Local Council By-Elections October 2026

This month saw 49,764 votes cast in 26 local authority contests. All percentages are rounded to the nearest single decimal place. 15 council seats changed hands. For comparison with September's results, see here.

Party	Number of Candidates	Total Vote	%	+/- Sep	+/- Oct 25	Avge/ Contest	+/- Seats
Conservative	26	11,789	23.7%	+5.4	+7.9	453	+2
Labour	23	11,495	23.1%	+0.0	+10.6	500	+2
Lib Dem	19	5,225	10.5%	-1.8	-14.4	275	0
Reform	26	10,225	20.5%	+3.8	-9.4	393	-3
Green	17	4,107	8.3%	-11.3	+0.3	242	0
SNP*	4	3,162	6.4%	-0.4	+4.4	791	+1
PC**	1	397	0.8%	+0.1	+0.8	397	+1
Ind***	12	1,286	2.6%	+1.7	-2.4	107	-4
Other****	17	2,078	4.2%	+2.3	+2.1	122	+1

* There were four by-elections in Scotland
** There were two by-elections in Wales
*** There were two Independent clashes
**** Others this month were Christian People's Alliance (26), Flint People's Voice (566), Heritage Party (10), Independence for Scotland (95), Restore (246, 228, 159, 151, 134, 124, 91, 79, 76, 72, 55), SPGB (9), Yorkshire Party (57)

Another month of firsts! The first time Restore fielded more than 10 candidates. The first time Labour reported a net gain in councillors since August 2024. And, for the first time in the party's history, Reform ended a month with an overall loss of seats. If anyone was in any doubt, the Labour revival is real. The Reform decline is real. But, just edging it, the Tories were this month's winners. Can we take that as evidence of the so-called Keminaissance too? As the party has enjoyed a modest recovery in the polls, and is scrapping with Reform for second place again it would be churlish not to concede the point.

This is far from the return of "proper" politics though. Labour, for example, continue to post a recovery in raw votes. But the net gains are a combination of this and Restore's very helpful interventions. By my reckoning, Rupert Lowe's retinue of fascists denied Reform six victories in total, all bar one to Labour's benefit. A warning there to Reform that even they can't ride the tiger of racist politics forever. It will turn around and eat you eventually.

Looking at November, there are 24 by-elections to keep us interested. 10 are Labour defences, and seven are currently held by Reform. It could get bloody.

1 October
Blackpool, Claremont, Lab hold
Highland, Wick & East Caithness, LDem gain from Ind
North West Leicestershire, Long Whatton & Diseworth, Con hold
Northumberland, Amble, Lab gain from Ref
Northumberland, Hirst, Lab gain from Ref
Stirling, Forth & Endrick, Con hold

8 October
Aberdeen, Rosemount/Midstocket, SNP hold
Amber Valley, Kilburn, Denby, Holbrook & Horsley, Grn gain from Con
Lambeth, Myatt's Fields, Lab hold
Newcastle-under-Lyme, Town, Lab gain from Ref

13 October
Stroud, Rodborough, Lab hold

15 October
Flintshire, Higher Kinnerton, Oth gain from Ind
Leicestershire, Shepshed, Lab gain from Ref
Mid Devon, Bradninch, LDem hold
Wiltshire, Salisbury Milford, LDem hold

22 October
Carmarthenshire, Saron, PC gain from Lab
East Hertfordshire, Hertford Kingsmead, Con gain from Grn
Leeds, Calverley & Farsley, Con gain from Lab
South Kesteven, Grantham St Wulfram's, Con gain from Ind
Wychavon, Hartlebury, Con hold

29 October
Argyll & Bute, Mid Argyll, SNP gain from Ind
Bassetlaw, Worksop East, Ref gain from Lab
Dudley, St James, Lab gain from Ref
Halton, Beechwood & Heath, Ref gain from LDem
Newark & Sherwood, Dover Beck, Con hold
Nottinghamshire, Southwell, Con hold

John Healey's Little Budget

Apart from stiffing recent graduates and dragging more people into higher tax bands, Martin Lewis was quite pleased with John Healey's budget statement. Which fits the label Aditya Chakrabortty applied to it: this was a budget to please everybody's favourite money expert. But what about the politics?

This was far from the big offer Andy Burnham sold during his Labour leadership conference speech. Of the 10-year plan, there was nary a sign. Instead, this was a tinkerer's budget but one designed to land with a minimum of fuss. For example, £100 for everyone in council tax bands A to D to offset the projected hundred quid rise in the energy price cap will be appreciated. The scrapping of the standing charge and absorbing it into gas bills is redistributive in intent, and ticks the fairness box with those consuming the most expecting to pay more. Though pensioners dependent on heating and larger families might not be as sanguine. Likewise, taking tariffs off selected food products will save a few coins here and there. One not likely to make much of a difference to household budgets, but a decent indicator that the government understands cost of living pressures and are being seen to take action.

If, however, one's budget earns an item of praise from Kemi Badenoch then something has gone wrong. In her reply to Healey, she welcomed his abandonment of efforts to equalise the minimum wage. In Tory land, fairness means you're less entitled to the same standard of living if you're under the age of 21. For the Conservative leader, this is something business has been lobbying for and will boost hiring rates and tackle the so-called NEET crisis. Will it though? What drives hiring are markets, the conditions determining whether hiring new employees offers a profitable return. Age wage differentials offer marginal help to small and medium-sized businesses. It's big business that would pocket most of the savings, and so won't do much if anything to lower the rates of younger people signing on. The more serious political problem for the chancellor is the freezing of the threshold for student loan repayments. Over 21s working full time on the minimum wage will now be liable for repayments, a true giveth with one hand and taketh with another measure almost designed to keep the Greens' lead among younger layers a semi-permanent feature of British politics.

The wider politics of this was about keeping British business mollified, and given the endorsements Healey reeled off at the beginning of his speech that mission has been accomplished. The big promises made are light years from the Bolshevist dread that seizes the imaginaries of hyper-class conscious sections of capital whenever the meekest mild social democratic policies are raised. And so this settled jitters, drew sharp distinctions with the recklessness of the Liz Truss budget, made the doom-mongering of the right wing press look ridiculous, and keeps the government on the public's right side.

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Undercover in Reform

If there were doubts about Reform's political character, ITV's undercover documentary has put them to bed. In encounter after encounter, its reporters were witnesses to unprompted, off-the-cuff racism. But we're not talking about the casual dropping of slurs. Instead, a parade of councillors and party officials outlined their elaborate, violent fantasies. Of ripping people from their homes and shoving them in concentration camps, of personally carrying out public executions, of terrorising minorities and enjoying the experience of discharging imagined race war responsibilities. The expose went beyond how Reform cadre break taboos in private. Rather, what we got was fascist bloodlust, a desire by the men featured to commit mass murder because, for their own pathetic reasons, it makes them feel good.

Damning for Nigel Farage and his satraps was not their endorsement of these views. He would never be so crude. But the fact that, despite pledging to "professionalise" the party on many occasions, Reform is an organisation where these sorts of views were tolerated on a don't ask, don't tell basis. Farage himself was willing to overlook the racist attack made on David Lammy by Chris Parry, the then candidate for the mayoralty of Hampshire and the Solent - presumably because he was a rear admiral. But overall, time and again, unapologetic fascists were shown to have sailed through the "vetting", tips were given by party officials on how to circumvent it, and there was more than one case of those dumb enough not to hide racist social media posts being invited to apply again for a local election vacancy. Farage's pledges to clean up his outfit are a sham.

What does Farage gain from attracting these sorts of people to his organisation? Because he knows these are among his core constituency. Reform supporters wouldn't be that upset by the vote-splitting threat posed by Rupert Lowe's Restore if it were otherwise. What Farage gets is a quid pro quo. They do the hard yards of organising the party, of recruiting candidates and sorting out election campaigns, and ultimately putting up the yes men - and they're nearly all men - who'll do Farage's bidding in the council and mayoral chambers, who'll vote the right way in Holyrood and at the Senedd, and will nod through his enabling bill to eviscerate British democracy if they make it to Number 10. And in return, as Farage and his cronies engorge themselves on the not inconsiderable resources of the state, they'll more or less live out their fascist fantasies. Such is the unsaid pact at the core of Reform - something baldly stated in the video, and understood by both parties to the arrangement.

Unfortunately for Farage and Reform, a future where this could be enacted is becoming increasingly far fetched. The schoolboy racism revelations, which have circulated around Westminster for at least a decade, the dodgy finances and possible criminal wrongdoing, the political setbacks, and a Tory party that has, the establishment have decided, made up lost ground, have worn down Reform's fortunes. And Restore are, again, a menacing presence. Their interventions having arguably cost Reform five council by-election victories in October so far. The polling returns have fallen and while they, for the moment, have settled at around a fifth of the electorate at the time of writing, the possibility of Reform reaching much beyond an increasingly boxed-off core has receded. There is, unfortunately, a market for the poison Farage is peddling, but it is out of step with the mainstream majority. And, as such, it remains a base capable of sustaining a few dozen far right grifters, and for feeding and amplifying fascist street movements. But is that enough for a Farage who, for a short time, felt power was within his reach? Probably not.

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Evading the Simple Fact

The Green Party is officially over. Zack Polanski is yesterday's chip wrappings. They, like Reform, are done and we can go back to politics as usual. Such as being captivated by the attempted putsch against Ed Davey. This is the verdict of a swathe of the political establishment following Labour's handy victory over the Greens in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election. Needless to say, this is just not a credible position.

Looking at the vote, Labour's share more or less stood still - declining from 49% to 45%, whereas the Greens surged from 10% to 32%. Despite reports by politics Twitter personalities that Tories and Liberal Democrat voters were lending Labour their votes following the passing of the Zionism is Racism motion at last weekend's Green conference, their proportions were virtually static - indicating a marginal phenomenon, or an effort at attention-seeking. Determining which from which is up to you. Obviously, this result was helped by the decision of Andrew Feinstein, who came second in 2024, to not stand and endorse the Greens. But some might have expected the Greens to do better, seeing as they were standing their best known public figure.

The reason Polanski didn't doesn't require preternatural powers of divination. Simply, politics has changed. For many Green-leaning Labour voters, their party is on the right track again. Andy Burnham has set out a destination, and enough are convinced that he's sincere about getting there. The polls tell this tale as well. The dip in the Greens' fortunes coincide with Burnham's anointing as Keir Starmer's successor. And it doesn't require any more in-depth analysis than this. When Labour put themselves at odds with the interests and outlooks of its voter coalition, supporters look elsewhere. Commentators will riff off conference motions and Polanski's social media faux pas, but they're playing an establishment avoidance strategy - an effort to evade and not present the simple fact that left wing solutions to problems, even when they're wrapped in soft left clothing, are popular.

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The Clear Blue Water Strategy

The media has told us there was a buzz around Conservative Party conference. Heaven knows why. Kemi Badenoch is riding a wave of positive press for keeping her party together, and the forced consensus is that Reform are finished. You can even pretend this is the case, as long as you don't look at the polls. Badenoch's leader's speech was an easy job then - give the press and political comment enough to meet their expectations and keep the hype train chugging along. And she gave them what they wanted.

If you like, what Badenoch ventured in this speech was something she's kept at arm's length up until now: conservatism. Out was the Tory leader who indulges nativist and hierarchy-of-cultures posturing, and instead she groped toward the rhetorical mean. With leadership on the right against the rising tide of racism having devolved to the likes of Tim Stanley and Jacob Rees-Mogg, Badenoch was keen to contrast her views on identity and nationality with the will-say-anything-for-attention idiocies of Suella Braverman. She said,

I don’t want to live in a country run by people who threaten journalists, call veterans traitors and debate whether my mixed-race children are English. I don’t want to explain to my son when we’re watching our brilliant England team play football that some people don’t think our black players are English. I remember back in the day when Ian Wright and John Barnes were playing, nobody was questioning whether they were English. We certainly didn’t have sitting MPs questioning whether they were English. We must not let these people take us backwards. That is not the country we are. Reform MPs are openly questioning people’s identity. They are not like us; we are not like them. We are different. We are the Conservative Party.

A restatement of anti-racist norms are welcome, but we'll see how long that lasts.

Up until now, the Tory strategy for two years has been consolidate and hold. An approach long forecast around these parts while establishment commentators were still cooing about a Boris Johnson decade. I.e. Following devastating defeat, the Tories would retreat by galloping to the right to keep hold of what they have by gluing their core together with the adhesive of first principles. Unfortunately for them, a simple re-run of the 1997-2005 period was made unavailable by the rise of Reform. So what we had was, in practical terms, an abandonment of Toryism for the authoritarianism and extremism of the further-right. However, never one to go against the Westminster grain Badenoch is on board with its recent conclusion that Nigel Farage is over. So apart from admonishing Reform for their nativism and a few swipes at the chaotic and corrupt character of the party, Badenoch's speech pivoted away from trying to out-right the extreme right to a clear blue water strategy. That is the belief they can claw lost ground directly back from Labour with something resembling a traditional Tory programme, and not worry so much about the right flank. Hence big ticket items like scrapping inheritance tax on people's homes up to £1m. Badenoch described this as relief for "middle class families". Other goodies were extending free childcare to those on incomes over £100,000/year, building new prisons, cutting employers' National Insurance contributions for young workers, taking the shears to red tape, scrapping environmental protections, more money for bombs and bullets, it's the same old Tory pitch. And compare this with her comments about Andy Burnham, whom she accused of "facing the past", damned him for serving in Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet, was guilty of, horrors, socialism; and mocked him as the "Paddington Bear Prime Minister". What, he likes marmalade?

Her knockabout and Punch & Judy style made for a strong contrast with Burnham's speech, geared as it was around conciliation and cooperation with a strong flavour of Labourism. A tone those she's seeking to influence, reportedly middle class Liberal Democrat and Labour supporters, are likely to take a negative note of. But, really, is this a pitch likely to peel them away from their current affiliations? There was no recognition of the problems facing the country, nor any understanding of how/why Tory support collapsed, let alone addressing its continued long-term decline. This was a blue water speech, yes, but one very much framed by the priorities and stakes of the Westminster/lobby/right-wing media complex. As such, Badenoch can campaign on these priorities as much as she likes. Undoubtedly, the Tory leader will be applauded for doing so. But that's not the same thing as posing Labour a credible threat.

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Five Most Popular Posts in September

Here we go, here we go. The countdown of the posts that did the business on this here blog last month.

1. Labour's Far Right Failure
2. 25 Years
3. The Null Montie
4. Holborn and St Pancras: Two Observations
5. Andy Burnham at Labour Party Conference

For all of Labour's turn to the soft left, the Keir Starmer continuity prevails in the government's response to the far right's provocations. And that's what made number one in September. It's almost as if Labour hope they'll go away by treating them as a species of apolitical thuggery. Following on was an observation or two about collective memory on the quarter century since the 9/11 terror attacks. In at three was the resignation of Tim Montgomerie from Reform. Which proivided a nice opportunity for a meditation on their recent downturn. Snapping at its heels was a quick look at some of the drivel written about Zack Polanski's candidacy at the Holborn and St Pancras by-election. And squeaking in at the end was Tuesday's quick impression of Andy Burnham's conference speech.

I was hoping to churn more commentary out last month, but as an officially middle-aged person on an indefinate course of medication, that has not improved the desire to post. Even if I'm feeling inspired. So we'll be sticking at the reduced rate for the forseeable. Still, things I'd like to turn out this door in October is a bit more of an analytical reflection on Burnham's speech and Labour strategy, and something about the Tories as they gather for their conference this weekend.

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