In Cardiff, a close-fought election between the Greens and Labour emerged, with the Green Party ultimately being victorious. Thank you to Irfan Latif and the local team for flying the Liberal Democrat flag.
Cardiff Council, Grangetown
Green Party: 818 (24.0%, +5.5)
Labour: 774 (22.7%, -24.8)
Plaid Cymru: 639 (18.7%, +0.2)
Reform UK: 495 (14.5%, new)
Propel: 327 (9.6%, +0.1)
Independent: 156 (4.6%, -2.1)
Conservative: 139 (4.1%, -8.4)
Liberal Democrats (Irfan Latif): 63 (1.8%, -2.1)
Green Party GAIN from Labour
Turnout: 26.7%
In Newcastle, it was a hard-fought battle between us and the Greens for the seat. Despite our best efforts, the Green Party were able to secure another councillor in Newcastle. Well done to Jude Browne and the local team for increasing our vote share in this ward.
Newcastle-on-Tyne Council South Jesmond Ward
Green Party: 578 (36.4%, +15.2)
Liberal Democrats (Jude Browne): 523 (33.0%, +7.3)
Labour: 267 (16.8%, -25.3)
Reform UK: 173 (10.9%, new)
Conservative: 45 (2.8%, -5.7)
Green Party GAIN from Labour
Turnout: 30.76%
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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24 Comments
That Newcastle result is utterly disgraceful! We were second place there and it’s within one of the few constituencies in either the north or that are labour held where we both have several councillors and came very close to second place at the GE.
If it had just been too hard to take enough votes from labour it might be understandable, but being overtaken by a much smaller party with fewer members locally and regionally would be physically impossible if the party was taking these sorts of opportunities seriously.
I don’t know whether it’s a problem of local or regional organisation/cooperation or that the national party isn’t doing things it could do to help, or is willingly allowing the greens to fill the progressive void left by the labour party; but if things like this keep happening then then the greens will lock us out of all liberal and progressive seats and we’ll have no way out of the dead end of only winning in ex Tory areas, which is simply not sustainable and very perilous for a party that either wants to be liberal, pro European or economically progressive.
@ David le Grice…… “Utterly disgraceful” ?
You can almost set your watch by it, David. It’s a consequence of how “the party of Middle England” is often perceived in some of the non-middle parts of the rest of the UK.
This needs to be changed well before 2029….. or otherwise ‘them at the top’ will face a much bigger high jump.
David Le Grice – bear in mind that, not so many years ago, the Newcastle Local Party was refusing to use Connect, it sort of makes sense. I suspect that since 2010 there has also been a major degree of demographic change in Jesmond – the well-appointed semi-detached houses that used to be middle class owner occupiers are being divided, and divided again, and rented out.
There are I think some people who should remember that politics is fluid, especially now, that labour had a total collapse including in its student vote, that our party has managed more than one jump from third or fourth to take a seat, and therefore sometimes other parties will too, and that in what was still a close result, party members worked hard, gave time and made real effort, and perhaps deserve support and a little gratitude. It would be nice if some people considered these points before giving us the benefit of their doubtless very important opinions.
@Jack
I’m sorry but these things don’t just happen. In the very rare instances that we win from 3rd it happens because we out campaigned the competition. And I’m not sure there have been any instances of us snatching a seat that the Greens were poised to gain.
This also feeds into a wider problem of the Greens gradually replacing us as Labour’s opponents in the inner cities.
It is certainly Ed Davey and the national party’s fault that the Green’s appeal in such places strong enough to beat us when all other things are equal (judging from elections where neither party campaigned)
But things weren’t equal here, as we had the ability to use squeeze messages.
At a complete guess I suspect they were able to field more activists (though even fielding a similar number would be worrying given their smaller membership), as I recall a liberator article explaining that in London they are much better than us at bringing in activists from across the region.
If that was the case here then it desperately needs fixing, really in all regions but the North East should certainly use this opportunity to learn and make whatever changes are necessary.
With 229 lost deposits + the Greens 350 lost deposits at the 24 GE . Outside of the metropolitan lanyard brigade & leafy suburbia – is a parallel universe.
From comments above, it sounds like an area with a lot of HMOs, and students outside term time. Have the Greens worked out how to find the voters we can’t? Is this done through social media?
Greg Hyde makes an interesting point. It might also be the case that when the Lib Dem establishment get north of Peterborough they get altitude sickness.
Social media ? In the real world, there’s no alternative to wearing out shoe leather and face to face door knocking.
We ran Newcastle up to the coalition. We lost North Jesmond last year to the Conservatives! Things have stagnated there.
Why are we not moving forward as we should be. Stuck in the Home Counties and the West Country will not achieve this. Conference is coming up, need a dynamic approach, forget the Tories and the 14 years blah blah, go for Labour otherwise we will never break out, remember those days controlling Liverpool, Sheffield, Newcastle and 35 councillors in Manchester etc. Where are we now?.
This week, the Greens won the 2 by elections, the week before it was Reform who won all three. The conclusion is that people are voting for disruptors and against the establishment and we are perceived as part of that establishment.
Good to see the highly cogent drawing of catastrophic national conclusions on the basis of two local by-elections with tiny turnouts.
At least, raise your eyes a little and look at the wider LD record at by-elections since the last locals. This gives an entirely different picture to the panic of several posters above.
There will always by-elections where things do not go our way. You cannot realistically expect the party to win a 100% of “winnable” local by-elections.
Roger Billings could be right .We seem to have lost our cutting edge under Davey .
Chris, the wider issue is that we are making no progress in the Midlands and the North in Labour leaning areas with a Labour government at rock bottom, maybe the exception is Liverpool, if anything we are falling even further back.
These are areas where up to the coalition we were doing very well indeed.
For those of us living in Lib Dem derelict areas it is galling to say the least.
We may have a by election in Hampstead and Highgate with the next 6 months or so.
The Greens will probably outshine us, may even win, perhaps then the Party will smell the coffee.
@David Raw. “Social media ? In the real world, there’s no alternative to wearing out shoe leather” That’s a rather defeatest attitude to take in those areas where much of the electorate has no external letterbox, doorbell or even door. Someone is getting their votes so there is an alternative that attracts them. It’s just that we haven’t worked it out yet.
@Greg Hyde: That’s certainly a novel way to describe urban professionals.
We seem to be the forgotten party. There’s a tendency on phone-in stations like LBC for callers discussing how they might vote to not even mention us as a possibility. The programme hosts hardly ever mention us. . Nick Ferrari has never been a friend of the party, but his programme and that of Clare Foges have started to sound like Reform UK party broadcasts.
@David Blake: Are people who call into radio phone-ins representative of the general public?
Hi Alex, I think you are right in your question ‘Are people who call into radio phone-ins representative of the general public?’ and clearly the answer is no. However, a lot more people listen in and they are a lot closer to being representative of the general public. To me that’s the big concern.
Hello, Theakes, you have forgotten Hull and Stockport, both of which we run.
We have also been making slow progress in other northern Labour fiefdoms.
Also there are a good half dozen other northern or midland councils which we head or have overall control; previously, they were Tory-run I believe.
Likewise, we did well in 2025 in Durham and Lancashire CCs in spite of the Reform tidal wave.
So you are not painting an accurate picture; you are being too glum.
PS We have also done well in recent Sheffield local by-elections.
Theakes, I do understand how frustrating it must be to live in a derelict area.
However, the national party was and is right to focus electoral resources on existing seats or realistic prospects for 2029. There are maybe 15 worthwile non-held seats in Midlands and North where effort and resources could lead to success.
I myself have lived in 3 constituencies in Midlands and southern England which were no-hopers when I first moved there. All three now have LD MPs and in two we run the council.
Let it not be forgotten that many areas in the yellow triangle were no-hopers back in the day. Let’s not take the massive achievement in South West and Home Counties for granted.
Well said Jack
Well said Chris Moore.
Theakes – There is a by election campaign in Hampstead and Highgate happening now with the wonderful candidate Janet Grauberg
Jamie Driscoll’s Marority Party has a good foĺllowing in the NE and JD is claiming the credit for the Green win.
They chose to support the Greens rather than run their own candidate.