This week saw the first principal authority by‑elections of 2026, with two contests taking place in England. Both carried more weight than a routine vacancy: in each case, the result would determine the balance of power within the council, giving these early‑year elections a significance well beyond the usual by-elections.
We start in the historic city of York, where Labour have successfully retained both this seat and overall control of the council. However, their majority drastically decreased, as us, Reform and the Greens all improved on prior performances here. Well done to Ian Eiloart and the local team for improving our vote share by over 10 percent.
City of York Council, Heworth
Labour: 1,096 (36.7%, –27.5)
Reform UK: 601 (20.1%, new)
Green Party: 591 (19.8%, +4.4)
Liberal Democrats (Ian Eiloart): 528 (17.7%, +10.2)
Conservative: 118 (4.0%, –8.8)
Independent: 49 (1.6%, New)
Labour HOLD
Turnout: 31.6%
In Gosport, we were unable to defend this seat, as Reform pipped us to this seat by under 30 votes. With this result, we have lost overall control of the district. Commiserations to Stephen Marshall and the local team for the result here, despite their best efforts.
Gosport Borough Council, Bridgemary
Reform UK: 604 (42.5%, new)
Liberal Democrats (Stephen Marshall): 575 (40.5%, –8.0)
Conservative: 207 (14.6%, –23.7)
Labour: 35 (2.5%, –10.8)
Reform UK GAIN from Liberal Democrats
Turnout: 33%
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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7 Comments
Disappointing to begin the year with a loss but after yesterday’s coverage of Jenrick hardly surprising.
Why wasn’t the welly and/or the kitchen sink flung in the Gosport campaign as so much depended on it at Council level of things? Reform did trip the by election in first place.
Ian, you know that the kitchen sink wasn’t brought into play in Gosport?
Certainly activists went there from all over Hampshire for several weeks. Despite being a by-election on a very wet winter’s day our actual vote was greater than May 2024. With such a small difference between us & reform we will always consider what more we could have done. The Labour vote collapsed & the Tory vote halved from May 2024. Reform benefited unfortunately. There are certainly lessons to be learnt for next May.
@Ian Patterson
The problem is that the demographics in that ward made it uniquely predisposed to voting for Reform, it’s demographics are identical to great Yarmouth and Boston and Skegness, more so than any other ward in Gosport, we did very well to come as close as we did, in 99% of other lib dem held wards those efforts would have been enough to hold the seat.
Worth noting that the Liberal Democrat vote increased by 5 votes but our candidate lost because Reform was able to motivate a number of voters who had not voted at the last election to show up and vote. This ward will be contested again in 4 months when half the seats in this Council will be up for grabs so it will be interesting to see if we can get it back.
It is always difficult to guess how much a “personal vote” can make a difference. The rule of thumb is less than you think! The locals will know how much of a factor it was in the narrow margin here.
Exactly Geoff …
You’d of thought Dennis Skinner would have held onto Bolsover in 2019 GE – after being it’s MP for 49 years…Shows how much labour lost that socially conservative vote across the Midlands North East/West – with it’s almost suicidal 2nd referendum policy…