No overall control

If no party has a majority after the elections, it can be complicated! As a political group, Labour councillors will need to discuss tactics and options to work out how best to achieve the most for those people who voted Labour and to deliver as much of the Labour manifesto as possible. Your regional office and local parties will need to be part of those discussions. The decision will depend on a number of things:

• which political group is the largest - if Labour is only one or two seats short of a majority you might want to form a minority administration and seek the support of suitable smaller parties for some or all of your policies.
• whether you can agree on enough policies with another party to form a coalition - these negotiations should always be on the basis of issues and policies that you want to deliver, not around the positions that each group in the coalition will get: these should be secondary.
• if other parties look like they will co-operate with each other to form an administration, there can be benefits in staying as a clear opposition to hold them to account, provide an alternative and campaign against what they do in order to try and win a majority next time.

Depending on which of these scenarios develops, the options open to Labour councillors either in a majority or opposition will be open to you on your council. At all times your decisions on how to operate on the council should be governed not by which positions or posts you might get, but by two principles:

• how can you deliver the Labour values and manifesto on which you were elected?
• what is in the best interests of the local area and your constituents?