Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom

Politics of the United Kingdom WikiProject Improving the coverage of British politics.	Discuss

HomeJoin UsDiscussProjectsAlerts

This is the talk page for the WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom.	Place notices here about UK politics articles, and you will surely receive helpful support from interested editors! Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. Please sign and date your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~). New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Ask questions, get answers. Be polite, and welcoming to new users Assume good faith Avoid personal attacks For disputes, seek dispute resolution
Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18

Restore Britain has an RfC

Restore Britain, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has an RfC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. -- DeFacto (talk). 20:55, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

announcing {{Legislature diagram}} and {{Political groupings}}

Want to update an article about a UK council because there has been an election, or someone has resigned or defected or died, or for another cause I haven't thought of? Think maybe it's a bit of a hassle because the tables are a little bit fiddling, let alone the seating chart? Have I got the template for you!

Er, yeah, so, instead of having to go to the toolforge thing you can now just directly invoke {{Legislature diagram}}, and I've also made a sister template {{Political groupings}} that does the formatting required for the political_groups parameter, including doing the summing. Right now these do have to be invoked separately (so the party list has to be in there twice), but (a) it can be copied and pasted between the two and (b) I'm hoping to get a change into {{infobox legislature}} eventually so that you only need do it once.

You can look at how I've used it on e.g. Peterborough Council, to pick a random example, or look at this example usage here:

Erewhon Borough Council
Structure
Political groups	Administration (24)     B&DI (5)     Bypass (7)     Loughton Residents (10)     Poole People (2) Second group (19)     MB Independent (6)     Putting Cumbria First (13) Other parties (31)     Residents Association (12)     Wessex Regionalists (10)     Independent (9) Vacancies (2)     Vacant (2)

{{Infobox legislature|name=Erewhon Borough Council
|structure1={{Legislature diagram
|Basingstoke & Deane Independents|5|:administration
|Residents Associations of Epsom and Ewell|12
|Boston Bypass Independents|Bypass|7|:administration
|Loughton Residents Association|10|:administration
|Morecambe Bay Independents|6
|Putting Cumbria First|13
|Poole People Party|2|:administration
|Wessex Regionalist Party|10
|Independent|9
|Casual vacancy|2
}}
|political_groups1={{political groupings|total=76
|Basingstoke & Deane Independents|5|:administration
|Residents Associations of Epsom and Ewell|12
|Boston Bypass Independents|7|:administration
|Loughton Residents Association|10|:administration
|Morecambe Bay Independents|6|:second group
|Putting Cumbria First|13|:second group
|Poole People Party|2|:administration
|Wessex Regionalist Party|10
|Independent|9
|Casual vacancy|2
}}
}}

Morwen (talk) 22:01, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks @Morwen, this tool looks fantastic! I was able to update Sefton Council's page incredibly easily.

As one piece of feedback, I think the diagram's size is tied to the length of the party lists' longest name and doesn't appear to be affected by structure1_res. I had to add an abbreviation for the Lydiate and Maghull Community Independents because I couldn't find a way to reduce the width of the infobox otherwise. Still, this is going to be a lot easier and less tedious than uploading hundreds of similar looking council maps. RandomEditsForWhenIRemember (talk) 20:31, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

Yeah - width thing may need someone who knows how that infobox works properly to fix it. I probably could put in a way of doing a local abbreviation maybe? I don't want to complicate the syntax too much, although. Morwen (talk) 20:36, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

That could work, but it's too difficult I don't think it's too much of a problem as it stands - L&M CI I think is one of the longer names on the council lists I've seen, so it was probably just bad luck I picked Sefton to try this on! RandomEditsForWhenIRemember (talk) 20:48, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

Hah, I've just worked out how to do it with some very obvious syntax - just an extra name before the number, that gets used as the display name - I've used it in the example for the Bypass people. Morwen (talk) 21:10, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

Great to hear, nice job! RandomEditsForWhenIRemember (talk) 22:23, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

2026 Tower Hamlets mayoral election

Not sure if these notifications are still required these days, but courtesy note that I've raised a proposed merge of the 2026 Tower Hamlets mayoral election page into Mayor of Tower Hamlets page for those interested in joining the conversation here. I'll be most likely doing the same for the other 2026 mayor election pages later as they all share the same base issues. RandomEditsForWhenIRemember (talk) 20:51, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Directly elected mayors in England#Requested move 4 June 2026

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Directly elected mayors in England#Requested move 4 June 2026 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 03:54, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

More links in MPs' links template

Editing today's new MPs I've discovered that {{UK MP links}} has undergone a major undiscussed edit by @Back ache and now includes several more links, such as to OpenSanctions (https://www.opensanctions.org/) and the paywalled Who's Who. The documentation hasn't been updated. As it's a template which is present on a set of high profile articles, it might have been useful to have some discussion here. PamD 07:48, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

Libdem colours

It's now possible to put a new colour for the Libdems in infoboxes and article tables e.g. North Norfolk#Political control as of this edit, so that at first glance, there's an extra party in the list.

Party in control		Years
	Independent	1974–1991
	No overall control	1991–2003
	Liberal Democrats	2003–2011
	Conservative	2011–2017
	No overall control	2017–2019
	Liberal Democrats	2019–present

Is this appropriate, should the other entry (and those in the next table) be recoloured, or does the addition of "Liberal Democrats (UK, 2025)" alongside "Liberal Democrats (UK)" in Module:Political party/L need reviewing? There's already been some to-and-fro editing there, from to and maybe more, but it seems only one talk-page post, Module talk:Political party/Archive 4#Color of Liberal Democrats UK NebY (talk) 15:41, 21 June 2026 (UTC)

We can't change colours every time a party issues a new style guide. Parties have used numerous colours throughout history and weren't consistent prior to the 1980s - it would be ludicrous to have every box trying to reflect what the campaign of the day used. There needs to be a single colour for a party that makes it clear which is which; that's more important than matching the latest tone exactly. Timrollpickering (talk) 19:08, 21 June 2026 (UTC)

the new Lib Dem colour is also close enough to the Labour colour that I’m not convinced that it’s good graphic design to put them together in tables or diagrams. This isn’t a problem the colour has in its original context of branding of course. Morwen (talk) 19:22, 21 June 2026 (UTC)

What Tim said; plus, the prime consideration should be distinctness - different party, different colour; same party, same colour. Was a new party founded in 2025 that is legally distinct from the previous one? I think the best thing to do is to alter the 2025 entry in the module to return the same colour value as is already used for "pre"-2025. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:44, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

That's elegant! Avoids breaking any articles or having to hunt down every use of "Liberal Democrats (UK, 2025)". Vulnerable to re-recolouring later, I suppose. NebY (talk) 14:11, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

I've just seen that the "Liberal Democrats (UK, 2025)" colour has been changed back to the pre-2025 colour. Whilst I am generally agnostic about what colour to use for the party going forward, changing the colour of the 2025 module entry creates discrepencies in published ward maps and on other parts of Wikipedia that referenced the 2025 entry's colour. I've been using the 2025 name quite extensively, so would like to know what colour to use for myself moving forward, particularly when creating/editing ward maps. Thanks. into oblivion (talk) 21:12, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Ah! Do you mean maps such as File:Milton Keynes UK ward map with seats 2026.svg- or are there better examples of discrepancies? That one does seem to still work pretty well, in that it doesn't have a discrepant key in the caption in 2026 Milton Keynes City Council election, and I think our readers will have no difficulty with our use of a more contrasting colour in the infobox and table. It does incidentally make @Morwen's point above in a small way, in that it's not easy to be sure whether the circle in the southern blue ward is red or deep orange. (Another editor's File:Lambeth London UK local election 2026 map.svg at 2026 Lambeth London Borough Council election makes the matter starker than I'd realised, in that I find the orange/green-striped wards quite hard to distinguish from the red/green ones without carefully comparing them.) I can see a strong argument for specifying the established paler orange "Liberal Democrats (UK)" when creating such maps, rather than the LibDems' unhelpful - for our purposes - rebrand. But I'm certainly not going to suggest you redo your work! NebY (talk) 22:22, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Further, you might find the graphics in this BBC report interesting. I'm seeing a paler LibDem orange (#fcaf3d) on the map of England, then a darker one (#ff9a02) in the following graphics and London map. Each one seems to work, with the greater contrast in the England map helpful for me. NebY (talk) 23:03, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Yes, that would be such a map, along with all the maps I've personally created for the 2026 local elections. It's quite a few at this point! Into oblivion (talk) 09:53, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

You can't just use the wrong colour for a party. It makes, for example, the infobox on the Liberal Democrats (UK) page look awful because of the colour difference between the logo and title banner. If you are going to keep one colour because it's one party, just keep the new one. This was picked up on the Opinion polling for the next United Kingdom general election page, where it would also mean that the colour in the LOESS graph is different to in the tables which looks awkward. I also disagree with any notion that (1) the party colour would then look too similar to Labour, as that's not our problem and the three right-wing parties all use shades of blue with no complaints and (2) it's not our job to decide parties' colours based on what we think they should be, but to report what they are. Pinging @Anotheroneoutthere3: JacobTheRox^{(talk | contributions)} 08:31, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

Absolutely agree with all points here. Into oblivion (talk) 09:57, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

I absolutely agree with Timrollpickering above. There has been a recent trend to keep changing party colours every time one party uses a different shade in their style guide, even if it is a shade of the same overall colour and/or it is used just for a specific campaign. And this trend frequently overlooks distinctness, i.e. some people just keep changing colours randomly even if the new colours makes various parties more complex to distinguish. Parties typically use different variations of their colours and may not use the exact same shade all the time. I can only see it as justified to use a different colour when a party has a full rebranding that goes beyond mere cosmetics (i.e. Austrian People's Party in 2017).

For the Liberal Democrats (UK), it is actually weird that the infobox states that its "pre-2025" colour was yellow (to distinguish it from the current "orange") when the shade used is closer to Orange (web color). We are using two shades of the same colour (orange) yet we are somehow pretending these are (drastically) different, which is absurd. Impru20^talk 08:50, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Dominic Whiteman

The article Dominic Whiteman has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Tagged for notability concerns for 10 years. No other language has a reliably sourced article from which to translate. Poorly sourced BLP. Created by a now banned editor. A Google search found only passing mentions in Books and zero hits on News. Fails the relevant notability guidelines for politicians. Lacks significant coverage.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion based on established criteria.

If the proposed deletion has already been carried out, you may request undeletion of the article at any time. Bearian (talk) 01:59, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:2026 Labour Party leadership crisis#Requested move 22 June 2026

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:2026 Labour Party leadership crisis#Requested move 22 June 2026 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Qwerty123M (talk) 23:12, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2026 British cabinet reshuffle

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2026 British cabinet reshuffle, which is within the scope of this WikiProject. Qwerty123M (talk) 05:35, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2014 British cabinet reshuffle

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2014 British cabinet reshuffle, which is within the scope of this WikiProject. Qwerty123M (talk) 05:37, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Request for input

A discussion is taking place at Talk:Keir Starmer#Placement of "Sir" that might benefit from this WikiProject's input. Zacwill (talk) 16:30, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:2026 Labour Party leadership election (UK)#Requested move 25 June 2026

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:2026 Labour Party leadership election (UK)#Requested move 25 June 2026 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Qwerty123M (talk) 23:10, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:2026 Labour Party leadership crisis § Infobox inclusion

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:2026 Labour Party leadership crisis § Infobox inclusion, which is within the scope of this WikiProject. Qwerty123M (talk) 07:40, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:2007 Labour Party leadership election (UK)#Requested move 26 June 2026

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:2007 Labour Party leadership election (UK)#Requested move 26 June 2026 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Qwerty123M (talk) 08:16, 26 June 2026 (UTC)