It’s an England exclusive week for by-elections as 7 are held on Halloween, with the Conservatives being the biggest losers on the spooky day. The Lib Dems gained 2 seats and lost 1 from and to the Tories, a net double of seats. A variety of parties also gained or held their seats this week: both the Green Party, Labour, and independents held onto 1, while Reform gained a seat from Labour.
The headline win for the Lib Dems this week was once again in Westmorland & Furness Council. In the Kirkby & Tebay ward, Cllr Adrian Waite gained the seat from the Conservatives with over 82.7% of the votes, more than double what the Lib Dems had last time around. Well done and congrats to Adrian and the team for getting a second overwhelming win in the council in two weeks!
Westmorland & Furness Council, Krikby Stephen & Tebay
Liberal Democrat (Adrian Waite): 887 (82.7%, +48.7%)
Conservative: 186 (17.3%, -24.6%)
The other gain of the Lib Dems, also from the Conservatives, belongs to Hampshire CC, Bishops Waltham ward. Similarly, Cllr Jonathan Williams also more than doubled the Lib Dem vote share to 52.2%, while the Conservative vote collapsed from over 50% to under 35%. Congratulations to Jonathan and the local team for the work put into flipping this ward yellow.
Hampshire CC, Bishops Waltham
Liberal Democrat (Jonathan Williams): 2210 (52.2%, +28.6%)
Conservative: 1431 (33.8%, -23.1%)
Green Party: 477 (11.3% -2.0%)
Labour: 115 (2.7%, -2.6%)
The final battleground ward between the two parties this week sees a Tories gain from the Lib Dems, the only Conservative representation in Stockport MBC as of present. In the Bramhall South & Woodford ward, Sandeep Kashyap kept the Lib Dem vote steady, falling short of first place by less than 200 votes. Thank you and well done to Sandeep and the team for fighting the good fight, it won’t be long until we’re back.
Stockport MBC, Bramhall South & Woodford
Conservative: 1909 (47.9%, +4.6%)
Liberal Democrat (Sandeep Kashyap): 1733 (43.5%, -1.4%)
Reform: 133 (3.3%, new)
Labour: 115 (2.9%, -4.2%)
Green Party: 95 (2.4%, -2.4%)
Staying the in the North West, Labour holds onto their seat in Eccles with little opposition. Even in such a safe seat in Salford City Council, however, they still lost 11.9% of the vote, a majority of which went to the Lib Dem candidate Ian McKinlay. Thank you to Ian for representing the Lib Dems in the ward, where none stood in the last election.
Salford City Council, Eccles
Labour: 951 (51.2%, -11.9%)
Conesrvative: 426 (23.0%, +6.2%)
Green Party: 261 (14.1%, -0.1%)
Liberal Democrat (Ian McKinlay): 142 (7.7%, new)
TUSC: 76 (4.1%, -1.8%)
The final seat in the North West saw the Independents of North Middleton holding onto their seat in Rochdale BC. Thank you to Keeley O’Mara for standing here for the Lib Dems and growing our vote.
Rochdale BC, North Middleton
Middleton Independents Party: 812 (51.7%, +8.3%)
Labour: 572 (36.4%, -11.9%)
Conservative: 108 (6.9%, +0.3%)
Liberal Democrat (Keeley O’Mara): 80 (5.1%, +3.4%)
The Green Party also held onto their seat in the Sileby & Seagrave ward in Charnwood BC, with Reform coming in as a distant second. Thank you to Alistair Duffy for putting their name on the ballot, giving the voters a Lib Dem option.
Charnwood BC, Sileby & Seagrave
Green Party: 752 (52.9%, -0.8%)
Reform: 297 (20.9%, new)
Conservative: 262 (18.4%, -7.7%)
Labour: 70 (4.9%, -11.7%)
Liberal Democrat (Alistair Duffy): 40 (2.8%, -0.7%)
Finally, Wolverhampton City Council saw Reform gain their first seat in the local by-elections since May from a terribly performing Labour. The Labour vote in the Bilston North collapsed almost two-thirds, giving way for a Reform win. Thank you Julian Donald for flying the Lib Dem flag here, as there was no such choice in the ward previously.
Wolverhampton City Council, Bilston North
Reform: 652 (34.8%, new)
Labour: 471 (25.1%, -46.1%)
Green: 438 (23.4%, new)
Conservative: 257 (13.7%, -15.0%)
Liberal Democrat (Julian Donald): 55 (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.
* Matthew Ma works in the Campaigns and Communications team at ALDC
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4 Comments
As a former Lib Dem Councillor for Kirkby Stephen could I congratulate Adrian White……and could I also implore ALDC and Lib Dem Voice to please get their spell checkers out on the fair, friendly and bonny wee town of Kirkby Stephen.
Reform gained a seat from Labour in Blackpool on 3 October.
Another seat lost to the Tories in a LibDem parliamentary seat. I still have not received any answer to my questions last week. Why and what are we doing about it?
@Mick Taylor: since the May 2024 local elections, the Tories have gained 5 seats from the LDs in local by-elections. However, meanwhile the LDs have gained 5 off the Tories. This is what might be expected given the national situation and polling.
Before the by-election in Bramhall South and Woodford, the Tories had NO councillors in Stockport MBC. Bramhall had been the last Tory seat, lost in the 2022 round of local elections. The surprise is that we ever took it in the first place. We are likely to gain control of Stockport MBC at the next round of locals, but I’d be very surprised if we won back the prime Tory redoubt of Bramhall.
Given the Tories are no longer the highly unpopular government, we ARE going to lose some such local seats to the Tories: another was the result in Harpenden a few weeks back. Again this is an area it’s surprising the Tories ever lost in the first place.