Ian Simpson, Senior Research Officer
“Across this year, our research team has continued to conduct independent, in-depth and timely research into the state of our political system. Conducting high-quality research is key to achieving our strategic goals as it provides the evidence base for our policy and campaigns. Findings are fed into government consultations, presented to select committees and quoted in parliament as well as shaping and driving our commentary in the media.”
2025 Local Elections Analysis
We closely monitored and analysed the outcomes of the English local and mayoral elections in May this year. Having collected data on the results of equivalent elections held in previous years, we were able to quickly compare the May 2025 results with previous ones highlighting how the electoral environment had changed.
We also highlighted how Strategic Authority mayors were elected with low vote shares under First Past the Post, with two coming to office with fewer than 30% of votes. We followed up our public statements and blogs on this with a letter to relevant government ministers calling for First Past the Post for Mayors and Police & Crime Commissioner elections to be scrapped. We are delighted that the government has acted on our call, going back to a preferential voting system in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill.
In relation to the English local authority elections, we highlighted a number of councils where one party, often Reform UK, won an outright majority of councillors having received the support of only around one-third of voters, under First Past The Post. Our analysis contributed to the ongoing focus on the fragmentation of party support in the UK, with voters supporting an ever-increasing number of parties, making First Past The Post increasingly unfit for purpose. We were able to show how for the first time in a set of English local elections, the unearned FPTP ‘winner’s bonus’ went to a party other than the Conservatives or Labour: across England, Reform UK won 41% of council seats from 31% of votes.
Electoral landscape analysis
Increased party fragmentation and volatility, the key themes of our GE report, continue to be dominant discussion points with the polls showing voters continuing to move away from the two largest parties. These changes are crucial to winning the argument for PR and are now being more widely recognised. We have continued to analyse the electoral landscape post-General Election and share our findings with a range of audiences, including political parties, trade unions and public discussion groups.
Expert Forum on Political Finance
Prior to the government releasing the election strategy statement, we initiated and convened an Expert Forum to develop policy and feed into the Elections Bill political finance measures. The expert forum brought together international elections experts, UK academics with specialisms in electoral finance and policy experts to discuss where the gaps are in the UK political finance regime and what needs to change. The findings of the forum have been used to influence the forthcoming legislation.
Diversity in Politics
Since 2018 we have been working with Centenary Action to call for Section 106 of the Equality Act 2010 to be commenced. S106 would compel political parties to publish the diversity data of candidates for election to the UK Parliament, the Senedd and the Scottish Parliament. At the start of 2025 we secured Ministerial commitment to commence S106. Since then, we have consulted civil servants, academics, political parties and the third sector to create a detailed briefing on the implementation of S106 for the Office for Equality and Opportunity (OEO). We have also convened a roundtable with the OEO, Centenary Action and the wider women’s sector to discuss and advocate for reforms to increase women’s representation in political office.
Support the Electoral Reform Society
As momentum builds for electoral reform, your support is more important than ever. Members support our work in parliament, in the press and online – making the case, and backing it up – for how we can fix Westminster’s broken system.