We take a breather this week as there are only 2 principal council by-elections held across England and Scotland. Both seats are held by their respective parties: Lib Dems the seat in Devon and Cornwall and the SNP in Scotland. 

In the Lib Dem defence, Cllr Fabian King stood out from the four candidates as the clear first choice for residents in Exe Valley, East Devon DC. The seat in was last contested in by only us and the Tories in the 2023 locals, but when compared to 2021, similarly a 4-way race, our vote share actually grew by over 7%. Congrats to Cllr Fabian and the team for holding the seat!

East Devon DC, Exe Valley
Liberal Democrat (Fabian King): 256 (44.0%, -26.5%)
Conservative: 137 (23.5%, -6.0%)
Reform: 135 (23.2%, new)
Labour: 54 (9.3%, new)

For the Scottish by-election, Oliver Ferrario stood in the Broxburn, Uphall & Winchburgh and managed to grow the Lib Dem first preference votes. The SNP was elected at stage 7 of counting, who beat second place Labour by 22 votes. Thank you to Oliver for flying the Lib Dem flag.

West Lothian Council, Broxburn Uphall & Winchburgh (Based on first preference votes
SNP: 1375 (31.8%, -10.1%)
Labour: 1263 (29.2%, -0.4%)
Reform: 809 (18.7%, new)
Conservative: 324 (7.5%, -10.2%)
Liberal Democrat (Oliver Ferrario): 229 (5.3%, +1.6%)
Green Party: 185 (4.3%, -0.1%)
Alba Party: 135 (3.1%, +1.7%)

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