In Woking, two seats were successfully defended, both with overwhelming victory, with both a county and district by-election. Well done to Louise Morales, Deborah Hughes and the local team for ensuring these seats remained with us.
Surrey CC, Woking South
Liberal Democrats (Louise Morales): 1,939 (63.8%, +5.8)
Reform UK: 584 (19.2%, new)
Conservatives: 291 (9.6%, -16.0%)
Green Party: 134 (4.4%, -2.5)
Labour: 91 (3.0%, -4.6)
Liberal Democrat HOLD
Woking BC, Hoe Valley
Liberal Democrats (Deborah Hughes): 1,118 (63.3%, -8.1)
Reform UK: 379 (21.1%, new)
Conservative: 130 (7.2%, -9.0)
Green Party: 83 (4.6%, new)
Labour: 69 (3.8%, -8.6)
Liberal Democrat HOLD
In Oxfordshire, we successfully defended our seat in the Vale of White Horse. Well done to Ben Potter and the team for ensuring an overwhelming victory in this by-election.
Vale of White Horse, Botley & Sunningwell
Liberal Democrats (Ben Potter): 732 (71.5%, +7.9%)
Conservative: 162 (15.8%, -1.8)
Green Party: 130 (12.7%, +11.2)
Liberal Democrat HOLD
We successfully defended a council seat in Leatherhead, ensuring an overwhelming victory for the Liberal Democrats. Well done to Lawrence Penney and the team for ensuring that this seat remains held by us.
Mole Valley DC, Bookham East & Eastwick Park
Liberal Democrat (Lawrence Penney): 1,056 (56.0%, -6.6)
Reform UK: 387 (20.5%, new)
Conservative: 386 (20.5%, -10.1)
Green Party: 56 (3.0%, -1.5)
Liberal Democrat HOLD
In Tewkesbury, Reform UK gained a seat from an independent. Well done to Guy Fancourt and the local team for ensuring that we came second place in this by-election.
Tewkesbury BC, Northway
Reform UK: 374 (41.4%, new)
Liberal Democrats (Guy Fancourt): 279 (30.9%, +7.0)
Conservative: 116 (12.8%, -11.6)
Green Party: 91 (10.1%, new)
Labour: 44 (4.9%, -15.8%)
Reform UK GAIN from Independent
On the Isle of Wight, the Island Independents secured an overwhelming victory. Thank you to Rachel Lambert and the local team for flying the Liberal Democrat flag.
Isle of WIght Council, Wroxall, Lowtherville and Bonchurch
Island Independent Network: 473 (48.1%, new)
Reform UK: 225 (22.9%, new)
Conservative: 153 (15.6%, -4.7)
Liberal Democrats (Rachel Lambert): 53 (5.4%, new)
Vectis: 46 (4.7%, new)
Labour: 33 (3.4%, -8.9)
Island Independent Network GAIN from Independent
In Hartlepool, Reform UK secured a close victory against Labour, gaining a seat on the unitary authority. Thank you to Connor STallard and the local team for flying the Liberal Democrat flag.
Hartlepool UA, Throston
Reform UK: 595 (48.7%, -9.6)
Labour: 475 (38.8%, +7.0)
Green Party: 62 (5.1%, new)
Conservative: 59 (4.8%, -5.1)
Liberal Democrats (Connor Stallard): 32 (2.6%, new)
Reform UK GAIN from Labour
In Bassetlaw, the Independent candidate secured an overwhelming victory, with almost two thirds of the vote. Thank you to Simon Russell and the local team for flying the Liberal Democrat flag.
Bassetlaw, Ranskill
Reform UK: 323 (52.7%, new)
Labour: 96 (15.7%, -27.8)
Conservative: 89 (14.5%, -42.0)
Independent: 44 (7.2%, new)
Liberal Democrat (Simon Russell): 40 (6.5%, new)
Green Party: 21 (3.4%, new)
Reform UK GAIN from Conservative
In Rotherham, Reform UK secured victory, gaining the seat from Labour. Thank you to Khoulod Ghanem and the team for flying the Liberal Democrat flag.
Rotherham MBC, Keppel
Reform UK: 1,160 (40.3%, new)
Independent: 801 (27.8%, -1.9)
Labour: 558 (19.4%, -13.4)
Conservative: 105 (3.6%, -6.9)
Yorkshire Party: 100 (3.5%, -7.8)
Liberal Democrats (Khoulod Ghanem): 80 (2.8%, -1.4)
Green Party: 77 (2.7%, -7.1)
Reform UK GAIN from Labour
There was one by-election this week without a Liberal Democrat candidate. Here are the results:
Wealden DC, Horam & Punnetts Town
Green Party: (35.9%, -29.0)
Reform UK: (32.9%, new)
Conservative: (20.2%, -15.0)
Independent: (11.0%, new)
Green Party 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.
* Liam Yip is the Campaigns and Communications Intern at ALDC
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9 Comments
Worth mentioning Polegate North where our candidate lost out to the Reform UK candidate on a coin toss, with both securing 334 actual votes.
10 elections & Reform gain 4 seats – that looks grim but look at the opinion polls & it seems that we have passed Peak Reform.
Actually there have been two Reform peaks, the first in the Spring, derived from all the publicity they got around the General Election & the second, a Month ago, derived from all the publicity they got from The Local Elections.
We should be familiar with these sorts of temporary bubbles, they have often benefitted us in the past. They don’t last.
Currently Reform are losing about 1% every two Weeks, that doesn’t sound much but its enough to lose them their lead over Labour in the next two Months.
Paul; Outside of those well to do leafy shires Reform continue to perform quite well , as opposed to our vote share that’s for sure.
A real test to see if those temporary bubbles are indeed temporary will be the Senedd elections next year.
The big equation people seem to be avoiding is whether a party whose strength is concentrated in the South of England can ever win a UK election and form a government.
@Paul Barker
I’m afraid Starmer’s deal with the French – to swop up to 50 per month of those crossing to the UK on small boats for a different 50 asylum seekers who France wishes to transfer onwards – will play very badly with those voters who feel that the UK is not controlling its borders. I’m not sure the Reform vote will fall so long as the media keeps giving coverage to the numbers continuing to cross the channel in small boats.
@ Paul Barker,
“Currently Reform are losing about 1% every two Weeks, that doesn’t sound much but its enough to lose them their lead over Labour in the next two Months.”
Your point is best referenced by the graph in the link below.
Two months will be about right if everything continues to change linearly and predictability. However these graphs aren’t linear and predictable for vey long.
So what can happen in the next few months? Rachel Reeves’s Autumn Budget or ‘fiscal statement’, or whatever you want to call it, is very likely to create a downward pressure on the red line in this graph. The other possibility is the creation of a new left party as could be happening under the leadership of Corbyn and Sultana. They are certainly taking their time about it but this Autumn could be as good a time as any to get the wheels rolling.
Forgot the link!
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Opinion_polling_graph_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election_%28post-2024%29.svg
Remains a problem that we cannot get moving in so many seats and by elections.
Remains a major worry that we derelict in so many areas.
Theakes – it was ever thus. These days, it affects Tories and Labour just as much as us. 9/10 candidates is actually pretty impressive.
In theory every council in the country is covered either by a development officer employed by ALDC or by one from LDHQ (or both). Unfortunately local parties refuse to engage with them and when by-elections come up there is often a lot of ‘passing the buck’ when it comes to the unglamorous job of calling up members, filling in the paperwork and driving to the council offices. If more officers stepped up to do this, we would be able to fight every seat.