The UK’s radical ‘Preston model’ faces an uncertain future with local elections looming

‘Were Reform to capture the council, the Preston model might quickly unravel. “I think very little of it would survive,” council leader Matthew Brown told me.’ Photograph: Jon Super

What legacy will Labour leave when it loses power? For its ministers and MPs, that question looms in the far distance, with the next general election probably not for three years and the current political fragmentation making its outcome almost impossible to predict. But for many Labour councils, facing the electorate in less than three weeks with the party catastrophically low in the polls, now is a time for desperate campaigning mixed with private contemplation of a bleaker, quite possibly powerless future.

Energetic and effective Labour councils may meet the same fate as complacent and mediocre ones, as local elections often follow national trends. The last time an unpopular, midterm Labour government faced such ominous local contests may have been many decades ago, in 1968. Then the party lost more than three-quarters of its councils in London alone, including traditional strongholds such as Hackney, Islington and Camden. Across Britain today, Labour activists and councillors are talking to each other in anxious mutters about a national wipeout happening again.