POLITICAL pressure mounted today for Local Government Secretary Steve Reed to resign over the May local election U-turn debacle.

The Westminster Labour government abandoned its plans to postpone elections across 30 councils in England on Monday after receiving advice from lawyers following a legal challenge.

Communist Party of Britain general secretary Alex Gordon said: “Calls by Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch for Steve Reed to resign cannot be dismissed as opportunism by opposition politicians.

“Reed is the front man for a blatant undemocratic fiasco that fell apart today on the steps of the High Court when the government agreed to pay Farage’s £100,000 legal costs after its own lawyers advised that axing local elections would be ruled illegal.

“Playing factional games with local government democracy at the expense of voters is second nature to Reed and his ilk. The sooner they are gone, the better.

“The costs to local authorities now scrambling to arrange elections in 10 weeks will be far more,” Mr Gordon said.

The council elections are in less than three months, and administrators have warned that local authorities now face an “uphill struggle” to organise reinstated votes.

Association of Electoral Administrators’ Laura Lock said: “They have paused planning to avoid unnecessary cost, but this means they are now playing catch-up.”

The leader of Labour-run Thurrock Council, Lynn Worrall, said it was “disappointing that this decision has been reversed so late in the day.”

The Conservatives have written to Mr Reed calling on him to share the evidence on which the original decision to delay the votes was made, and whether “party political considerations” lay behind it.