Lib Dems wins three seats on Southwark Borough Council in delayed election

By Paul Walter | Fri 15th June 2018 - 5:38 pm

We won all three seats in the deferred election for London Bridge & West Bermondsey!
Congrats to all three top candidates!
That means that, nationwide, the @Libdems gained more seats in the 2018 local elections than Labour did! pic.twitter.com/yt2Q3ndWxs

— Southwark Lib Dems (@swklibdems) June 15, 2018

Many congratulations to Humaira Ali, William Houngbo and Damian O’Brien on being elected to Southwark Borough Council in the new London Bridge & West Bermondsey Ward. This election yesterday was delayed from 3rd May following the sad death of Conservative candidate Toby Eckersley. Well done to the local Southwark team on achieving this great result while also helping in our very strong showing in the Lewisham East by-election. This result means that, overall in Southwark, we made a net gain in seats for this year’s elections.

By my calculations (and according to Wikipedia) this means we made a net gain overall in the national council elections of 2018 of 78 seats, which was just one seat short of Labour’s net gain of 79 seats.

Here’s a full breakdown of the result from the Southwark Council website:

London Bridge & West Bermondsey
Election date: 14 June 2018

Electorate: 10,282
Ballot papers issued: 2,939
Turnout: 28.57%
Rejected ballot papers
Want of an official mark: 0
Voting for more candidates than voter was entitled to: 0
Writing or mark by which voter could be identified: 4
Being unmarked or wholly void for uncertainty: 14
Total: 18
Number of ballot papers rejected in part for uncertainty: 0

This was a new seat, hence why there are no comparative figures for the last election.

https://twitter.com/MrDominicBuxton/status/1004834225152057345

* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.

3 Comments

Mike Read 15th Jun '18 - 7:07pm

Congratulations to all 3. Perhaps a stepping stone on the way to winming the parliamentary seat back in a future GE?
Ruth Bright 15th Jun '18 - 7:43pm

So glad you mentioned that the by-election was caused by the very sad death of Conservative candidate Toby Eckersley, an exceptional public servant who held Labour to account for the Social Services’ scandals in Southwark in the 80s and 90s.

As one of the people who failed to get him elected in 2014 I will be honoured to call William Houngbo “Councillor”!
Matt Dolman 16th Jun '18 - 9:29am

Thanks for the help everyone! Real team effort.