The results for the final by-elections of the year are here! It was Labour defences across the board for this week’s three contested seats. Labour held on to only one, suffering a huge loss of vote share to the Lib Dems, while the Tories and Reform each gained a seat from the ruling party in Westminster.

Starting off with Greenwich LBC, Steve Day stormed into second place in West Thamesmead, where we were fourth last time voters went out to the polls. Labour’s support while dropped from over 60% to under half while the Lib Dems almost quadrupled their vote. Well done and thank you to Steve and the local team for running such a great campaign, we have not got momentum in Greenwich for a long time, and this serves as a monumental first step towards putting us on the map!

Greenwich LBC, West Thamesmead
Labour: 464 (45.1%, -16.7%)
Liberal Democrat (Steve Day): 336 (32.7%, +24.2%)
Reform: 92 (8.9%, new)
Conservative: 82 (8.0%, -6.8%)
Green Party: 55 (5.3%, -9.6%)

In Dudley MBC, the Conservatives squeaked out a gain against Reform and gained the seat in the Brockmoor & Pensnett ward. The support for the incumbent Labour is in free fall as we see them lose over half of their vote share, putting them now in third place. Thank you to David Sheppard for standing for the Lib Dems here.

Dudley MBC, Brockmoor & Pensnett
Conservative: 571 (35.4%, +7.0%)
Reform: 486 (30.1%, new)
Labour: 466 (28.9%, -34.7%)
Green Party: 49 (3.0%, new)
Liberal Democrat (David Sheppard): 24 (1.5%, -6.5%)
Independent: 16 (1.0%, new)

It was a similar story in the Milton Regis ward in Swale BC, where Labour also lost over half their votes and dropped down to third in a seat they previously held. Here, Reform came out on top with just over a third of the votes. Thank you Marc Wilson for flying the Lib Dem flag for us.

Swale BC, Milton Regis
Reform: 272 (33.9%, new)
Swale Independents: 208 (25.9%, -0.1%)
Labour: 200 (24.9%, -33.0%)
Conservative: 99 (12.3%, -3.6%)
Liberal Democrat (Marc Wilson): 23 (2.9%, new)

For a full summary of these results, and all other principal council by-elections, please refer to the ALDC by-elections page here. Happy holidays everybody!

* Matthew Ma works in the Campaigns and Communications team at ALDC