Sir Keir Starmer defended his U-turn on council elections today – blaming local authorities for wanting to postpone votes.

The Prime Minister broke cover today for the first time since his government reversed a plan for 30 English council elections to be delayed until next year to help town halls through a major reorganisation of local government.

In the 14th major policy U-turn of his 19-month premiership the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) on Monday reinstated the votes, after receiving advice from lawyers following a legal challenge by Reform.

More than 4.5million people are set to get a vote again in May’s council elections after the change. 

On a visit today to Wales, where Labour appears set to lose its grip on power, the Prime Minister appeared to suggest responsibility for the original decisions to postpone the votes lay with the local authorities.

Asked councils now being left scrambling to organise polls on May 7 at short notice due to his Government’s change of mind, he said: ‘Well, I think it’s important to remind ourselves that the decision to cancel was a locally led decision, in the sense that each authority could decide.

‘And, yes, Labour authorities came forward to say, ”please delay”, but so did Tory authorities, so did Lib Dem authorities.

‘In relation to the position, we took further legal advice and, as you would expect as a Government, having got further legal advice, we followed that legal advice.’

Insiders suggested a misinterpretation of the law was to blame for the blunder, which came just hours after the floundering Prime Minister dismissed the idea of more volte faces in a live radio interview.

But furious councils questioned whether the abolitions and merging of authorities can still go ahead, complaining that ministers have failed to get a grip. 

The Government has agreed to pay Reform UK’s legal costs after the party challenged the initial decision to postpone the votes.

The decision to reinstate elections was made ‘following legal advice’, an MHCLG spokesperson said.

They added: ‘Providing certainty to councils about their local elections is now the most crucial thing and all local elections will now go ahead in May 2026.’

Local Government Secretary Steve Reed wrote to council leaders, telling them he recognised ‘that many of the local councils undergoing reorganisation voiced genuine concerns about the pressure they are under’.

He announced up to £63 million in capacity funding to the 21 areas undergoing reorganisation across the whole programme, in addition to £7.6 million provided for developing proposals last year.

Yesterday it emerged that Mr Reed may have been personally responsible for weaking the government’s legal case due to comments be made in a newspaper article.

The Times reported that an op-ed in the paper in which he claimed voters would support cancelling ‘pointless’ and ‘time consuming’ elections to bodies that were soon to disappear, before confirming which areas would be affected.

It prompted calls for him to quit from reform leader Nigel Farage, among others.