What if no-one wins control of South councils?

When there's a General Election, one party normally comes out on top, a winner!

A new prime minister, or one who has fought off a challenger and stays at Number 10.

But in local elections, it's often not that simple.

In many cases, councils end up in no overall control (NOC) where no one party gets enough seats to declare themselves victorious

So then what happens?

To be in the party in control with a majority, you have to end up with at least half the number of total seats on the council plus one.

The plus one means you've always got the casting vote if a decision is divided, so you can run the council without support from other parties.

That's the case currently in Southampton where Labour hold 31 of the 51 seats, Wokingham where the Lib Dems hold 27 of the 48 seats and Fareham where the Conservatives are the majority party (24/32).

But in many other areas, parties only run councils with support, they are the largest party, but are in charge of a minority administration.

At the moment, the leader of the council in Portsmouth is a Liberal Democrat - they hold 18 of the 42 seats.

If a vote is controversial, they would need councillors from other parties to back them.

The second largest party is now Reform UK who have 10 councillors following defections.

Oxford is currently run by a Labour minority administration and Gosport by the Liberal Democrats.

Minority administrations are really common in local government - the local government information unit (LGiU) said going into this election 29% of councils with elections in May are in no overall control.

It's normally the largest party that forms the administration, but not always.

After the 2021 election on the Isle of Wight, the Conservatives were the largest party with 18 of the 39 seats.

Negotiations took place behind the scenes after that election and a new leader was appointed who was from the second largest political group - the Independents.

Which neatly brings us on to the rainbow coalition.

This is where multiple parties work together to run a council.

It's the current state of operation on the Isle of Wight (Independents, Greens, Island Independent Network and Our Island) and in Havant (Labour, Liberal Democrats, Greens and an Independent) and West Oxfordshire (Lib Dems, Lab and Greens)

It means the key posts on a cabinet or with a portfolio like "children's services" or "economy and regeneration" are shared between parties.

Supporters of coalitions argue that most councillors with a seat on a council are just representing their local area and national party politics has a minimal influence so it doesn't really matter.

But they can be unstable if parties start to disagree or the opposition parties challenge the leadership.

This happened in Dorset in September 2020 at BCP (Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole) Council, where after 16 months the Unity Alliance coalition of Liberal Democrats, Poole People, Labour, Green and an independent were ousted after criticism of how the council handled Covid-19.