Angela Rayner didn’t ‘break the law’ by postponing some local elections

Posts on social media have claimed that Angela Rayner, Deputy Prime Minister, and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, broke the law by cancelling some of the local council elections earlier this year. The posts added: “It went as high as the Supreme Court and they upheld the lower court decision!”

But this isn’t the case. While nine councils in England saw their elections postponed from May 2025 until May 2026 so that the councils could take part in local government reorganisation, there was no legal case against this that reached the Supreme Court. All other scheduled local elections went ahead as planned in May.

Section 87 of the Local Government Act 2000 gives the secretary of state the power to make an order to change the year in which the ordinary election of councillors of any local authority takes place.

Using this power, the government made the Local Authorities (Changes to Years of Ordinary Elections) (England) Order 2025 (SI 2025/137) on 10 February 2025, with the order coming into force on 4 March 2025.

Were there any legal challenges?

We could not find any evidence of legal challenges being brought against the government over the postponing of the local elections, in the Supreme Court or anywhere else.

However, there was a lot of criticism over postponement, including from some politicians from across the political spectrum. One Conservative MP called it “anti-democratic”, the Liberal Democrats described it as a “scandal” and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage claimed: “Only dictators cancel elections.”

Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats criticised the Conservatives, as most of the councils that asked for election delays were Conservative-led. The Green Party said county councils had made “rushed and undemocratic pleas” to postpone elections and wanted all May elections to go ahead as initially planned.

The government also received what it described as “a significant amount of correspondence, largely opposed to postponement, from other councils in some of the areas, from political groups within councils and from members of the public”.

It said: “Opposition was grounded in terms of the removal of democratic rights of voters and questions about the ongoing democratic mandate of incumbent councillors, particularly where significant decisions on the future of an area are to be taken; in some instances, arguments were expressed in party political terms.

“Some representations also pointed to the possibility that future council elections would also be postponed where local government reorganisation proceeds, leading to extended periods without elections and longer terms of office for incumbent councillors.”

Why were some council elections postponed?

As we’ve explained previously, some councils in England with elections scheduled for May 2025, including all county councils and some unitary authorities, were able to ask the government for these to be postponed, if the councils wished to take part in the first phase of the government’s reorganisation plans.

Some areas of England are covered by a single unitary authority, while others are covered by the “two-tier” system, in which responsibility for services is shared between the 21 county councils and the 164 district councils they cover.

The government wants to move councils in two-tier forms of local government to single-tier unitary authorities.

Sixteen county councils and two unitary authorities asked the government for permission to postpone their local elections to take part in this local government reorganisation, with nine of these requests granted.

Ms Rayner said in February that the bar for postponement was “high, and rightly so” and agreed to postpone elections “only in places where this is central to our manifesto promise to deliver devolution”, noting it would be “an expensive and irresponsible waste of taxpayers’ money” to hold elections “to bodies that will not exist, and where we do not know what will replace them”.

Delayed votes are now due to take place in May 2026.

False or misleading claims online have the potential to harm individuals, groups and democratic processes and institutions. Online claims can spread fast and far, and are difficult to contain and correct.

This week (1-7 June) Full Fact is the subject of the BBC Radio 4 Appeal. Listen today to broadcaster and journalist Martha Kearney tell Charlotte’s story—all donations mean Full Fact can do more to help people like Charlotte.