any of the elections directly, it is Keir Starmer who has the most to lose this electoral super-Thursday.super Thursday

. The Prime Minister must demonstrate that he still governs more than the inertia that could end up ousting him from Downing Street in a few months. If he has resisted so far, it is because the party has not yet found a reliable replacement. Nevertheless, there is no shortage of candidates.