Political

A muted start to 2019’s council by-elections for the Liberal Democrats

Last year saw a steady pattern of Liberal Democrat gains in council by-elections and a rather patchier pattern of where the party put up candidates. The rate at which the party fights local elections is on the up, but there is still a long way to go to get to where we need it to be – because offering people the chance to vote Liberal Democrat is crucial to get them into the habit of doing so.

The first week of council contests in 2019, alas, saw the Liberal Democrats fight only one of the two seats up for election.

Bexhill West, East Sussex

Richard Thomas stood for the Liberal Democrats.

St Marks, East Sussex

No Lib Dem candidate even though the party has fought this ward three of the last four previous times. (See Stewart Rayment’s comment on this post for more about the reasons for this.)

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These by-election results round-ups cover principal authority by-elections. See my post The danger in celebrating parish and town council wins for your own party for the reasons to avoid straying too often into covering town, parish or community council by-elections.

2 responses to “A muted start to 2019’s council by-elections for the Liberal Democrats”

  1. The Bexhill byelections were caused by the death of an Independent councillor. The wife of the deceased stood as an Independent. There was a Liberal Democrat candidate for St Marks (Rother District) but she withdrew at the last minute. Bexhill Liberal Democrats have a complicated relationship with the town’s independents (I say that as an outside observer who has assisted there on a number of occasions). The East Sussex County ward was the main target and was Bexhill’s strongest campaign for a long while – 3 leaflets went and, unnerving the Tories into putting out a fourth. A fair bit of hostility from former Tory voters to their tellers was noted – local as well as national issues.

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