After weeks of pressure, the Labour Government has abandoned its plans to cancel local elections across 30 councils, including Peterborough, and confirmed that polls will go ahead as planned on 7 May. The U-turn followed a legal challenge in the High Court from Reform UK and, according to Downing Street, further legal advice warning that the delay could be unlawful.
For Peterborough residents, this is welcome news. But it's worth pausing on how we got here, and on the words used by the Prime Minister himself.
When Peterborough City Council's Labour Cabinet voted in January to ask Government for a delay, Council Leader Cllr Shabina Qayyum was adamant that nothing undemocratic was taking place. She told the Cabinet meeting that the council was "simply postponing elections," and repeatedly rejected the suggestion that democracy was being taken away from residents.
Yet when defending the Government's own U-turn to reporters this week, the Prime Minister himself described the original plan in very different terms. Asked about the decision, Sir Keir Starmer said it was important to remember that "the decision to cancel was a locally-led decision." Not postponed. Cancelled, in the Prime Minister's own words.
It's a telling slip, and one that exposes the gap between the reassuring language used by Peterborough's Labour run Cabinet (made up of Labour, Lib Dems and Peterborough First members), and the reality of what was actually being proposed.
There's a further point that deserves attention, because it shows why "postponement" was always the wrong word for what residents were being asked to accept. Peterborough City Council itself is due to be abolished under the Government's Local Government Reorganisation programme, with a brand new unitary authority set to take over in its place. Had the delay gone ahead, there would have been no Peterborough City Council election in 2027 to "catch up" on. Instead, the first election residents would have had a say in would have been for an entirely new authority. In other words, this was never a simple twelve-month pause on the same election. It would have meant residents going years without any say over who represents them on the council that currently runs their services, with the next vote actually being the first ever election to a different organisation altogether.
We're glad common sense has prevailed and that residents will get their say on 7 May. But this episode is a reminder of why local people were right to be angry in the first place, and why we will keep holding this Labour run council to account for trying to take that choice away.