Lib Dem Alex Eyre held off a huge challenge from Reform to hold the Priory Ward in Swale in one of those rare Tuesday by-elections. The by-election came about after Cllr and former Mayor Mike Henderson died.
Our Cllr Hannah paid tribute to Mike at the time:
Mike was a dedicated public servant who has worked hard for the people of Faversham, and especially those in the Priory ward.
We have lost a huge part of our local Lib Dem team and doing local politics won’t be quite the same without him, his sage advice, quick wit, kindness and the occasional summoning to Bridge House to be set straight by him about something.
We will all miss him dearly as I’m sure his residents will too.
At this difficult time, our thoughts are especially with his family whom he absolutely adored and was so proud of.
Andrew Teale’s Britain Elects preview of the by-election tells us about the recent voting history of the ward:
Our genial host Ben Walker’s model of the 2024 general election results reckons that Priory ward was close three ways between the Conservatives, Labour and Reform UK, with the Conservatives most likely to have carried the ward. Faversham is the largest town in the Conservative-held Faversham and Mid Kent parliamentary seat, where the new shadow transport secretary Helen Whately narrowly held on in July for a fourth term of office just 1,469 votes ahead of Labour. But in local elections Faversham is a Liberal Democrat hotspot. It is represented by the Lib Dems on Kent county council, and all five of the Swale council seats which the Lib Dems won in 2023 were for wards in the town.
Here, from our friends at ALDC, is the result:
Swale Council By-Election – Priory ward
Liberal Democrat HOLD.
🔶 Lib Dem Alex Eyre: 365 42.5% (-12.1)
🔘 RFM: 200 26.9% (New)
🔵 CON: 153 20.6% (-3.5)
🔴 LAB: 74 10.0% (-3.6)No GRN (-7.6)
🎉 Congratulations to Cllr Eyre and the whole team on a hard fought win 🥇
Reform went from zero to over a quarter of the vote. Though our vote fell by 12 %, Alex Eyre and her team were able to hold them off and won convincingly and, importantly, won more than the Conservative and Reform votes together.
Well done to the brilliant Faversham Lib Dem team.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
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5 Comments
Either the numbers or the percentages must be slightly out, if the numbers are right then our percentage is too low & Labour too high, for example.
In any case the Reform achievement is worrying though this is an almost perfect Seat for them, lots of old council Housing & Industry & on the Coast.
Assuming the figures are correct then the percentages are
LibDem 46.1
Reform 25.3
Tory 19.3
Labour 9.4
The numbers aren’t correct. The notice of result is here:
https://swale.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/480220/Declaration-of-Result-Priory-Ward-Sept-24-AAA.pdf
The LibDem figure should be 316.
Word from Lib Dem Kent County Councillors is that Reform had 50 activists in the ward on Saturday; and chief snake oil salesman “Nige” was on standby to celebrate a win.
An excellent result by the Swale team, denying Reform the publicity they craved and firmly keeping them in their box. That will be a crucial part of our strategy over the next five years when we will be pressed hard by Reform and the Greens, who will both be hoping to undermine us in their target areas. Is there a mechanism to publicise by-elections that is freely available? We used to use Flock Together, but it seems to have been usurped by multiple Facebook groups, but nothing that is available for all to link to on LDV.