At the end of our weekly council by-election reports from ALDC they usually thank the Lib Dem candidates for flying the flag in unwinnable wards. And that is what we must do today.
So a big thank you to Jake Austin (Makerfield), Mel Sullivan (Aberdeen South) and Tanvir Ahmad (Arbroath and Broughty Ferry) for putting up with all the hoo-ha and making sure Lib Dems were on the ballot papers.
This now provides our readers with an opportunity to discuss the results and their wider implications, in the comments below.
* 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.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Prince Harry visits hospital as brother William plays crazy golf and King Charles examines a penguin
Lib Dems come from third to gain seat from Greens
Ex-Labour MP tells of being sidelined to enable Starmer parachutist
Reform hold High Fell by 5 votes
Alex Macfie
Chloe
Peter Martin
Roland
David Raw
42 Comments
A strange night! Appears like a revival for Labour and the Tories…
I think the result in Aberdeen South may have more significance for the Lib Dems than the one in Makerfield as in the vast majority of our held seats our main opposition remains the Tories and their revival will have implications.
This may also be the point for The Party to review the policy of putting very little campaigning resource into Westminster by-elections which it is not felt we can win. These contests now get a considerable amount of media coverage and the constant reduction in votes and loss of deposits does not look good.
In the media commentary about Makefield, I am hearing the phrase “smart voting” instead of “tactical voting.”
I have always voted tactically, but found that many people don’t like the term. I think “smart voting” sounds better, and we should adopt the phrase. It is of course something Lib Dems have always encouraged.
Makerfield demonstrated again that Lib Dem voters are, on average, more sensible than Green voters, since only 163 voted Lib Dem, while 308 Greens were foolish enough to vote Green, in an election which was a straight fight between Labour and Reform.
My prediction is that within 7 days, and probably sooner, Sir Keir Starmer will announce a timetable for resignation that he will have secretly agreed with Andy Burnham. Whatever he may think today, his colleagues will rapidly disabuse him of any hopes for his survival as PM.
“This may also be the point for The Party to review the policy of putting very little campaigning resource into Westminster by-elections which it is not felt we can win. These contests now get a considerable amount of media coverage and the constant reduction in votes and loss of deposits does not look good.”
Seconded – although I assume there might have been some anti-reform/restore tactical voting – the speculation in the media suggested a smaller margin of victory for Burnham.
Local by elections so far results are very good for the Tories, they are on the way back?
@ Mohammed Amin “Makerfield demonstrated again that Lib Dem voters are, on average, more sensible than Green voters”.
Trouble is, Mohammed, there are not many of ’em, and are you really saying there are more people who are ‘less sensible’ than are sensible in Ashton-in-Makerfield ?
As a resident of Scotland (with Yorkshire and Durham roots) I am beginning to despair of opinion in so-called ‘Middle England’ which has so dominated this party since 2010.
Well Thank God for that.
Its also worth noting that Reform have only won 3 of the 21 Local contests since May, about half of what we might have expected from the results in May.
I expect Reform to go back to the pattern of slow but steady decline in The Polls soon. Next May will look very different if that happens.
The News for us is not so good, if Reform declines the The Conservatives will recover, threatening our gains in 2024. That also makes a Hung Parliament much more likely with the inevitable result of Us joining Labour as a minor Coalition Party & losing half our Vote. We never learn.
At least lets prepare Our negotiating position & Our ” Red Lines” so we get something out of the experience.
I think it is interesting that Badenoch is forging a coherent Tory identity that is a) new, b) not easily meldable into Reform c) still pretty hard right on economics and is conservative on some aspects of social policy (I don’t see ‘right’ and ‘conservative’ as always the same thing, sorry).
Even in Makerfield, their vote, tiny as it was, stayed more loyal than Greens or Lib Dems (although I’d like to see research on it).
And her anti-green-policies, low-tax rhetoric delivered them Aberdeen South.
I don’t think this is a platform for government, but its a refusal to be reduced further and it may lead, slowly to a resurgence if either Lib Dems or Reform are seen as less attractive to the people who see what she is saying as common sense.
Superb result at Chelmsford Springfield, nice if it replicated at Idle and Thackley, Bradford.
We could have beaten the SNP, or at least given them a fright, in Arbroath and Broughty Ferry. A repeat of what was achieved in Dunfermline, 2006. Lots of soft unionists in that constituency.
Tories and SNP were busy in Aberdeen South. Scottish Labour are spent. We’ve just had our best result in the Scottish Parliament for twenty years. The weather has been lovely, our members are motivated and the seat is well connected for travel on the East Coast Main Line.
An opportunity missed.
Regarding the Tory Aberdeen win.. Badenoch spent most of her time promising to create umpteen well paid jobs in the Gas/oil industry …
An absolute winner of a tactic in the UK’s Oil/Gas capital..
Expats,
Oh, for sure. Badenoch made slightly phoney claims about green policy and bribing voters with jobs that may be fictional and she can’t deliver. But in the process of she’s made herself the voice of pro-business low-tax anti-red-tape-ism, and not Farage, whilst he’s been busy ambulance-chasing rioters and football hooligans for Restore waverers.
Hurrah, we comfortably held all 3 seats in Idle & Thackley on Bradford MBC so some consolation fellow LDs
https://bradford.moderngov.co.uk/mgElectionAreaResults.aspx?ID=920&RPID=61021778
“Badenoch is forging a coherent Tory identity that is ……..not easily meldable into Reform
Is this the same Kemi Badenoch who:
a) has said she will put Farage into Downing Street as Prime Minister; and
b) vetoed a Tory/Lib Dem/Green coalition from ousting minority Reform leadership of Worcestershire County Council?
We need to make sure voters understand this.
@David Raw
“I am beginning to despair of opinion in so-called ‘Middle England’ which has so dominated this party since 2010.”
Terrible isn’t it that Lib Dems were in government for once and now have more seats in Westminster than in our history. Not.
If we don’t have power we can’t put the preamble to the constitution into effect.
“But in the process of she’s made herself the voice of pro-business low-tax anti-red-tape-ism”
On the other hand Badenoch is making the Tories the party of anti-Europe/pro-Trump climate denial and big oil. That may well not the the right place to be.
@David Raw
You have misunderstood my comment. There are many sensible Lib Dem supporters in Makerfield. They showed how sensible they are by NOT voting Lib Dem. Neither of us can see them in the results figures, because by definition they are somewhere in the Labour vote total.
Conversely I regard those 163 who voted Lib Dem as “not sensible.”
@ Tristan Ward “Terrible isn’t it that Lib Dems were in government for once”…… As Sir Keir is finding out, being in government isn’t an end in itself, it’s what you do when you get there .
Broken promises, student fees, a VAT increase, the bedroom tax, huge increase in food banks, the Lansley ‘reforms’ – how’s that for a few starters, Tristan ? All made for huge gratitude from the electorate in 2015 didn’t they ?
Tristan, I don’t think her choices are the right ones, and I think she needs to be put under scrutiny by all-comers. But she’s not the idiot she has been portrayed as, and when Reform started surging it seemed like the Tory Right would seek merger, which so far hasn’t happened. Frankly I don’t want the Tories near government for some time and can’t condone their platform in its totality — but a plural politics needs an option between Farage and the Lib Dems and Labour. Maybe more than one.
@ Mohammed Amin “You have misunderstood my comment”.
Not so, Mohammed, and a supposition is very different to a definition. Just ask that poor young man as he hauls down his flag to half-mast with an all time by-election low vote.
I remember a time when the then Party Leader was omnipresent in a ‘hopeless’ by-election in Chester-le-Street back in 1973 – and we came a close second. Retreating in the comfort of ‘Middle England’ doesn’t butter many parsnips ‘Up North’.
Honestly our performance in Aberdeen south is Aberdeen south is an indictment of where our party is at. In 2010 it was one of our top target seats, we held the Scottish parliament seat and we’re the largest party on the council, we still have a few councillors there.
It’s worth noting the Tories had to win it from third, WE were third there as recently as 2019.
Even if we weren’t in a position to win this time, the correct move for the long game would still have been to throw absolutely everything at it, including getting our new regional MSP (who lives neary) to focus all her work on that constituency until election day. We’d use this to develop the local party, recruit activists, gather as much data as possible, and use all this as a massive springboard for the local elections which are only next year! Then we’d get a load more councillors than we’d otherwise have won and the local party will then have the strength to win at constituency level.
I mean where does the Scottish party even go if they won’t even try to win back places like this? They’ve already won back virtually all those where we still have much support.
Matt (Bristol) 19th Jun ’26 – 2:47pm….Expats,
Oh, for sure. Badenoch made slightly phoney claims about green policy and bribing voters with jobs that may be fictional and she can’t deliver. But in the process of she’s made herself the voice of pro-business low-tax anti-red-tape-ism, and not Farage..
I’m unsure what ‘slightly’ phoney means.. Bribing voters with fictional promises is straight from the Reform playbook..
As for her, “Not being Farage”…The final sentence in Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ comes to mind
I do think it’s a mistake to make no more than just a token effort in by elections unless they are considered as potential gains. However, those who are embarrassed by the party actually winning seats in the South of England would seem to prefer abandoning these seats in favour of a desperate effort to gain a few extra votes in northern urban constituencies. Presumably, when the party is back down to just a handful of seats they will finally be satisfied – as long as one or two of them are in areas of the country of which they approve.
@ David raw
Your relentless negativity is depressing and unhelpful. Please stop moaning. Consider instead:
Increasing income tax threasholds to £10,000
Massive increase in renewable energy investment
Gay marriage
Pension reform…
…and the triple lock
and perhaps most significant of all a period of stable government – remember that?
Yes the electorate did not recognise this and yes the student fee pledge should never have been given, or if given it should have been honoured, but we now have 72 MPs and what looks like strength in depth in significant parts of the country.
Huge achievements from the Liberal Democrats in -not to mention huge other achivements 1.
Tristan; I think that’s unfair. David has every right to highlight the regional disparity in the party’s support and the dangers that leads to.
The conditions of the 2024 GE gave the party a return of MPs against vote share that might never be available again. Wanting a bold and imaginative program to appeal to the electorate beyond the comfort zone it’s in and a leader to deliver it – is not negative or moaning.
@ Tristan ward Sorry to disturb your equilibrium, Tristan, but there are legitimate questions to be asked of the Leadership and the Management of this party when it achieves it’s worst ever parliamentary by-election result since it was founded in 1988. I certainly don’t blame the young man who was the candidate.
If this was a football club we know what would happen to the Manager – indeed I’m reminded of when the late Tommy Doherty once said, ‘We did well to get nil’.
The lesson to be learned from the last two Westminster by-elections, in Makerfield and Gorton, is that Reform can be beaten if the progressive left unifies around a single candidate. Futhermore this candidate has to have a radical pitch. A bland centrist pro Starmer ‘managerial’ candidate wouldn’t have won in Makerfield just as Angeliki Stogia didn’t win in Gorton.
This is easy enough to organise in a by-election. There can’t be many in Makerfield who weren’t aware that the contest was between a Burnham version of what the Labour Party would become if he won and Reform. It may not be so obvious, in many other seats, especially in a general election.
I suppose there is a “flying the flag” argument for standing a paper candidate. Eight candidates lost their deposits in Makerfield and I’m quite sure they all knew they would. Their decision to stand has to be questionable, to say the least.
Instead of relying on the electorate to engage in “smart voting” surely it would be better, and cheaper, if the party leaders engaged in “smart standing”.
First past the post is good for keeping out Reform and Restore, provided the left/liberals can be disciplined.
PR nullifies the effect of tactical voting and allows Reform and Restore to gain power.
I wonder if the party should rethink it’s commitment to electoral reform?
@David Raw – “achieves it’s worst ever parliamentary by-election result since it was founded in 1988” and the best ever Westminster results in 100 years under the same leadership.
There were, of course, special circumstances in this by-election, so it makes no sense to see it as typical.
I did assume that you understand perfectly well about targeting, although recent comments from you suggest that it is an alien concept.
I’m sorry,Mary, but we live with a UK parliament.
I do understand targeting, but…… it has its limits which fall far short of ever achieving real power in the current Westminster system, and offers very little acknowledgement of the rights and needs of the people outside the favoured area.
I regard Burnham winning as a big positive in a negative way. He is a soft left windbag who hasn’t said anything definite on policy. A debt crisis waiting to happen. We will win more seats at the next election in Non Reform areas based on sound policies and leaders.
Joining a coalition will cause our vote to collapse only if we handle it badly, as we did in the Nick & Dave hook-up. That it was more a hook-up than a business arrangement was the big problem. We failed to differentiate from the Tories. So people who liked the Coalition mostly voted Tory.
There’s a counter-example, from the 2nd Scottish Parliamentary election, where we were defending a record as a junior coalition partner with Labour. We increased our seat tally.
So joining a coalition does not inevitably lead to oblivion. It’s a Bananarama thing. Ain’t what you do it’s the way that you do it.
@Slamdac
“PR nullifies the effect of tactical voting and allows Reform and Restore to gain power.”
Two claims – both false.
Some PR systems, like STV (which is not a proportion system as such but tends to produce quite proportion results) nullify tactical voting completely. Other PR systems, like the corrective Additional Member System used in Scotland, can still result in tactical voting with the regional list vote such as voters realising their preferred party will do so well in the constituency results that voting for them on the list will be a wasted vote, and therefore vote for a second party. (For example, SNP voters may vote for a different pro-independence party on the list if they believe the SNP will be unable to gain any list seats due to a strong constituency showing.)
PR systems tend to make it far more difficult for extreme parties to win power than is the case with First Past The Post. The 2024 election result showed a party can win a healthy majority in parliament with just 35% of the vote – under PR, a party winning 35% of the vote is very unlikely to win a majority of MPs and therefore can be prevented from taking power by the majority working together,
Mohammed,
I’m sure that Starmer is not going to decide to step down within the next week. Like all of us, he will await the results of the Greater Manchester mayoral by-election on 30th July (when the Labour candidate will not have the name Burnham!), and will then watch how the opinion polls settle down following this contest. If Labour loses this by-election on 30th July, which will be crucial for all parties, it will indicate that the “Burnham effect” is not easily transferable. Burnham has said that he wants to be in No.10 by early September, and this seems to fit into a schedule with Starmer stepping aside in late August.
People don’t necessarily vote on tribal lines for parties. They also look at individuals, what they stand for and local issues. I know several people who vote in this way. I think it’s a bit patronising to describe people as less sensible for voting for the candidate or party that best represents their views. At least the Greens didn’t buy into that rhetoric and supported their candidate, as did Christine Jardine supporting the Lib Dem candidate standing when she was interviewed on radio.
I also don’t agree with candidates standing down to give someone else a free run. That’s not giving voters a democratic voice or choice. All those who thought that the non labour alternatives would split the vote and cost Mr Burnham his seat were proved wrong in any case.
It wasn’t just the vote that collapsed but the massive loss of seats. The coalition wasn’t popular and neither was austerity. Many of the MPs in cabinet were not social liberals. Voters blame the junior party when things go wrong and it’s not the first time that’s happened to this party. I don’t hear any clamour from the 72 or 71 MPs to form one as a business arrangement either.
Alex B 20th Jun ’26 – 1:01pm…I regard Burnham winning as a big positive in a negative way. He is a soft left windbag who hasn’t said anything definite on policy…
Worthy of the Daily Mail..
As for being a soft left windbag… If memory serves he was strong enough to revolutionise the Police and Fire post Manchester bombing, getting £60 million out of a Tory government who offered £20million in Covid assistance, his ‘Bee’ integrated transport system,, Liverpool-Manchester rail, ‘Good Growth Fund’”, etc..
Burnham didn’t get his “King of the North” moniker by falling off a paddleboard..
Regarding the by-election for Mayor of Greater Manchester necessitated by Andy Burnham’s resignation from the position.
I wonder what the financial cost to the relevant local authorities of organising and running this by-election might be…….. Money which presmably might otherwise have been used for local services…….
(I’m not referring to candidates’ expenses)
The story of Makerfield was the Defeat of Reform, everything else comes a distant second. The bad news for Reform continues, of the 27 Councillors elected since the May elections just 3 were Reform. We have begun to see Reform losing Seats & over the last Week falling in The Polls.
This is unalloyed good news for Britain & The World but not for our Party. Iff Reform falls Thee Conservatives rise & they are our principal rivals.
Very sad to see we have no candidate in the two St Helens by elections coming up next week. Next door to Makerfield of course, I recall canvassing and delivering there pre coalition, we had a very sizeable group on the council, how it all epitomises our fall from grace outside the prosperous areas. Something must be done about this and should be our strategy target over the next 12 months. The party is dying or dead in so many places.
@ David Raw (and Chloe)
You know perfectly well the Party made absolutely no effort at all in Makerfield against a background where everyone (inside politics and outside it who thinks in a liberal way about politics for 30 seconds) knows it was essential for the country that Farage and his gang be stopped. It is therefore unsurprising that everyone other than Labour and the far right parties did badly.
What is essential for the country is that the right stays divided and thus kept out of power. (*) That means the Lib Dems have to provide a home for conservative liberals/liberal conservatives (who exist all over the country as well as in middle England) scared witless by Badenoch’s promises to prop up Farage. That will not be achieved by offering a soft left program of policies or complaining about our record in government.
Instead we should talk about jobs (and Europe and how the single market and customs union helps them) and jobs (and how too much tax destroys them) and jobs (and how investing in green energy creates them) and jobs (and how building (social) houses and reservoirs and cleaning up sewerage creates them) and resilience in a world where Trump and his fellow travellers in the Tory party and Reform threaten our security. Much better than moaning about the coalition don’t you think?
(*)Also essential if Britain is to take its part in the politics of the rest of the continent of Europe
@ Tristan Ward “You know perfectly well the Party made absolutely no effort at all in Makerfield”.
Indeed I do, Tristan, although the Party never announced this, and the Lib Dem candidate was persuaded for some reason or other to appear on Question Time as a serious candidate. Was that deception ? Certainly it’s not marching troops towards the sound of gunfire that my generation remembers.
There is the matter of being honest and authentic with the electorate, and not, by default, making a £ 5,000 contribution via a lost deposit from funds donated by kind and generous folk from throughout the UK to the party in good faith.
That’s quite an admission, Tristan. Do the people of Berwick, the Borders, Redcar. Rochdale, Colne Valley, Southport, Burnley, Leeds West, Leeds North East, Sheffield and others not matter ? If your version of the self described ‘Party of Middle England’ isn’t interested in anywhere outside Middle England then the people will be quick to pick this up, and in turn they won’t be interested in said party. It will be end of, in every sense, because the malady will spread to Middle England.
It’s a matter of integrity and consequences when a football team throws a match and stops trying or a jockey ‘pulls’ a horse in a race. The same applies to politics so beware of the consequences.