Campaigning sprint finish ahead of elections around Britain tomorrow

ShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleChris MasonPolitical editorPAWe stand on the cusp of the biggest set of elections since the general election two years ago. Tomorrow morning, polling stations will be open in communities across Scotland and Wales, as voters choose who should run their devolved governments - and they will be open too in many, but not all, parts of England, as more than 5,000 seats on 136 councils are contested, as well as six mayoral vacancies. For weeks already, people having been casting their ballot by post. The parties and the candidates are now preparing their final pitch to you. Plaid Cymru, who one day would like to see an independent Wales, are in a tussle with Reform UK to emerge as the largest party in the newly expanded Senedd, the Welsh Parliament. Plaid argue they are the only party that can beat Reform, and so hope to attract voters who might not normally be drawn to them, but are very keen Reform are not the winners. Reform, for their part, are confident they can emerge as the biggest party in the Senedd. In Scotland, the Scottish National Party are confident of winning their fifth devolved election in a row. Like Plaid, they too are pitching themselves as the most viable option when it comes to beating Nigel Farage's party. Reform are revelling in being competitive in a nation that strongly endorsed Remain in the Brexit referendum a decade ago. And it is not just in Scotland and Wales that Westminster's two big beasts, Labour and the Conservatives, are on the back foot. The prime minister argues he has got the big judgement call of 2026 right: that it was in the UK's national interest, he believes, not to be directly involved in America and Israel's war on Iran. Labour also emphasise their attempts to improve the health service and changing the law to improve workers' rights. But Sir Keir Starmer does so while pleading with his party, in public and in private, to cut out all the chat about his future and who might replace him. Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, is travelling around London by taxi today, dropping in on boroughs where the Tories feel optimistic about their prospects. Badenoch, like Starmer, expects these elections to be difficult for her party. She claims the Conservative plans are thought-through and costed, in a clear jibe at Reform UK, and has vowed to abolish business rates in England and Wales. It tells you something about the vulnerabilities of Labour and the Conservatives that many of the other parties are hoping – and often confident – that they will be the recipient of votes from those fed up with Westminster's big two. That is the specific pitch of the Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, who also argues that in places like Hull and Stockport, Surrey and Hampshire, it is the Lib Dems who are Reform UK's true rivals. Davey leans into his party focusing on local issues – such as fixing the church roof or cleaning up sewage from rivers. But the Liberal Democrats no longer dominate as perhaps they used to as the most obvious alternative in lots of places to Labour and the Tories. That, in particular in England, is because of the rise of Reform UK and the Greens. As for Reform UK, party leader Farage has been revelling in his lifelong political role as disruptor-in-chief, while fending off questions about the huge £5m gift from the British billionaire Christopher Harborne, which Farage didn't declare. He insists he didn't have to - his opponents insist he should have done. It will now be down to the parliamentary standards commissioner and the Electoral Commission to decide. Farage hopes his party will perform sufficiently well in England, Wales and Scotland to be able to argue Reform are the principal opposition to the Labour Party across Great Britain. He has argued the elections amount to a referendum on the prime minister's leadership. The Green Party of England and Wales, energised under its relatively new leader Zack Polanski, eyes gains at Labour's expense in urban England and hopes for a breakthrough in the Senedd in Wales. His pitch amounts to claiming it is now the Greens who are the authentic, truly left-wing alternative to a Labour Party he claims has drifted to the right. But Polanski has faced difficult questions in recent days after he publicly endorsed criticism of the Metropolitan Police's methods in the detaining of the suspect in the Golders Green attacks in north London last week. The Scottish Green Party is separate from its English and Welsh sister and, like the SNP, backs Scottish independence. It is worth remembering too there are independent candidates, in particular in some local contests in England. All in all it is a mesmerising mix, with results coming not just in the early hours of Friday, but throughout Friday and into Saturday too.

Campaigning sprint finish ahead of elections around Britain tomorrow

Key takeaways

More in top