This week, there were six by-elections, of which four had a Liberal Democrat candidate.
In Dorset, we were able to secure a convincing victory, with Reform UK and the Conservatives left trailing behind in a battle for second and third place. Congratulations to Councillor Dawn Logan and the local team for ensuring that we were able to gain this seat.
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole UA, Talbot and Branksome Woods
Liberal Democrats (Dawn Logan): 910 (32.4%, -4.0)
Reform UK: 791 (28.2%, new)
Conservative: 770 (27.4%, -4.9)
Labour: 170 (6.1%, -5.7)
Green: 165 (5.9%, -6.6)
Liberal Democrats GAIN from Conservative
Turnout: 28.36%
In West Suffolk, it was a close-fought election with all five candidates polling strongly, but ultimately Reform UK secured victory. Thank you to Caroline Revitt and the local team for ensuring that we remained in third place here.
West Suffolk DC, Newmarket East
Reform UK: 343 (29.7%, new)
Conservative: 288 (25.0%, +4.1)
Liberal Democrats (Caroline Revitt): 199 (17.2%, -3.1)
Labour: 176 (15.3%, -8.3)
Green Party: 148 (12.8%, new)
Reform UK GAIN from Labour
Turnout: 28.57%
In Bedfordshire, Reform UK secured a narrow victory, as all five candidates secured a solid share of the vote. Thank you to Neil Stevenson and the local team for flying the Liberal Democrat flag.
Central Bedfordshire UA, Stotfold
Reform UK: 823 (30.8%, new)
Conservative: 559 (20.9%, +1.3)
Labour: 532 (19.9%, -4.2)
Green Party: 416 (15.6%, new)
Liberal Democrats (Neil Stevenson): 339 (12.7%, +0.2)
Reform UK GAIN from Labour
Turnout: 35.7%
In Walsall, a two-horse race emerged between the Conservatives and Reform UK, with the latter ultimately winning the seat. Thank you to Daniel Barker and the local team for flying the Liberal Democrat flag.
Walsall MBC, Pelsall
Reform UK: 1,231 (45.0%, +31.3)
Conservative: 1,176 (43.1%, -24.1)
Green Party: 127 (4.7%, new)
Labour: 125 (4.6%, -14.5)
Liberal Democrats (Daniel Barker): 72 (2.7%, new)
Reform UK GAIN from Conservative
Turnout: 31.98%
There were two by-elections where we did not stand a candidate. Here are the results:
Vale of Glamorgan, Illtyd
Reform UK: 729 (31.3%, new)
Plaid Cymru: 657 (28.2%, +10.1)
Conservative: 445 (19.1%, -10.2)
Labour: 414 (17.8%, -22.7)
Green Party: 85 (3.7%, -8.5)
Reform UK GAIN from Labour
Turnout: 36.3%
Cheshire East UA, Wilmslow Lacey Green
Conservative: 370 (29.8%, -8.4)
Labour: 300 (24.2%, new)
Reform UK: 288 (23.2%, new)
Residents of Wilmslow: 215 (17.3%, -30.2)
Green Party: 67 (5.4%, new)
Conservative GAIN from Residents of Wilmslow
Turnout: 30.46%
Thank you to all of our candidates, agents, and campaign teams. A full summary of these results, and all other principal council by-elections, can be found on the ALDC by-elections page here.
* Liam Yip is the Campaigns and Communications Intern at ALDC
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12 Comments
Clearly Reform are on a roll right now, averaging 31% in The Polls but we should remember that its 8 Months to the next Local Elections & 4 Years to The Next General Election.
The question is whether Reform can maintain this level of support, I don’t think they will but we will just have to wait & see.
Without Bournemouth pulling a rabbit out of the hat at the 11th hour, the results from yesterday would have made grim reading. 4 Reform victories in England and Wales, in the latter beating both Plaid and Labour. And this for a English Nationalist party in deepest, rural Glamorgan.
It’s not in rural Glamorgan, it’s in Barry.
@ Peter Davies my apologies for mislocating it. But the general idea of an English nationlist party doing well in Wales will upset a number of political applecarts next May there.
The Walsall result is quite sobering…Reform up 31.3% with 1231 votes while we just managed 72 votes.
The most disappointing result was Wilmslow where we failed to find a candidate. We were able to find one in 2023 and got 14.2 %. That’s almost half what the winning Tory got.
A general point about Reform is that a third of their votes come from previous Non-voters rather than other Parties. A lot of Reforms appeal is to a dislike of Politics & Politicians. They have a prepared base in Wales coming from Anti-Senned feeling.
More generally Reform seem to do very well against Independents & Localist Parties, groups that often run on an Anti-Politics/Common Sense platform.
It is interesting how badly Labour are doing in local by-elections. Since the last generaLelection Labour have been pushed from 1st to 3rd place 22 times. Even worse they have gone from 1st to 4th place 5 times compared with just 8 times in the previous 24 years.
Labour have yet to equal their worst result (8th July 2021) when they uniquely dropped from 1st to 5th place – however on current performance this could happen again before too .long.
Huge amounts of money are spent by ALDC and the regional/state parties to employ development staff to ensure we contest every principal council by-election.
What went wrong with these contests in Cheshire and Glamorgan? Wales is particularly egregious as you don’t even need to get two people to subscribe your nomination papers (just a witness) and papers can be submitted electronically.
The Conservatives, with a smaller and far less motivated membership, manage to fight virtually every seat. As do Reform, with no local infrastructure.
@Lyell Yardarms. Excellent point. Are local parties engaging with their members, motivating them, talking to them and getting them involved in the fight ? This sounds like a problem that is both structural and cultural.
It’s not been a good week for liberalism, has it ?
St Illtyd ward isn’t in the least Bale actually it’s in Barry, albeit the more prosperous western end of the
town, its usually a swing ward (Lab Con) and the by election, to replace a well known labour stalwart, is remarkable in that Lab came fourth. The reform candidate is another young one, and the only one of his kind on the vale council, although reform did win a
town council seat in (leafier) cowbridge recently.
@Chris Cory – Indeed. The Vale of Glamorgan, as a traditional Con–Lab marginal, has long been an electoral desert for the Lib Dems. The local party (“Cardiff & The Vale”) is overwhelmingly composed of activists whose primary focus remains elections and activities in Cardiff. That said, this does not excuse the failure to field a candidate in the Illtyd division. The Labour councillor passed away in the first week of July, meaning we had ample time to find someone with a pulse and a postcode, as the saying goes.
I agree that complacency and ignorance exist among some local parties regarding council elections. Stoke-on-Trent, for example, received an active parliamentary by-election campaign in 2017 but then apparently decided not to stand any council candidates in May 2019, citing fears about “losing deposits.” Across large parts of Wales there remains enormous resistance to fielding even paper candidates. This contributed directly to us scraping just 1.4% of the vote in Ynys Môn in 2024 – the worst result for a Liberal candidate in *any* constituency previously represented by a Liberal MP. I note that the candidate was later suspended for publishing pro-Hamas content on social media.
Since 2015, a seven-figure sum has been invested in campaign development, led by ALDC and the Regional/State Parties. It is outrageous that both the North West Region and the Welsh Party should benefit from these resources whilst allowing by-elections to go uncontested. It risks continued JRRT grant funding for the Party – this page is worth a read:
https://www.jrrt.org.uk/what-we-do/grants-awarded?_sft_grantees_type=political-party