It has been a busy week for by-elections with a number of principal and town council elections and some great Lib Dem victories and performances.
We start with a couple of excellent town council Lib Dem wins.
On Sevenoaks Town Council, Lionel O’Hara gained Northern ward for the Lib Dems from the Conservatives. Impressively this gain now means that the Lib Dems hold every single town councillor and district councillor in Sevenoaks! Congratulations to Cllr O’Hara and the team in Sevenoaks for truly turning the town GOLD!
Sevenoaks TC, Northern
Liberal Democrat (Lionel O’Hara): 351 (73%)
Labour: 131 (27%)
We also held Summerlands ward on Yeovil Town Council with a fantastic 58% of the vote. Congratulations to Cllr Kayleigh Fieldsend and the local team in Yeovil.
Yeovil TC, Summerlands
Liberal Democrats (Kayleigh Fieldsend): 329 (58%)
Independent: 128 (22.6%)
Green Party: 71 (12.5%)
Unaligned: 33 (5.8%)
We have excellent town, parish and community council by-election wins every week up and down the country. Let us know if you have a town or parish election coming up that you are contesting, or a good win, by emailing [email protected] and we will make sure we report it.
We stood in 4 principal by-elections on Thursday – improving our vote share in all of them.
On Buckinghamshire County Council (Denham ward) we finished in a brilliant second place with 32% of the vote and just 200 votes behind the winning Conservative candidate. This is despite not standing a candidate in the last election! The Conservatives held the ward but with a much reduced vote share and majority.
Well done to Julia Cook and the local team. That is a brilliant result in which we came from nowhere to now being the main opposition is a marginal ward!
Buckinghamshire CC, Denham
Conservative: 848 (42%, -5.7%)
Liberal Democrat (Julia Cook): 634 (32%, +32%)
Independent: 404 (20%, -0.6%)
Labour: 125 (6%, -6.9%)
There were two by-elections on Plymouth City Council. In Plymstock Dunstone ward Peter Edwards increased the Lib Dem vote share by 13.6% and finished with just shy of 600 votes. A fantastic step forwards in the ward. Labour gained the seat from the Conservatives. In St Peter & the Waterfront ward Hugh Janes also increased the Lib Dem vote share in a packed field of 7 candidates. Labour held this ward. Thank you to both Peter and Hugh for standing, and well done to them and the Plymouth team for a positive set of results.
Plymouth City Council, Plymstock Dunstone
Labour: 1,072 (33.2%, -17.5%)
Conservative: 919 (28.4%, -1.7%)
Liberal Democrats (Peter Edwards): 596 (18.4%, +13.6%)
Independent: 480 (14.9%, +7.8%)
Green Party: 97 (3%, 0.7%)
Heritage Party: 55 (1.7%, +1.3%)
TUSC: 12 (0.4%, -0.1%)
Plymouth City Council, St Peter & Waterfront
Labour: 1,126 (48%)
Conservative: 488 (20.8%, +2.6%)
Green Party: 206 (8.8%, -1.8%)
Liberal Democrats (Hugh Janes): 175 (7.5%, +0.6%)
Reform UK: 174 (7.4%, +3.1%)
Independent: 126 (5.4%, +0.9%)
TUSC: 52 (2.2%, -0.8%)
On Warrington Borough Council we improved our vote share by 3.6% in Poulton North ward. Thank you to Timothy Harwood for standing for us and making sure there was a Lib Dem to vote for as Labour held the ward.
Warrington BC, Poulton North
Labour: 999 (56%, +22.3%)
Conservatives: 606 (34%, +8.9%)
Liberal Democrat (Timothy Harwood): 168 (9%, +3.6%)
There was one other by-election on Thursday. Sadly there was no Lib Dem candidate in Heathfield & Mayfield ward on East Sussex County Council. The Green Party gained the seat from the Conservatives in a two way contest.
East Sussex CC, Heathfield & Mayfield
Green Party: 1373 (61.5%, +43%)
Conservative: 858 (38.5%, -20.7%)
A full summary of all results can be found on the ALDC by-elections page here.
* Charles Quinn is Campaigns Organiser for ALDC and a local councillor in Hull.
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7 Comments
I refer to Mike Dixon’s email to members in relation to the parliamentary by-elections:
“(Worth noting in both of these results: the Green vote didn’t change at all: there was no sign of 2019 Green supporters voting tactically. An important lesson: do not let the Greens get a foothold in your local area.)”
Exactly what a number of us have been saying for months! The Greens are not our friends. Get the message!
Very well said Graham
With the exception of the Denham result not an illustrious set of results. The Greens will not reciprocate at GE and stand down their candidates in our target seats. They are in the grip of evangelical green fervour and cannot be reasoned with.
“The Greens are not our friends.”
It depends on who you mean by ‘our’. Which of their policies do you most object to? There are always problems with political alliances but if you are prepared to work with the Starmerite wing of the Labour Party, working with the Greens shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Recent by-elections have shown that you don’t have to stand down candidates. You simply make it very obvious that they aren’t being supported. I suppose it’s a waste of £5000, each time, in lost deposits though!
The Greens have some dodgy ideas on economics but so do most political activists. One unkind description is “neoliberals on bikes”. Having said that, there is enough common ground for a new party to be viable which could include the social liberals in the Lib Dems, the socialist wing of the Labour Party which Starmer and co wants to be rid of, and the Greens themselves.
There is some confusion here between Green Party members & their Voters, its the Voters who don’t seem to be interested in Tactical Voting in Local/By-elections. The Members/activists vary from place to place, sometimes we work with them, sometimes not.
When it comes to General Elections though, about half the Green Voters defect to other Parties, mostly Labour.
That is the clearest sign that The Greens remain a fringe Party at the National level.
Here is my monthly summary giving a longer (and I believe a more realistic) view – The data for the last fifty local by-elections to the end of July is as follows. (The equivalent data for the fifty by-elections up to the end of June is given in brackets).
Conservatives 31.6% (31.2%)
Labour 28.8% (30.6%)
Liberal Democrats 20.8% (21.9%)
Greens 10.6% (8.3%)
Others 8.2% (7.9%)
Gains and losses are:
Lib Dems: Net gain of five: 7 gains, 7 held, 2 lost
Greens: Net gain of four: 5 gains, 0 held, 1 lost
Independents: Net gain of three: 3 gains, 1 held, 0 lost
Our West Lancs: No change: 3 held
UKIP: Net loss of one: 0 gains, 0 held, 1 lost
Labour: Net loss of three: 2 gains, 22 held, 5 lost
Conservatives: Net loss of eight: 2 gains, 11 held, 10 lost
Labour won 25 seats, Liberal Democrats 14, Conservatives 13, Greens 4, Independents 3, Others 3.
(The numbers do not add up to 50 as there were multiple vacancies in some wards)
This data is for the most recent 50 by-elections in England & Wales (4th May to 27th July). Parish/Town councils are not included.
@Peter Martin – regarding Green policies, it’s worth pointing out that they propose we should leave NATO, and we don’t.
They have suggested they would delay that move somewhat, and that we should leave after the current war, but before the next one….