Quarter Two By-Election Results 2023

This quarter 156,612 votes were cast in 71 local authority contests. All percentages are rounded to the nearest single decimal place. 20 council seats changed hands. For comparison you can view Quarter one's results here.

Party	Number of Candidates	Total Vote	%	+/-  Q1	+/- Q2 2022	Average	+/- Seats
Conservative	71	47,437	30.9%	+4.7	+1.4	668	-7
Labour	67	50,306	32.1%	+3.2	-5.4	751	0
LibDem	60	32,391	20.7%	+2.4	+2.7	540	+7
Green	44	14,077	9.0%	+0.3	+1.3	320	+4
SNP*	1	740	0.5%	-4.4	+0.4	740	-1
PC**	1	34	0.0%	-1.6	-0.3	34	0
Ind***	17	7,899	5.0%	-4.3	-1.6	465	+1
Other****	26	3,728	2.4%	+0.2	+2.0	143	+2

* There was one by-election in Scotland
** There was one by-election in Wales
*** There were four Independent clashes
**** Others consisted of Alba (103), British Unionist (108), Christian People's Alliance (16), Communist Party of Britain (150), Freedom Alliance (7), Heritage (54), Liberal Party (10), Our West Lancashire (704, 674, 664), Reform (75, 87, 118, 121, 130, 264, 169), Scottish Family Party (28), TUSC (20, 23, 25, 35, 15), UKIP (114, 5)

The Tories continue their inexorable slide this quarter, even if their vote count modestly recovered. Again, it's the same story as the monthly tallies. Labour do well but are unable to build a commanding lead over the government because there are alternatives and they're doing quite well at the moment. Looking at the numbers, the case for a progressive alliance almost makes itself. Especially as the Liberal Democrats and Greens improved on their already good results re: the previous quarter, and came out of the period with more local council by-election victories than Labour. Yes, yes, it doesn't really matter because the glittering prize is Westminster. But what these results show is while Keir Starmer hunts through the Labour Party pledge book for policies to dump, the case can be made that he's weakening the foundations of his party. You might say it's the Tories who are propping up his poll leads. Without them? Well, without them we'll see. But if these elections are any indication, the Lib Dems and Greens are well poised to capitalise on any Labour difficulties when they're in Number 10.

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