There were two principal council by-elections this week, both of which had a Liberal Democrat candidate on the ballot.
Salford City Council, Barton & Winton
The first by-election of the week took place on Wednesday in Salford. It was triggered by the sad passing of former Labour councillor David Lancaster MBE, who was widely regarded as England’s longest-serving councillor after six decades of service. There was significant controversy surrounding the timing of the contest, with Reform UK forcing the by-election despite local elections being scheduled for Salford in just two weeks’ time.
Turnout is generally low in Barton & Winton, and across Salford, but it was particularly poor on Wednesday at just 17.82%. Reform narrowly beat Labour by 33 votes in this long-term “Red Wall” ward. Labour also found themselves outflanked on the left by the Greens, part of a pincer movement that is becoming an increasingly common feature of the current political landscape.
This has never been a strong area for the Liberal Democrats, but a massive thanks to Antony Duke for standing and ensuring local residents had the choice to vote Lib Dem.
Reform UK 676 – 34.9% (new)
Labour 643 – 33.2% (-29.1)
Green Party 363 – 18.7% (+4.0)
Conservatives 118 – 6.1% (-8.2)
Liberal Democrats 94 – 4.9% (-3.8 )
Independent 44 – 2.3% (new)
Reform UK GAIN from Labour
Turnout: 17.82%
Cornwall Council, Newquay Porth & Tretherras
A by-election took place in Newquay on Thursday, triggered by the sad passing of Reform UK councillor Kevin Towill. The Liberal Democrats started from second place and had hoped to mount a strong challenge, but ultimately finished fourth behind the Green Party and an Independent candidate, neither of whom stood in the previous election.
It is important not to extrapolate too much from individual local races, which are often determined by factors unique to the campaign and issues on the ground. What is clear from recent results is that both Reform and the Greens have established a solid base of around 15%+ in many areas – a baseline that the Liberal Democrats currently lack outside of our strongholds. This means that even without significant campaigning, those parties can bank a certain level of support just from standing, which a full campaign can then multiply.
Our path to victory remains dependent on running intense ground operations and successfully framing the contest as a two-horse race. In Cornwall, we were unable to establish ourselves as the primary challenger to Reform this time, and there will be lessons to learn from that. One silver lining is that for the third week running Reform saw their vote share drop in a seat they won just last year. The shine seems to wear off quite fast. A big thank you to Sandy Carter for running, and commiserations to the local team on a difficult night.
Reform UK 645 – 30.2% (-7.7)
Green Party 529 – 24.8% (new)
Independent 361 – 16.9% (new)
Liberal Democrats (Sandy Carter) 349 – 16.3% (-9.9)
Conservatives 132 – 6.2% (-14.6)
Labour 120 – 5.6% (-9.6)
Reform UK HOLD
Turnout: 37.3%
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.
* Joe Nutt is a Campaigns and Communications Officer for ALDC
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22 Comments
I just hope that those who have been nice about the Greens realise what it has created. They are currently taking us to the cleaners, it could mean we have NET LOSSES next month, leading to months and months of misery. Should this be the outcome we will need a change of strategy and front line personalities.
An unusual feature of the Cornwall by-election is that the two “major” parties came fifth and sixth. Checking my database of over 8,000 local by-election results shows that this has only happened once before. This was also in Cornwall on 18th December last year. Clear evidence of the decline of the two party system.
This is about as bad as it can get with the Cornwall result. We started as the only clear challenger ten points behind in a thoroughly middle class division. I realise we cannot help losing to independents but to lose so much to the Greens is unforgivable.
“ In Cornwall, we were unable to establish ourselves as the primary challenger to Reform this time, and there will be lessons to learn from that”
It is worse than that. We had been the main challengers having been second last time with a quarter of the vote. Despite this, the Green Party stood a candidate and was easily able to sweep into second place, replacing us as the challenger in second and on 25% of the vote. I assume the Green Party will now seek to build on this and seek to squeeze our vote next time – and our vote does seem to be squeezed easily when we are not seen as challenging. Lessons need to be learned urgently.
Both Seats where the Centre-Left took about half the vote, both Seats “Won” by The Far-Right on around a third of The Vote.
Were there unusual factors in the Newquay result? Poor candidate selection perhaps? An inability to mobilise campaigners? To be squeezed when starting from a weak position (as in Salford) is one thing, but when starting as the main challenger (based on the previous result) , is a worrying sign of weakness.
Most of the time after I first joined the Liberal Party way back in 1961, North Cornwall was a Lib/Lib Dem parliamentary seat or a target seat. This council by-election result is a wake up call for those in London who now run the party and whose focus appears to be solely on the Home Counties – or as the current leader calls it, ‘Middle England’. Well, Ed, there is a whole UK world outside ‘Middle England’.
The current policy is a serious misjudgement and needs to be reversed. One could list a whole host of seats which have been allowed to decay by neglect e.g. Scottish Borders, Colne Valley etc., by passive neglect. What the heck is ALDC (not) doing in Manchester ?
Time for a fundamental change of attitude.
“{The Greens} are currently taking us to the cleaners, it could mean we have NET LOSSES next month…….”
It probably will but it won’t be as bad for the the Lib Dems as it will be for Labour.
We’re moving into a more polarised era of politics. The Tories and Reform are setting the pace on the right. The Greens are doing it on the left. The parties in the centre are the ones feeling the squeeze. The Labour Party is just about fininished in its current Blairite / Managerialist mode.
The mood of the electorate is that they want something completely different and not just a promise, which inevitably won’t be deliverable, of better managerialism from the centre. Whether that turns out to be from the left or right remains to be seen, but the right look look to be odds-on favourites right now.
The results are a clear sign of what is ahead.
Said it before, but centre ground is now where UK political parties go to die. The path to the next GE is clear. Extreme Left v Extreme Right is where angry voters are moving, and it will make the bitterness of the Brexit vote seem like a minor tiff in comparison. Such is the tension in present UK politics, that even the campaigning towards the next GE will feel almost like a civil war. Not what any of us want to hear, but it is inevitable in todays state of British politics
Over the last 20 Local By-elections, We have taken 5 & The Greens 3 – not much sign of The Green Tsunami there.
Over the last 10 Opinion Polls, the Green lead over Libdems varies from 1% to 10% – there is no consensus.
If we look at the various Projections of The May Results, Our Gains vary from nothing to 600 Seats, The Green Gains vary from nothing to 900 Seats. There is no consensus.
We only have 12 Days before we actually Know what’s happening, lets just chill till then .
LibDems ,Labour and the Greens are left leaning. Reform Conservatives right leaning. The left divides the vote between 3 so the result is the right gets the win through less division of votes. The 3 ‘lefties’ will have to aim for tactical voting to beat the right as to which party can do this in each constituency. Equally the Greens have upset the applecart by taking votes off either Labour or LibDems leading to right wing victory. May will show what the country thinks .
Nigel,
You’re right. The latest polling from You Gov shows: Labour (15%) Tory (16%) Reform (25%) LD (11%) Green (21%)
So theoretically there should be enough leftish votes to keep out the Tories and Reform. IF enough voters vote tactically.
This could work reasonably well in a Parliamentary election where it is more likley that the voters will know how to do that. It probably won’t too well in the local elections though.
The other big question is the extent to which voters will be prepared to vote tactically. I’d be OK, personally, voting Green or Lib Dem, but I’d find it hard to vote Labour while Starmer is still leading it.
“Reform and the Greens have established a solid base of around 15%+ in many areas – a baseline that the Liberal Democrats currently lack outside of our strongholds…
Our path to victory remains dependent on running intense ground operations and successfully framing the contest as a two-horse race”
I can’t believe I’m reading this! It’s being talked about as if this is just how things are, in the same way that we used to complain about the dominance of labour and the Tories in the past. But with respect to the Greens things have only been like this for less than a year! A poll taken in April last year showed we were taking the lions share of ex labour voters, the problem is that in that time we’ve not offered any compelling policies or narrative, whereas the Greens have done.
It’s both lazy and dishonest to throw your hands up and say that Green and Reform voters are just extremists, most of them (especially Greens) probably can’t even name any of their party’s extreme policies. But they do need to have bold policies and a compelling narrative which our leadership is refusing to offer, due to wanting to exclusively focus the party on Tory facing seats and believing we can continue to beat progressive voters with bar charts.
An approach which completely unraveled in Newquay!
Reform and Greens have two advantages over all.other parties. One is that they are “new” and thus attractive to anyone (most people) who are disillusioned with the “old”. The other is that they have one clearly stated – albeit undeliverable- policy which resonates with people (most people) looking fot someone to blame for the daily struggle. Reform – get rid of immigrants and all will be well or Green – everything will be free by virtue of the super-rich paying. Both policies are disingenuous and/or morally wrong and/or financially illiterate. However unless I’ve missed it, the Lib Dems don’t have a “cut through” policy. There lies the frustration of people like me who are inclined to vote Lib Dem and have done so for many years. Unfortunately morality and financial responsibility are no longer enough. How sad.
I agree with Richard Cripps – but would also suggest that Reform and the Greens have names that, in marketing terms, mean something (albeit spawning different interpretations for different people).
Yet again I have to say that the Liberal Democrats do not in any way project an image or a philosophy to which people could be attracted. We are almost anonymous! A policy for this or a policy for that is simply not going to cut through. Almost nobody knows what the party is about.
So, lots of people could be attracted to Reform because they say to themselves “we need reform” – with whatever connotations they want to ascribe to that. The same goes for the Greens – people are saying to themselves “we need to be protecting the environment, I’ll vote for them” without any awareness or consideration of their wider policy offer.
And the Liberal Democrats? Who? “What do they stand for?”
@ Richard,
Have you ever taken a look at the Green’s policies and manifesto. They don’t say what you claim they are saying. Most of their policies are very similar to those discussed on this very Forum as potential Lib Dem policies. Some of these have even obtained approval at Lib Dem conference but somehow don’t quite make it into the Lib Dem election manifesto.
The Greens would say that the main difference between the two parties is that their’s do make it through.
Having said this, I don’t agree with all of them. But it is refereshing to see that they are prepared to have a go and shake up the rather staid politics of the centre ground we’ve had from the formerly mainstream parties for far too long.
“the Greens have established a solid base of around 15%” If this were true then with an average of about 16% they would win nothing. Their support is about as localised as ours.
@ Peter Davies,
Your point would be only be true if everyone mainly voted for their first choice candidate. However, this increasingly isn’t happening. If it is generally known that the contest is between two particular candidates many will switch to the one they prefer.
We saw this in the Gorton election with both the Greens and Labour doing their best to convince the voters that the choice was between them and Reform.
It does mean that parties with a first choice base of 15%, or so, can increase this to a winning total in multicandidate elections if they can convince, by fair means or foul 🙂 , enough voters to switch tactically.
Lib Dems,of course, know the importance of this tactic as well as anyone.
I guess what I’m asking, is that you mentally “leap frog” these May elections? Whatever happens in May is already baked-in. What I’m asking is that you look to the undercurrents which are building up to the next GE, 2 or 3 years away.
I don’t want to labour the point, but the Greens are not about the environment in the way you might fondly remember them. They are morphing into a political vehicle for the extreme left. By the same token, Farage and Reform are already being usurped by political forces who see Farage as a “sell-out” and not right wing enough.?
I wouldn’t normally give links, but I think you should watch this young man speaking about his belief in Rupert Lowe as an alternative to Nigel Farage. You owe it to yourself, not to get blind-sided into thinking that politics will resume back to normal any time soon.
The Greens started Gorton with support in the hig twenties. They would never have won it starting on 15%. Reform maay have a base in the teens. It may well result in their being less well represented than if their vote was more localised.
@Peter Martin:
You cite the latest You Gov poll and give the following figures; Reform 25%, Green 21% Tory 16% Labour 15% LD 11%.
These figures are not right. These are the right figures: Reform 27% Con and Green 17% Lab 16% LD 14%.
The weekly by-election round up seems to evoke defeatism and over-extrapolarmtion from individual unfavurable by-election results.
The last thing we should be doing as a party is imitating populists of right or left. Keep it sound and keep it boring. The shiny absurd promises of populists will wear thin. Reform are well down from their peak. The Greens will go the same way.
@Graham Jeffs. We are anonymous. In recent weeks there have been numerous radio pieces about the local elections which have hardly mentioned us or, if they have, have been rather dismissive. Reform and the Greens get mentioned numerous times but we just don’t get a look-in. The reason? There is just nothing that makes us stand out.