Sir Peter Soulsby has said political "differences" must not "get in the way" of working for the people after Reform UK's Leicestershire County Council election victory.

The Labour city mayor has called on the 25 new Reform councillors to "work and collaborate" with Leicester leaders in the months and years ahead.

There will "of course" be differences of opinion going forwards and those differences "are important", he told the LDRS. However, they must not "get in the way of working in the interests of the people who elected us".

His comments follow the local elections in Leicestershire last week. The results saw the Conservative Party lose their 24-year control of Leicestershire County Council to Reform UK, which took 25 of the authority's 55 seats.

The Tories suffered heavy losses, dropping from 42 councillors in the 2021 election, to just 15. However, no party secured enough seats to claim a majority on the authority. Former acting leader of the council Deborah Taylor ruled out the possibility of the Conservatives forming a coalition – either with Reform or to keep them from taking control of the council – over the weekend.

Without the Tories, the Liberal Democrats, Labour and the Greens would not have enough councillors between them to reach the 28-seat figure needed to form a majority coalition. This means that Reform will lead the council, and is expected to do so from a minority position after the Liberal Democrats – who took 11 of the remaining seats – ruled out joining with them. Leicestershire is still waiting to see who of Reform's 25 new councillors will assume leadership of the authority, and who will fill the remaining cabinet positions.

While Leicestershire County Council and Leicester City Council are distinct authorities, with the city council the sole authority in Leicester and the county council sharing decision-making with the district and borough councils in Leicestershire, there are still areas of overlap between them.

This includes working with and holding to account the NHS for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, as well as Leicestershire Police and Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service.

There are also cross-border matters such as the Government's calls for a new political set-up in Leicestershire, doing away with the two-tier council approach, which require conversations and, preferably, collaboration between them.

Speaking to the LDRS following the results, Sir Peter said: "We have to work with the county across party lines. We have to collaborate with them. I've always said that, for a lot of what we do, it's about sensible collaboration rather than political differences."

He added: "I hope, and I have no reason to expect otherwise, that the new administration of the county will want to recognise that it's in everybody's interest for them to work and collaborate with us. That doesn't mean to say that there won't be differences, of course there will be, but those political differences, as important as they are, mustn't get in the way of of working in the interests of the people who elected us."

Across the country, both Labour and the Conservatives suffered huge losses at this year's local elections. We asked Sir Peter for his reflections on Labour's position in the city and nationally.

He said: "I think Keir Starmer is entirely right. It is going to be a question of the party doubling down on its efforts to deliver the change that they promised at the last election, and I think it is the case that people didn't feel that, as yet, enough of that promised change was actually being delivered. I suspect it will be the case that the government will feel the need to move on more quickly and more effectively."

Labour has led continuously in Leicester since 2007, but suffered significant losses to the Conservatives at the city's last local election, going from 53 of the council's 54 seats in 2019 to 31 in 2023. Looking ahead, we asked Sir Peter how he feels his party will fare when Leicester goes back to the polls in two years time.

He said: "There's the old saying that a week is a long time in politics. Years is even longer. So there's still time for it all to change.

"I mean, if you just look how dramatically people's attitudes have changed between the last general election, which was much less than a year ago, and now, it will be a very rash person who tried to predict the outcome of future elections in two years' time."

Categories: Elections