The 2026 elections have been seismic for the UK. Results in Wales, England and Scotland will have significant implications for how projects engage with political bodies for years to come.
Wales returned the first results in its devolved history where Labour was not the largest party. Labour’s suffering continued with disastrous local elections in England, losing over 1,200 council seats, with Reform filling the void and building a significant council presence. And in Scotland, the SNP continues to be the largest party, but again without a majority.
The elections led to momentous change. But what do major projects need to take away from the results as a whole? Here, we’ve set out some of the key considerations for infrastructure programmes in their future engagement:
Many new faces
The May elections were significant for a number of reasons, but chief among them is the sheer number of new faces in councils and devolved parliaments across the UK.
In England’s elections alone, over 1,300 Reform councillors were elected. In Wales, the expansion of Senedd seats to 96 from 60 combined with many MSs standing down meant close to half of elected officials are now serving their first term. And in Scotland, 42 MSPs announced they were stepping down even before elections were held – a record.
The result is many organisations will have significantly depleted institutional memory – many representatives will be engaging with technical detail on topics and issues in their area for the first time, and projects will need to re-build relationships where representatives have stood down or lost their seats.
Given the scale of change in some areas (especially English councils with wild fluctuations, like Bradford where Labour lost 29 seats and Reform gained the same number), significant re-engagement will be critical to establish understanding of project benefits quickly.
Greater fragmentation now exists inside institutions
Plaid Cymru and Reform’s significant gains, the SNP’s continued strength, the steady rise of the Lib Dems, and the Green Party’s growth in prominence all underline how the two-party system in the UK is well and truly gone for the foreseeable future and elections.
Labour and the Conservatives’ poor showings in all three elections means the UK is moving ever further toward a highly fragmented political system – where multiple parties vie for prominence and a natural order of ‘big vs small’ parties no longer exists.
This is no clearer than in England. Out of the 136 councils contested, nearly half (65) now have no majority, and 23 more councils moved from a majority to No Overall Control than the other way round. Similarly in Scotland, with the exception of the SNP, all other parties are within a handful of MSP seats of each other; the difference between the parties in second from the one in sixth is seven.
In practice, it showcases how engagement will require a more nuanced approach. Many councils in England do retain strong majorities from these elections, but it is much less than before – and signals a similar trend for the next local elections.
Organisations therefore need to think about how they can promote their projects to simultaneously align themselves with multiple parties’ political agendas, lest they face opposition from a multitude of political organisations at once.
And between institutions, there has never been more political variety
The wider implication of this fragmentation is that political leadership across regions and nations and at different levels of government is becoming more mixed than ever. Wins for Plaid and Reform in particular have upended traditional strongholds for the major parties.
In practice, that means major projects operating on a regional or national level will face highly complex stakeholder environments. For instance, projects could now need to engage with:
- Recently elected councils (where a strong Reform / Green presence is now likelier);
- Councils which haven’t held elections in the last year (where Labour or the Conservatives are likely to retain a strong number of seats);
- Devolved governments (which, in Wales, will require projects to seriously engage with Plaid Cymru as a national decisionmaker for the first time);
- Combined Authorities – which still heavily skew toward Labour, and;
- MPs, which are based on the 2024 General Election where Labour steamed to victory and the Conservatives held off a Reform charge.
Complicated? Definitely. It underscores how on a larger scale, organisations will have to engage a myriad of institutions likely run with wildly different political priorities in mind. For instance, a project in Wales could now easily find itself needing to engage with a Plaid national government, several Reform UK constituency MSs, and a Labour Westminster MP. Clearly, finding balance among that engagement will be tougher than ever.
It is also important to view these results in the context of the next phase of the political cycle. Attention is already turning to the 2027 Scottish and Welsh local elections, which will further shape the planning and delivery environment. The composition of political institutions emerging from those election will be critical in determining how national policy is implemented locally. Monitoring how political positioning, alliances and priorities develop between now and 2027 will therefore be an important part of understanding longer-term delivery risk and opportunity.
The takeaway is that organisations will need to have a clearer understanding than ever before of how projects gain consent, and which stakeholders are especially influential in that process. Understanding which stakeholders require active advocacy building, instead of stakeholders who require a more ‘informed-only’ approach, will be pivotal to navigating the political pitfalls of gaining consent for projects.
Keen to understand how elections may impact your organisation? At Copper, we’re here to help you navigate the new political normal – from local political engagement all the way to Westminster. Want to chat? Get in touch here.