Local Council By-Elections April 2017

Party	Number of Candidates	Total Vote	%	+/-  Mar	+/- Mar 16	Average/ Contest	+/- Seats
Conservative	8	5,303	39.2%	+3.1%	+2.2%	663	+3
Labour	7	4,137	30.6%	+2.7%	+15.6%	591	-2
LibDem	6	2,189	16.2%	+1.8%	+1.0%	365	+1
UKIP	3	339	2.5%	-8.2%	-4.5%	113	-2
Green	6	778	5.8%	+0.5%	+3.9%	130	0
SNP*	0						0
PC**	0						0
Ind***	2	752	5.6%	+0.5%	-4.9%	376	0
Other****	0						0

* There were no by-elections in Scotland
** There were no by-elections in Wales
*** There were no Independent clashes
**** No Others this month

Overall, 13,498 votes were cast over eight local authority (tier one and tier two) contests. All percentages are rounded to the nearest single decimal place. Four council seats changed hands in total. For comparison with March's results, see here.

Only a few contests this month, so it would be foolish to read much into them. Though I will note that among the smaller parties, April 2017 is the first time the Greens have outperformed UKIP in a monthly round up. It's interesting. When Corbynism was at its shiniest new, the Greens suffered but managed to hold it together. Their vote wasn't unduly affected, and now they're doing relatively well. UKIP however are not at all. While you can put their poor result this month down to a blip, it comes in the context of their voters deserting them and going back to the Tories, a collapse in their organisation, and their tumble down the opinion polls. Perhaps their fate as a fringe racist party is upon them already.

There might be more interest in the outcome of next month's by-election what with a general election imminent. Across the spread of seats and local authority areas, it will be interesting to how much May's results approximate the outcome in June.