Labour loses Birmingham control after 14 years — Birmingham City Council Election Results

Labour lost overall control of Birmingham City Council after 14 years, ending its run in the birmingham city council election results. No party won a majority in the 101-seat all-out vote, and the council now moves into a period without overall control.

John Cotton and Labour

John Cotton, the outgoing Labour leader of Birmingham City Council, said the party needed to "listen carefully to the message" of the electorate. He added that Labour had to communicate its vision better and said, "We need to think about how we start to tell in a more coherent, systematic way, the story of the great things that this Labour government is doing."

Cotton defended his record by pointing to "difficult decisions to bring the finances back into balance" and "longstanding challenges that have dogged this council for many years like equal pay." Birmingham City Council had a £4.4bn budget and declared bankruptcy in 2023, leaving the city with cuts to local services and an ongoing bin strike.

Reform, Greens and independents

The result included 21 Reform councillors, 11 Green councillors and 10 independent gains, while the council has so far lost more than 30 Labour councillors. That shift left no party with overall control across the 101 seats at stake.

Nosheen Khalid, elected in the inner city ward of Alum Rock, said voters "had enough" of Labour and that the party was "no longer the political home for a lot of people." She said, "The Labour party has caused a lot of damage in Birmingham," ruled out working with Reform and described the party as "divisive."

Alum Rock and Birmingham

Khalid also rejected the idea that the council would be impossible to run, saying, "Birmingham has not been effectively governed for a very long time." She added, "It won’t be much worse than it is now, it can only get better when you have representatives who are grassroots."

For residents, the immediate change is that Birmingham enters its next phase without an overall majority, with control now depending on talks among councillors rather than a single-party majority. In a council already shaped by bankruptcy, service cuts and a bin strike, that makes the composition of the chamber the first practical issue facing the city.