Local Elections 25: What next for Oxfordshire?

When Oxfordshire last went to the polls to elect its County Council, the Conservatives lost control for the first time this Century.

Back in 2021, the county that had elected two Conservative Prime Ministers to Westminster in the space of 10 years voted in a broad “Fair Deal Alliance” led by Liberal Democrat Liz Leffman. Despite winning the popular vote overall by almost 25,000 votes, the Conservatives lost control of the Council with their leader Cllr Ian Hudspeth among the losses.

Since then, the Liberal Democrats have cemented their grip on much of Oxfordshire. At the General Election in July 2024, the Conservatives were thoroughly routed and lost all Parliamentary representation (the first time there have been no Conservative MPs in the county in the Party’s history), with Labour holding Oxford East and winning Banbury, and the Liberal Democrats hoovering up all of the large, rural constituencies around them.

While Labour left the “Fair Deal Alliance” in 2023, and the Liberal Democrat/Green Party group on Oxfordshire County Council formally separated into two separate partners in February, Cllr Leffman remains at the helm of a minority administration.

Looking ahead to May, the Conservatives will be playing defence in a political environment that still feels unhelpful to them. Against an organised and buoyed Liberal Democrat group and with no meaningful recovery in the national polls, the remaining Conservative councillors will be pleased not to incur further losses.

Some interesting contests may emerge in divisions targeted by the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party. In some key races, the parties now face each other at the ballot box for the first time in this new landscape, having stood aside for each other 2021. In these locations, the Conservatives could take advantage of a divided Left and slip through the middle, but that is an opportunity dulled by the presence of Reform splitting the Right wing vote.

With five newly elected MPs at her side, Liz Leffman will be hoping her party secures the magic number of 32 councillors, a gain of 11 colleagues on the 2021 results. This would deliver her a majority at County Hall, and it would save the need to form another coalition with the Green Party or Labour.  This is a tall order, but it is plausible given the difficult political position the Conservatives find themselves in and the possibility that Labour may lose seats in Oxford City to the Greens and potentially Independent candidates who are campaigning against traffic management schemes.

With local government reorganisation coming shortly to the Thames Valley, whoever emerges as the Leader of the County Council after the Local Elections, be that Liz Leffman or a surprise from elsewhere, they will be a key person in redrawing the map of political power in the county for decades to come.