So with only about 10% of the results across the nation in, we are doing ok.
We have gained control of Stockport, a success that had Hazel Grove MP Lisa Smart dancing on live television.
We also gained Portsmouth.
The results in the London Boroughs of Richmond and Sutton were almost embarrassing. We took all 54 seats in Richmond and 51 out of 55 in Sutton, wiping out the Tories there completely. While it is a huge endorsement of the good work our Councillors are doing, it’s also not healthy in any democracy for any party to have so much power.
There was less good news in Merton where we had hoped to get closer to control. Labour held on, though we gained two seats.
The sad news is that we lost our majority control in Hull, though we are still the largest party by a very long way. Reform picked up 10 seats, 7 from Labour and 3 from us. We also gained one from Labour. We almost lost another to Reform by a handful of votes.
Overall, we have gained 35 Council seats so far, retaining control of Eastleigh along the way.
Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper said:
The Liberal Democrats are on a record-breaking winning streak. We are heading for our eighth set of local election gains in a row and are on track to beat Labour and the Conservatives once again. I couldn’t be more proud of our hardworking teams across the country, who knocked on over three-and-a-half million doors to take the fight to Farage and his politics of division.
We’ve recorded stonking results in Stockport and Portsmouth, taking control of both councils and beating Reform. Many of our best results are still to come in places like Surrey, Sussex, Huntingdonshire, and Southwark.
While those on the populist extremes of left and right just want to pitch groups against each other, Liberal Democrats have a plan to fix what’s broken and bring our country together.
Here she is on the BBCf
We’ve made significant gains from Sutton to Stockport, and it’s clear we are winning off both the Conservatives and Labour.
Liberal Democrats work incredibly hard on the ground, and we believe the best is still to come tonight.
@libdemdaisy.bsky.social
— Liberal Democrats (@libdems.org.uk) May 8, 2026 at 7:16 AM
Counting gets underway from 9 am in Scotland, Wales and the rest of England’s Councils and mayoralties.
I’m off to my count and I’ll see you on the other side.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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35 Comments
Some good results in Ealing too with seven gains.
Even if progress might be considered modest so far, its remarkable that this is despite virtual “blanking” by the main stream media who are obsessed with Farage and Polanski. A tribute to hard work in actual neighbourhoods,. Well done!
I suppose the question will be whether ‘doing Ok’ is well, actually Ok
The next 24-36 hours will be all about spin which will pretty much say, “these are a great set of results”. What is super-important – and what the party has been terrible at in the past – is properly analysing what happened and not letting the election night spin become the analysis.
“Great results in Stockport, Portsmouth and Eastleigh” was something common to read after election nights in the coalition years.
Reform were predicted to do well here in Sutton but in the event gained just two seats.
Lib Dems +22
Reform +2
Independents & others -2
Labour – 2
Tories -20 (losing all their seats)
Hopefully, this augurs well for councils in neighbouring Surrey.
The big news is the fall in Reforms support since last year, down from getting more than 2 in 5 Seats to around a third so far. This is in line with the direction of The Polls but rather larger. We will know more when we get the National Equivalent estimates on Sunday.
Reform still come first and We come equal second with Labour and Tories.
The Greens seem to be disappointing so far, we are getting more Gains than they are.
It looks like a disappointing set of results especially in places like Merton. The lack of a national message means that the party only does well where it’s already dug in but struggles to win in new areas. The Greens and Reform are doing better because people are clearer as to what they stand for.
@paul barker
Re the fall in Reform support, is that comparing seats fought last year and this. If not, maybe it’s not a good comparison?
I think losing Hull where there has been a shift to Reform is a sign that the Lib Dems are failing to be a bulwark against them. I think the party’s interest in southern, more affluent seats is also why the Lib Dems will struggle to make inroads into the north.
Will be interested to see how this:
“The big news is the fall in Reforms support since last year, down from getting more than 2 in 5 Seats to around a third so far. This is in line with the direction of The Polls but rather larger. ”
Pans out. Hard to be clear on whether comparisons are genuinely like for like and I’ve seen different breakdowns. Certainly the *polls* show a decline for Reform over the last year.
Not to read too much into fragmented and early results but Greater Manchester gives and interesting microcosm:
So far the headline good news – Stockport 2 gains and overall gain of control.
But in the rest of Greater Manchester (Wigan, Bolton, Oldham, Tameside, Salford) 6 net losses. (Trafford, Manchester city, Rochdale and Bury still to come)
No results in the remaining 4 councils as yet – but something of a flag in the “party is entrenching support in strong areas whilst getting more hollowed out elsewhere” hypothesis.
“Certainly the *polls* show a decline for Reform over the last year.”
That is true. Farage did a podcast interview, where his answer to a question was “Mass deportations are impossible”. This Farage comment did not go down well with Reform supporters. Also, about 3 months ago Rupert Lowe legally registered the Restore Britain Party, which has a very different stance on deportations. So in short, the defection from Reform is moving to Restore Britain, because Farage is being seen as not Right wing enough. As I’ve said before, the next GE is going to be a brutal affair.
Sad that we lost Shetland to the SNP. Is there anything behind this?
I’m following the results on BBC and Sky. It seems Reform are replacing Labour in virtually all areas that have social issues, Newcastle under Lyne, Thurrock, etc. Just heard we’ve lost Shetlands. But everyone says it’s going fine. Proof of the existance of parallel universes ?
It seems the SNP was very active within the community in Shetlands and that’s what got people to vote for the SNP. But reading the votes so far from Scotland there is a decline in people voting for SNP (decline in turnout as well), but those who wish to remain in the UK is actually up. So Scottish Lib Dems now need to show an identity, and a passion to grab the voters attention.
The success of Reform means we have a lot of work ahead of us in the next three years. It is good that we may be starting from the second place position. Now, if we could just get the media to report that.
Catastrophic loss in Shetland. The Scottish party really took its eye off the ball in this one.
Loss of Shetland is catastrophic. How does SNP get nearly 50pc and it’s not even flagged.
@Chris Cory, some correction to the picture about Newcastle-under-Lyme. Reform now replace Conservatives on the council not Labour. Labour have been declining for some time (as have we Lib Dems) and now have only 2 councillors out of 44 so were not expected to be much in contest with Reform. The local Conservatives have been attacking Reform since Reform almost completely wiped them out on the County Council last year and are led by a soft Conservative who I as Lib Dem worked with in coalition in the past. The high turn out suggests Reform picked up votes from people who would not normally vote in local elections and their messages were national, except one that the local Conservative Council had mismanaged the finances and that was one of those big lies that show how immoral politics under Reform will be.
“Conservative Council had mismanaged the finances and that was one of those big lies that show how immoral politics under Reform will be” ….Local politicians accuse another party of mismanagement of finances – exposé….
Plenty of voters think they are all on the take ..
Newcastle seen better days Nigel – could be worse look at Tunstall , Kidsgrove etc…
You’d get some home truths in the Roebuck that’s for sure.
@Tom Bailey
Re: Restore UK. I agree that Rupert Lowe’ party are a threat to Reform from the radical right, risking tearing away the (choose your word) the people who have history in the BNP, Britain First and all the groupuscules, so Farage has been making occasional even harder line noises about concentration camps and so on to shore up his far right component.
And Reform tweets etc are often commented on that they are not xenophobic enough, whether by people or commercial bots trying to make revenue from creating dissension.
But I do not see much influence, as afaics Restore UK are not standing visible candidates, Rupert’s Great Yarmouth Party is standing a number in Great Yarmouth. But otoh I think there are others standing under an “Independent” flag. This may mean that some decloak later.
“Loss of Shetland is catastrophic. How does SNP get nearly 50pc and it’s not even flagged.”
Majority was only about 800 last time – bigger than it sounds due to the small electorate but still not ‘weighing the votes’ safe and there was a new LD candidate. Whether that is true would depend on inside knowledge but not a given.
What people see as a surprise isn’t always so. I remember being at post 2010 meetings where people talked of the ‘surprise’ gain of Burnley!
Sky’s projected vote share has Reform down 4% from last year (this takes account of the different seats voting etc so is comparable). That is somewhat in line with the polls
@Matt Wardman
Thank you for engaging in debate. I take my information from a wide variety of sources, in order to get as best I can “the big picture”. I think a few things are worth noting, if we wish to understand what is happening in the politics of 2026 to 2029.
1. Name calling doesn’t work any more. Declaring voters as “loony left” or “uneducated bigots” is totally pointless. There are no *shy voters* that can be muted by casual vilification and insults any more. Voters simply don’t care a jot, what *politicos* think.
2. Many voters now see Britain as being in an economic, societal and cultural crisis. They want *extreme solutions* to their perceived severe, existential crisis facing Britain as we approach 2030.
3. It is now believed by many voters, that this perceived crisis, cannot be solved by the “centre soft soap solutions” of Red, Blue, Orange political systems which (they believe) have let Britain down badly, over several decades.
4. A group of angry, bitter, despairing voters think that the crisis needs Extreme *Left* policy.
5. A group of angry, bitter, despairing voters think that the crisis needs Extreme *Right* policy.
6. The next GE will be a savage and brutal battleground between groups 4. and 5.
7. At the next GE, anyone who still thinks that occupying the political centre ground as being a safe, sane, routine, rational policy option, will perish in-situ.
Rupert Lowe’s party won all the seats in Great Yarmouth standing as “Great Yarmouth First”
@ Tom Bailey
“Anyone who still thinks that occupying the political centre ground as being a safe, sane, routine, rational policy option, will perish in-situ.”
There may be some who run to follow a group of angry, bitter, despairing voters. That route didn’t end well in the 1930s, and, if it happens, it wouldn’t end well in the early 21th century either. I suspect the vast majority of Liberal Democrats will stick with the sane rational options, and rightly and bravely so.
I agree it will be a rough ride.
@TomBailey
“Name calling doesn’t work any more.”
I doubt it did Trump any harm and expect there’ll be plenty of it here should the next GE be brutal as some predict.
“I suppose the question will be whether ‘doing Ok’ is well, actually Ok”. I agree. When the political map has been turned upside down, surely some thinking about the whys and wherefores is called for!
Fundamentally, I think a problem is that historically, the voters have judged the Lib Dems in relation to the Tories and Labour. Thus – I want to vote centre-left, and I’ll take the Lib Dems rather than Labour because the Lib Dems are less authoritarian, or less financially irresponsible, or just more comfortably middle-class. Or – I want to vote centre-right, and I’ll take the Lib Dems rather than the Tories becaus they’re a bit more compassionate and a bit less corrupt.
That’s the way that many voters have historically focused their opinions, and eventually come down in favour of a Lib Dem vote. But as a way of thinking, it has now collapsed. People now just hate Labour and the Tories, so, those two old parties are no longer a relevant point of reference.
So the Lib Dems now have to stand on their own two feet, and compete with Reform and the Greens. They are not used to doing that, and it shows.
@Dennis. The LDs only made a loss of 2 seats in Hull. Unfortunately, because the council was on such a knife edge, that meant losing control. Reform’s gains were chiefly at the expense of Labour, particularly in the east of the city.
With regards Shetland, the SNP had a strong candidate, well known in the community. In a constituency where voters often choose based on personal factors, that proved decisive.
Basically, if you’re disgruntled with the ‘big two,’ you now have more options—viable ones at that. Looking at the leaflets through my door, both the Greens and Reform have become far more professional and have the canvassers to back that up.
Before the panicky Labour Party tries to find Andy Burnham a winnable constituency so that he can act as their saviour, I would suggest someone should point out to them the Manchester City results, where Labour lost 24 of the 30 seats they were defending on the city council (the Greens gaining 17 of them and Reform taking 7). Labour only retains control of the council because just a third of the city seats were up for election this time.
Looking at other results in the north, the Hull results look like they are much towards the stronger end of performances. I would guess that LDs acting as a ‘bulwark against Reform’ in the north is going to rely on strong organisation as well.
Where I live a Lib Dem campaign trying to build on a second place finish to reform in a by-election last year focussed heavily on ‘vote Lib Dem to stop Reform’ but finished in third. There was very little else to the campaign though besides that message and I think it needed a lot more (which would have required a *lot* more intensive effort that may just not have been doable). Reform win by 600 votes with 35% of the vote
@Rif – and the ‘Burnham effect’ hypothesis is a bit dented this morning!
Interesting to see Starmer doing a Nick Clegg ‘I will not go’ and loyalists like Yvette Cooper, Lucy Powell and indeed most of the rest of cabinet dutifully rolling out the ‘a divided party is a losing party’ narrative, all ignoring the fact that it was the leader who caused the division in the first place and then compounded it by making a total political mess of being in government.
Labour’s mandate is a mile wide, but paper thin and it has three years to sort itself out and put things right. Waiting for something new to turn up while changing nothing is self deluding and self destructive.
Its support is evaporating, membership collapsing and soon all that will be left is those hanging on to the wreckage in the hope of being in charge next time. However next time the national situation will be much worse and the siren voices of populism even stronger.
Andy Burnham isn’t in charge of Manchester City Council. He is no more to blame for losing it than Sadiq Khan is for councils being lost in London. Labour did hold onto other Greater Manchester authorities such as Salford and Trafford.
I think we should avoid believing what the press had to say about our performance (nothing) and look at what actually happened. We have made gains, albeit smaller than previous years, for the 8th year in a row. And, yes, we lost seats in many places too, one because in some places the Greens convinced enough voters they could win to deprive us of victory, usually by a handful of votes and two because we didn’t move people around enough from seats we were all but certain to win to nearby seats where it was much closer.
My old mate Hywel is right too. We need more than ‘we’re the least worst option to the party you hate the most.’ Mind, sometimes having a detailed, costed manifesto, comes back to bite you in the proverbial, when you can’t deliver it!
My early focuses (Todmorden Letter) had local and national politics in and small policy snippets and almost no pictures and were black and white, even on one or two occasions an EU story. Sadly current offerings are rather like Hallo Magazine these days.