Nigel Farage launches legal challenge over Labour's delayed elections - 'fraud!'

Nigel Farage is to launch a legal challenge over the Government's decision to postpone elections for powerful new regional mayors. The delay has been branded "electoral fraud" after Labour was accused of putting off the votes because it feared a series of Reform victories. And Mr Farage said today: "We are actively pursuing a judicial review action against the Government over yet another attempt to delay elections where they fear Reform will win.

Labour's plans to cancel even more votes this year than last year must be challenged."

His party has instructed a KC, a senior barrister, who will consider whether the Government's decision was legal. A party source said Reform believed it had a "strong chance" of getting a court to look at the case. Local Government Secretary Steve Reed has delayed elections in four regions until 2028, even though candidates have been chosen and campaigning is underway for polls previously due next May.

The regions where mayor votes are delayed include Greater Essex, Norfolk & Suffolk, Hampshire & the Solent, and Sussex & Brighton. An analysis of recent polling by website Electoral Calculus found that Reform UK was the party most likely to win all four elections.

Explaining the decision, Mr Reed said he wanted to allow time for changes to local councils to be completed.

But Reform leader Nigel Farage attacked the decision last week, saying: "The government are basically committing electoral fraud upon the electorate.

It just shows the total and utter disdain this country has for liberty, democracy and freedom."

Votes next year would have been held under traditional "first past the post" rules, but changes introduced by Labour mean that elections in 2028 will be held under a system called the Supplementary Vote, which could reduce Reform's chances of winning.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said: "What we're seeing is a Labour Government that wasn't actually ready for government, and they've come in and they're making up their plans as they go along.

People need their democracy. They want to have a chance to vote for their local representatives."

Labour MP Jim McMahon, a former local government minister, has also condemned the delays and pointed out that local leaders had worked with the Government to agree the creation of the new regional authorities that mayors are supposed to lead.

Speaking in the Commons, he said: "Labour and other parties have already selected their candidates. The Government had a moral and a legal obligation to honour its side of the bargain.

Following a statute process, all involved had a reasonable expectation that these elections would go ahead, and the Government knows that trust is hard won but is easily squandered."

Other elections on May 7 could see Labour lose control of Wales for the first time since the Welsh Parliament was created in 1999, and lose ground to Reform UK in Scotland, once a Labour stronghold. Sir Keir Starmer's party also faces difficult local elections in English cities such as Birmingham, where it is threatened by "pro-Gaza" independent candidates.