The final council by-election results of 2023 have been declared. We can look back on a brilliant, and historic year, of Liberal Democrat performances!
In total there were 197 principal council by-elections contested in 2023. The Liberal Democrats won 51 of these elections. Of these 26 were Lib Dem gains from other parties or independents.
That means, of all principal council by-elections in 2023, over a quarter resulted in a Lib Dem win – and one in eight resulted in a Lib Dem gain!
In total we made a net gain of 26 council seats in by-elections and countermanded elections over the course of the year. This is our joint third best performance since the merger in 1988 and comfortably the best of any party this year.
By contrast the Green Party had a net gain of 8, Labour had a net gain of 7, the SNP and Plaid were down a combined 6 seats and the Conservatives were down a net 31 councillors!
Head to head, we gained 22 seats from the Conservative, 2 from Labour and 1 each from the SNP and the Green Party with the rest coming from independents or locals. We did not lose a single council seat from Labour, the Conservatives, the SNP or Plaid during 2023. Our 4 losses when defending came against the Green Party (3) and 1 independent.
This gives us a retention rate of 84% (21 of 25 defences successfully held) in 2023 – once again our best ever result since 1988.
We were also up by 6.5% in our total share of the vote across all the wards contested. Once again this was emphatically the best performance of any party. Labour increased their vote share by just 1.1% while everyone else was down (the Green Party by 0.2%, SNP and PC by a combined 1.1% and the Conservatives by 4.8%).
So on almost every score it has been a triumphant year for the Lib Dems in council by-elections. On behalf of ALDC thank you to everyone who has stood, campaigned and donated to a by-election this year. You have all delivered these amazing results and let’s look ahead to even more success in 2024.
* Charles Quinn is Campaigns Organiser for ALDC and a local councillor in Hull.
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5 Comments
“We were also up by 6.5% in our total share of the vote across all the wards contested”
So the missing variable here is what percentage did we contest. I am optimistic that this too went up which would make the result even better.
May it be a happy New Year with us getting into the Labour areas.
For those interested in a longer term view rather than one week’s results here is my monthly data for the last fifty local by-elections up to the end of December:
Liberal Democrats 25.3%, Conservatives 25.0%, Labour 24.9%, Greens 11.9%,
Others 12.8%
Gains and losses are:
Lib Dems: Net gain of thirteen: 13 gains, 9 held, 0 lost
Green: Net gain of one: 3 gains, 3 held, 2 lost
Labour: No change: 1 gains, 11 held, 1 lost
Others: Net loss of one: 1 gain, 2 held, 2 lost
Independents: Net loss of four: 1 gain, 1 held, 5 lost
Conservatives: Net loss of nine: 1 gain, 6 held, 10 lost
Liberal Democrats won 22 seats, Labour 12, Conservatives 7, Greens 6, Independents 2, Residents 1, Others 3. (Does not add up to 50 because of double-elections in some wards)
This data is for the most recent 50 by-elections in England & Wales (4th October to 21st December). Parish/Town councils are not included.
@Peter Davies
Proportion of seats contested in 2023 was Con 88.8%, Lab 83.0%, LD, 78,9%, Greens 59.0%.
All of these parties increased the proportion of seats contested in the second half of the year. i.e. For the last 100 by-elections (from 27th June onwards) the numbers are Con 99%, Lab 91%, LD 90%, Greens 67% (and if you are interested the next two parties are Reform UK 16% and TUSC 9%)
These figures are for England & Wales only. For various reasons I don’t include Scotland.
Hi. Whats was the highest share of the vote for a lib dem candidate in a council by-election this year? Whats was the highest in a 3 way and 4 way contest.?