Birmingham
City in England's West Midlands; the UK's most populous city after London.
Birmingham is England's second city, a West Midlands city of about 1.1 million people, and host to Reform UK's party conference, which opened on 4 September 2026.
Last refreshed: 7 October 2026 · Appears in 3 active topics
Can Labour hold Birmingham council after a projected 30-point vote collapse?
Timeline for Birmingham
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UK Local Elections 2026Mentioned in: European Athletics ships labelled AI commentary
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UK Startups and InnovationBackground
Birmingham is England's second city, with a population of about 1.1 million, in the West Midlands. Its council, Birmingham City Council, is the largest local authority in Europe by population. The council issued a Section 114 notice in 2023, the largest local government insolvency in UK history, after equal pay liabilities reached about £760m, and it has run under government-appointed commissioners since, with tightly constrained spending and asset sales under way.
The city has long been a Labour stronghold, and the 7 May 2026 local elections tested that. YouGov's West Midlands projection, with fieldwork to 27 April, put Labour's vote in Birmingham down 30 points, the joint largest fall in the region, yet still had Labour holding the council, one of only two in the West Midlands alongside Coventry, with Reform UK, Labour and The Greens within five points of one another. The political scientist Rob Ford read the drop as a collapse in a demographic Labour had held since the 1960s, not a swing in a marginal electorate.
Birmingham also draws national events. It hosted Reform UK's 2026 party conference, opening on 4 September, and the senior European Athletics Championships in August 2026, where organisers planned to extend labelled AI translation of live commentary.