There were four principal council by-elections this week, of which all had a Liberal Democrat candidate on the ballot. One council seat was being defended by us.
Disappointingly, we lost this Oxfordshire seat to the Conservatives. It appeared to be down to a collapse in our own share of the vote, rather than any substantial uplift in the Conservative vote. The silver lining is that we managed to hold back Reform, who finished in third place, setting the Liberal Democrats up as the main challenger next time. Commiserations to Alan Bettridge and the local Liberal Democrat team.
Vale of White Horse District Council, Stanford
Conservative: 666 (45.9%, +2.5)
Liberal Democrats (Adrian Bettridge): 395 (27.2%, -17)
Reform UK: 261 (18%, new)
Green Party: 115 (7.9%, -4.5)
Labour: 14 (1%, new)
Conservative GAIN from Liberal Democrats
Turnout: 43.4%
The first of the two by-elections in North Lincolnshire saw Labour lose a huge majority with a seismic swing to Reform, who were coming from a standing start. The Conservatives were also hit badly by the rise in the Reform vote. Importantly, this was a very low turnout election, and the second by-election in Brumby since the North Lincolnshire all-ups in 2023 — with the first by-election taking place in 2024. Fatigue probably contributed to low turnout and the big swings we saw here. Thank you to Alan Kelly and the Liberal Democrat team for flying the Lib Dem flag in Brumby.
North Lincolnshire Council, Brumby
Reform UK: 769 (52.3%, +52.3)
Labour: 410 (27.9%, -33.6)
Green Party: 133 (9.1%, +4.2)
Conservative: 110 (7.5%, -21.9)
Liberal Democrats (Alan Kelly): 47 (3.2%, -1.1)
Reform GAIN from Labour
Turnout: 17.4%
The second by-election in North Lincolnshire was similar to the first: big drops in vote shares from the Conservatives and Labour, with Reform picking up a lot of support from a standing start; though not enough to keep the Conservatives from holding the ward. We didn’t stand a candidate when this ward was contested at North Lincolnshire’s all-ups in 2023, which was a straight fight between Labour and the Conservatives in almost every ward, so thank you to Michael Shaw and the Liberal Democrat team for getting us on the ballot paper.
North Lincolnshire Council, Axholme Central
Conservative: 925 (49.2%, -19.6)
Reform UK: 668 (35.5%, new)
Green Party: 157 (8.3%, new)
Labour: 103 (5.5%, -25.7)
Liberal Democrats (Michael Shaw): 28 (1.5%, new)
Conservative HOLD
Turnout: 31.2%
Finally, efforts to take this seat from the Conservatives in Kent were undermined by Reform, who overtook us in second place, though did not pick up enough votes to beat the Conservatives. Word on the ground was that Conservatives and Reform activists were campaigning heavily on polling day. We continue to be the best progressive alternative here. Thank you to Stephen Maines and the Liberal Democrats for all their hard work on this campaign.
Sevenoaks District Council, Halstead, Knockholt & Badgers Mount
Conservative: 561 (44.2%, -20.7 )
Reform UK: 378 (29.8%, new)
Liberal Democrats (Stephen Maines): 266 (20.9%, -14.2)
Green Party: 65 (5.1%, new)
Conservative HOLD
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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12 Comments
Extremely poor week. The Conservatives seem to be getting their act together and moderate Cons going back to their home. Chasing left wing green votes would be pointless. We have to keep these moderates or else lose many of these first time wins. Also where the hell is SirEd and his team. You can’t watch the news without a Faragist giving their view. Sorry everyone,rant over
Our party hierarchy seem to have based their strategy on becoming the “Party of the Shires”. It is obvious to me Ed Davey just isn’t the person we need aa our figurehead.Just doesn’t have the right qualities for the job at hand and too much “baggage” .If Kemi keeps appealing to this soft Tory base and the Tory organisation realises the weakness of our strategy we ate in for a major disappointment. Am I the only one who thinks this?
A very disappointing week. I firmly believe a lot of what is going on is to do with a strange decision not to contest the Gorton by-election properly. It gave the Greens momentum. They won and gained credibility. We now have to live with that and will probably lose a lot more as the Greens now have credibility. A massive mistake.
Let me say it yet again – WE DO NOT HAVE AN IDENTITY so far as most people are concerned.
Little point intellectualising on policy issues if these are not tied to recognised philosophy. I also agree that the leadership is not fit for purpose.
Here is my usual month-end summary of the last fifty local by-elections.
Percentage Vote Share:
Reform 27.77%, Conservatives 20.75%, Liberal Democrats 15.63%, Greens 13.93%, Labour 13.55%, Independents 4.05%, Others 4.32%
The Lib Dems have moved back into third place after being briefly overtaken by the Green party. We are still at our lowest level since January 2023.
In spite of having a decline in opinion polls Reform show no decline in local election performance.
Gains and losses are:
Reform: Net gain of fifteen: 17 gains, 2 held, 2 lost
Others: Net gain of two: 3 gains, 1 held, 1 lost
Greens: Net gain of one: 3 gains, 1 held, 2 lost
Conservatives: Net loss of one: 3 gains, 7 held, 4 lost
Lib Dems: Net loss of one: 4 gains, 6 held, 5 lost
Independents: Net loss of six: 0 gains, 0 held, 6 lost
Labour: Net loss of ten: 1 gain, 2 held, 11 lost
Seats Won:
Reform 19, Conservatives 10, Liberal Democrats 10, Greens 4, Others 4, Labour 3
The above data is for the most recent 50 by-elections in England & Wales (27th November 2025 to 26th March 2026). Parish/Town councils are not included.
If we cannot hold in southern England we are in real trouble.
Any talk of leadership and strategy change must wait upon May, its going to be a real struggle in the likes of Sheffield
“ efforts to take this seat from the Conservatives in Kent were undermined by Reform, who overtook us in second place,”
No, what undermined us was that the contest was viewed as between the Conservatives and Reform, which appears to have resulted in over a third of our vote deciding to switch to the Conservatives to prevent Reform from winning.
So, the serious question for us is: why where we not see as being a serious challenger in a seat where we had been placed second at the previous election?
In effect it could become “vote Conservative to stop Farage”. For us that would be cataclysmic.
I agree with Graham Jeffs. Apart from being good constituency MPs, what are we all about? I’d love to get our MPs to write a side of A4 on what the party is all about.
Olly Glover and his team must have taken their eye seriously off the ball to allow this seat to be lost so badly. Clearly it was very close last time when we only won by 10 votes so we should have known we had to work very hard to retain it, but to lose to the Cons with our vote collapsing by over 150 votes is simply appalling. Perhaps too much effort was put into winning a fortnight ago in nearby Abingdon and not enough reciprocal help was received from the rest of Oxfordshire this time.
Teamwork and turnout win council by-elections and Oxfordshire is just that bit more under pressure than it was a month ago.
I am one of those ‘soft Tories’ who would never vote for the current Conservative Party.
But support the Lib Dems? Only on a least worse basis to keep Farage or Badenoch out.
Simply the Lib Dems do not have a credible economic policy – ie one where the numbers add up.
We must support our leadership team over the next 6 weeks but it becoming clear the party needs to refresh its self there after .Holding on to same old faces playing from the same old play book isnt working and we learned the hard lessons in the coalition years that a back seat role does not attract electorial support for our cause ,and we lost a great many councillors and activists in those years .