Results have been relatively quiet overnight. And there is a hiatus this morning until the next wave of results start after lunch.
Most Councils are counting today, which makes sense from a human resources standpoint but is rather frustrating for those of us who love the drama of election night. Some ward results are trickling in, but we will have to wait until this afternoon to see whether we have managed to take control of councils in those areas where we bucked the trend last summer and gained Westminster constituencies before winning the local council. Watch Devon, Oxfordshire and Shropshire, all expected to declare late afternoon.
As far as the Metro Mayor elections are concerned, most are fights between Reform and Labour, although Greens are hopeful in West of England. However one stands out as a three cornered contest with Lib Dems in with a chance – Hull and East Yorkshire. Our candidate there is Mike Ross, who is Leader of Hull City Council and predictions have placed him second, behind Reform, with Labour close behind. Mike is well known to party members as a popular and effective Chief Steward at Federal Conferences. The result is expected mid afternoon today.
* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.
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43 Comments
Looks like a nationwide reform protest vote.
Staffordshire they are winning even with paper candidates.
@theakes
Why do you say ‘nationwide reform protest vote’ when only a handful of results have been declared overnight?
What evidence do you have that results so far are representative of the country as a whole?
Voters are deeply concerned about the rapid & continuing demographic changes in their communities.
Gone are the days when politicians can espouse the economic benefits of immigration when we have had record inward immigration and yet failing services.
Record council tax rise, record water rates, umpteenth rise in energy bills, train fares inflation busting rise, bus fares up 50 per cent, hospitals dilapidated and over stretched , schools over subscribed, soaring rents, ballooning housing waiting lists . Just what are
those economic benefits ?
@ Craig Levene “Voters are deeply concerned about the rapid & continuing demographic changes in their communities”.
Does that include you, Craig ?
I am afraid Theakes may well be right.
Chesterfield (Derbyshire County Council) Results are not being counted until this afternoon. However there was a Chesterfield Borough Council By election result declared early this morning. The Liberal Democrats (410 votes) gained it from Labour (235), who slumped to 3rd place. Reform (350), on the basis of a minimal campaign came from nowhere to a very strong second place.
By the end of this afternoon it could well be that Chesterfield is a Labour free zone at County Council level -for the first time ever? Reform are clearly surging, whether they campaign or not, in line with national opinion polls, fawning press coverage and the first election results from last night.
David. Immigration has been in the top three concerns for voters for a considerable time .
The mantra from progressive politicians was to explain to people the economic benefits of inward immigration – it’s only fair to ask looking at our economy just what those benefits are . If your under the assumption that voters are not unduly concerned then that’s fine …
I find it extremely disturbing that our country ,along with many others ,are seemingly so disillusioned with the established party’s that feel the need to turn to the likes of Reform . Surely the the celebrations of VE Day should give food for thought, at least.
@ Craig Levene. I’m afraid you’ve ducked my question, Craig.. I asked whether you are “deeply concerned about the rapid and continuing
democratic change in (your) community”.
I and many others across the whole political spectrum, are concerned that adding a city the size of Bristol every year to the population is in no way sustainable in the long term. Those who argue otherwise, need to explain how our services can accommodate such a figure year in year out. We’ve been told previously about the economic benefits of inward immigration, it’s only right that people are now questioning that given the current state of the economic outlook and the continuing pressure on services. Hope that helps David.
It brings back memories of the surge in vote for the Liberal/SDP Alliance, when by-election gains were followed by more gains and all was wept before us, only for it to vanish at the next election when the votes piled up, but First Past the Post saw millions of votes deliver a handful of MPs. Ironically, Reform, with a policy platform a million miles away from the LIb-Dems on many issues, support PR. It will be interesting to see how their push for PR develops, if their vote increases and First Past the Post provides their best opportunity to advance.
Wept should be swept. Bit back then many wept!
Like most people I thought Reform would do well in the midlands and north. However, I’m really surprised how well they have done in Devon – 16 seats. The LibDems were obviously targeting southern Tory seats because they though they were the only alternatives – this may no longer be the case.
I am reduced to looking for less bad News, it now looks like Reform will take less than half the Seats. This is terrible but we should remember that UKIP did well in the past & then turned out to be rubbish at actually doing stuff. I suspect many of the new Councillors will be in for a shock when they see how much Work is involved
On the up side we could take more Seats than The Tories & The Greens more than Labour
“I suspect many of the new Councillors will be in for a shock when they see how much Work is involved”
Yes – I wonder how long some of these newly elected councillors will last. Some of them won’t have expected to get elected. They have some hard lessons to learn.
“On the up side we could take more Seats than The Tories & The Greens more than Labour”
It looks like total disillusionment with the 2 traditional big parties.
Similar to the US, the desire to see new Reform councillors fail and business to return to the old usual risks dismissing the concerns of those who put their X against the Reform box.
“Immigration has been in the top three concerns for voters for a considerable time ”
which would have something to do with it being continually talked about as an issue in all the media, one supposes. We actually need immigration to maintain a suitably sized workforce in the UK, as the government knows, and why they don’t reduce legal immigration which far outweighs the demonised “small boats” immigrants.
@Jenny Barnes
I think the truth is that many, if not most, ordinary people are very concerned by what they see as excessive immigration – and outraged by the government not stopping people crossing the channel to enter the UK illegally. I was speaking to a secondary school teacher recently who told me that their school had 16 Unaccompanied Asylum Seekers who were all male, looked between 18 and 25 years old, and all recorded as 17 years of age with a date of birth of 1st January as they had no identification papers. You don’t need to be a racist to understand who many voters feel uncomfortable about what is happening and want to vote for someone who might address the issue.
@Mike Peters
“outraged by the government not stopping people crossing the channel to enter the UK illegally.”
How do refugees cross the channel legally? Presumably they need some formal identification document?
Wouldn’t that be the first thing someone fleeing from oppression in an overseas country would throw away?
One obvious lesson from Tonight is that Parties that Fight Reform do well while Parties that try to present themselves as Reform-lite get crushed. Will Labour notice ?
Jenny. Upto a thousand undocumented migrants arriving on the Kent coast a week is pretty newsworthy stuff. Having said that, the public don’t need to watch the news – they can see from the significant demographic changes in their towns that have taken place. Wasn’t that long ago politicians were telling us the economic benefits of inward immigration – many would be forgiven for wondering what they are. Malc , I was shocked how well Aaron Banks done in the west country mayoral contest , didn’t think he’d get that close in all honesty. Nonconform. First thing I would do if fleeing persecution I’d thank god I’ve reached a safe country . I wouldn’t be pitching a tent in a french coastal town hoping for a hotel room in the UK .
@ paul barker
“One obvious lesson from Tonight is that Parties that Fight Reform do well while Parties that try to present themselves as Reform-lite get crushed.”
I think you might be confusing correlation with causation and the lessons to be drawn are more nuanced.
The LibDems and Greens benefitted from a highly unpopular governing party and its very unpopular predecessor. I cannot recall a similar situation and Reform benefitted the most. Perhaps the lesson is not to make yourselves unpopular, easier said than done?
@ Craig Levene Craig, would you say that demographic change is an elegant euphemism for racism ?
Not at all mate. Towns have become monocultural, that’s just human nature. There is very little mixing, it’s a myth that there is any significant degree of integration on the scale which we’ve been led to believe. It’s like saying Sweden is the poster boy of Multiculturalism.
Craig Levene 2nd May ’25 – 8:31pm.. I wouldn’t be pitching a tent in a french coastal town hoping for a hotel room…
Straight from ‘Reform’s ‘playbook’ …For starters, France, Germany, etc. receive far more refugees than the UK..
If, as part of election canvassing, you asked the question, “What % of the UK population are refugees?”.. How many do you suppose would get it right?
Sadly, a deliberate policy of misinformation, is the stock in trade of Reform and their right wing media supporters.. Myths about 4/5* hotels, queue jumping for social housing, etc., fill the pages of the Express/Mail..**
Almost all those who arrive (94%) want to work legally which means that, far from being a burden on society, they would be net contributors.. The UK has an aging population and a falling birthrate so who will pay for those who seem to make up the vast majority of Reform voters and the Mail/Express readership? **
Educating, rather than frightening, the population about Immigration is the only long term solution; but that doesn’t suit Farage or sell papers..
** When reading the comments regarding Farage/Reform I often wonder if that was the atmosphere which led to “The consecration of the flags” at Weimar”..
Before anyone tells me I’ve gone too far, The first call from Reform’s Dame Andrea Jenkyns, on her election as the new mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, was for migrants to be “put in tents”…
@expats: While I’m sure you’re factually correct on much of what you say, it’s rather missing the point. Lots of people want lower immigration and action on small boats because they correctly perceive that :
(a) The UK’s huge population increase arising from immigration has put intolerable pressure on housing and infrastructure, directly causing high housing costs which drive poverty and homelessness
(b) Many of the people crossing in small boats are not genuinely facing persecution but are economic migrants
(c) All the people crossing in small boats are deliberately choosing to leave a safe country (France) because they apparently prefer the UK: None are directly leaving a country they are being persecuted in.
The fact that next to this there is misinformation about benefits and how many want to work legally and what proportion of immigrants arrive illegally and suchlike is bad but doesn’t significantly change the politics. Reform are getting support partly because they are tapping into the unpopularity of the big parties and partly because on issues like immigration they have understood and listened to the public mood.
Thank you Simon.
One wonders if some supporters have ever knocked on a door.
@ David Raw
“Would you say that demographic change is an elegant euphemism for racism ?”
Clearly there are some who see and use the words “demographic change” this way.
However, if we are determined to see the euphemism as the dominant meaning of “demographic change” and avoid it, it becomes impossible to talk about issues like the age profile, health profile, ethnic mix, religious mix and the like in a population in pursuit of our aims to deliver a society that is fair, free and open; and that balances liberty, equality in a community where no-one is enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.
For what it’s worth, my experience canvassing over the last couple of months shows very clearly that the voters are thinking about health, ethnic mix, religious mix and the like. As liberal democrats should we not be thinking about them too?
I would add that saying that refugees don’t have to stay in the first safe country, ignores the fact that the British electorate doesn’t consist of 60,000,000 human rights lawyers.
It may be correct as the law is currently drafted, but it goes down like a lead balloon/cup of cold sick with the electorate. The people who ultimate elect MPs and Councillors.
If I was a betting person (I’m not!), I would be willing to bet large amounts of folding money that the vast majority of the electorate outside Liberal/Progressive bubbles consider that anybody who is coming from France is an economic migrant whatever the NGOs and human rights lawyers say.
Failure to recognise what the electorate want led to Brexit, I can see us leaving the UN refugee convention and the ECHR too.
Ah, well, after reading the last few posts I wonder if I support the right (correct) party for my values..
In my view just reflecting uninformed opinions, rather than trying to change them, isn’t a sensible long term approach; those who hold them will always ‘buy the original’ rather than an ersatz copy…
In 2010 this party adopted certain views in order to become the government; that didn’t serve us well..
@ expats
“just reflecting uninformed opinions, rather than trying to change them, isn’t a sensible long term approach”
I agree. But I’m not sure that refusing to discuss issues voters are undoubtedly concerned about other than presenting ourselves as morally superior and expecting voters to just accept it is the best way of winning support and changing minds. And if we refuse to discuss such issues amongst ourselves, we run the risk of being just as uninformed.
as well.
When talking about migrants in tents near Calais, please be aware that the French Police regularly remove these shelters along with warm bedding, even in the depth of winter.
Mike Peters: “I think the truth is that many, if not most, ordinary people are very concerned by what they see as excessive immigration – and outraged by the government not stopping people crossing the channel to enter the UK illegally.”
Total immigration to the UK in 2024 was ~ 700k, small boats ~35k. So the immigration that could be stopped at a stroke of the pen was 19 times bigger than the immigration that the Daily Mail etc bang on obsessively about. Well, why don’t they stop it? I suggest it’s because they are needed to run the economy.
As to “entering the UK illegally”, as there is no “legal” route for most refugees to reach the UK, that is just another phrase to trigger negative emotions and moral panics.
@Tristan Ward 3rd May ’25 – 9:36am…
‘Uninformed’..
Immigration is the cause of house price rises… Between 1974 and 1982 my (then) house value rose sevenfold..(was that due to immigration?)
Economic migrants are ‘bad’.. Those most against such migrants are past working age with all the ailments that go with that demography.. Economic migrants are of working age, pretty healthy, etc.. Mostly an asset.
Immigrants should stay in France.. A bit unfair on France, most of these choosing to come to the UK have links either through family or the fact that they are fluent in ‘English’…I could go on..
Farage/Reform (the words are interchangeable) offers simplistic answers without any practical ‘HOWS’..
.
There are lots of factors that affect how people vote, but Reform clearly continue to play the immigration card. One thing our party needs to make clearer; our policy is not to let them all in which is what so many uninformed voters think. As Layla Moran made clear on question time last year, we believe in controlled immigration. Therefore we have a ‘legal’ system for application for asylum and we need to discuss how that is best organised and controlled. We believe in being sympathetic to genuine asylum seekers but others we take according to our country’s needs.
Unfortunately having lost my wife and suffered ill health myself in recent months and being of a certain age doesn’t necessarily put me in same category as Reform voters. Is it beyond the wit of other political parties to devise an immigration policy that is both humane and sensible and that doesn’t turn the clock back 80years?
@Tristan Ward, I agree with your comment Liberal Democrats are pretty good at having insight into problems. Especially Joseph Burke and Peter Martin ‘re economic issues. Unfortunately the same sort of intellectual thinking doesn’t seem to be allowed with regard to our UK immigration problem without accusations of racism being levelled.
@Jenny: Yes of course, people arriving in small boats are far fewer than total immigration. But the vast majority who arrive legitimately pay the Government high visa fees plus health surcharges. And in the process of applying for a visa most of them effectively demonstrate they have a legitimate reason to be in the UK. And yes, they do have economic benefits (while unfortunately also adding to the pressure on our housing stock). Set against that, an economic migrant arriving in a small boat is abusing our system, probably lying to do so, and for that pays no visa fees and gets put up in a hotel for free while their asylum application is assessed – with a good chance it’ll be approved because it can be next to impossible for an immigration officer to work out who is a genuine asylum seeker vs who is an economic migrant pretending they face persecution in order to get into the UK. It really shouldn’t be a surprise that many people (and the Daily Mail) are particularly infuriated by that group, even though it only forms a small part of total immigration.
Jenny ; Are you saying we need 700k + a year inward migration to run the economy ? A city the size of Bristol every year. Politicians have repeatedly told the electorate about the economic benefits immigration brings, voters are rightly questioning that given the state of how things currently are. We have over 1.5 million currently unemployed. The current figures are not sustainable or viable. Towns that are already struggling have had a disproportionate dispersal of asylum seekers placed within them – a potent mix.
@Jenny Barnes
“As to “entering the UK illegally”, as there is no “legal” route for most refugees to reach the UK…”
That is what I was wondering about when I posted earlier in this thread.
What “legal” routes are there for refugees?
@Jenny Barnes
You are, of course, absolutely correct – a legal route for genuine asylum seekers is needed. That said, even if we had legal routes in place, the UK will still have an issue with people entering the country illegally because some economic migrants, who know they won’t quality for asylum, will still be willing to take the chance.
@Christopher 3rd May ’25 – 10:59am
“Unfortunately the same sort of intellectual thinking doesn’t seem to be allowed with regard to our UK immigration problem without accusations of racism being levelled.”
Quite. To be fair this thread has not carried any overt accusations of racism. te prejudices .
@ expats 3rd May ’25 – 7:09am
“I often wonder if that was the atmosphere which led to “The consecration of the flags” at Weimar”. I think we are absolutely in that world, and if liberals don’t stand up to it no one will. We HAVE to find a way – in this atmosphere – to defeat the authoritarians and persuade voters Reform Ltd is both the answer. HOW to have that conversation in the most effective way is the hard bit.
AJewish collegaue who stood for election on Thursday (both parents deported form Jemany in teh 1930s and whose 93 year old mother still wakes up with nighmare says her anteane or quivering
Craig Levene”Jenny ; Are you saying we need 700k + a year inward migration to run the economy ?”
I’m not saying that, but the actions in government of Conservatives, Labour & in Coalition LDs inplies that they think so. It’s really not surprising that people say “they’re all the same” when there is an area of concern like this and government just lies about it.
@Jenny: I wouldn’t see it like that. The Government has not deliberately chosen to admit 700K+. On the contrary, over the last decade, successive Governments have massively tightened visa rules as part of attempts to reduce the numbers arriving. For example, last year, student rules changed so most students could no longer bring family members. And just a few weeks ago, care worker rules changed to require an employer to show they’ve attempted to recruit within the UK before sponsoring a migrant for the job.
But the Government has no direct control over how many people choose to apply for visas to live in the UK, and the numbers remain high because so many people want to come to the UK (and are able to satisfy the visa rules). And the system (rightly) is that, if you apply for a visa and meet the requirements for that visa, then you get the visa.
Both the Conservative and Labour Governments have seriously wanted to reduce immigration, but achieving that has proved almost impossible.