Council by-election results scorecard 2023-2024
Here’s the tally of seats changing hands in principal authority council by-elections held between the May 2023 and the May 2024 local elections:
Con | Lab | LibDem | Green | SNP | Plaid | Ind/ Other | Net change | |
| Con | – | -2 (+3/-5) | -13 (0/-13) | -4 (+1/-5) | +1 (+1/0) | – | 0 (+1/-1) | -18 |
| Lab | +2 (+5/-3) | – | -2 (0/-2) | 0 (+1/-1) | +3 (+3/0) | – | -3 (+1/-4) | 0 |
| LibDem | +13 (+13/0) | +2 (+2/0) | – | 0 (+1/-1) | – | – | +2 (+3/-1) | +17 |
| Green | +4 (+5/-1) | 0 (+1/-1) | +0 (+1/-1) | – | – | – | 0 (+1/-1) | +4 |
| SNP | -1 (0/-1) | -3 (0/-3) | – | – | – | – | – | –4 |
| Plaid | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Ind/ Other | 0 (+1/-1) | +3 (+4/-1) | -2 (+1/-3) | 0 (+1/-1) | – | – | – | +1 |
The net totals in the right hand column give the overall political lay of the land, as shown by local council by-election results.
But it’s the details in each row of how a party’s performance varies against its different rivals that is the most useful in my book. That shows us what’s happening below in the surface in a way that national voting intention polls often struggle to do because they give total support levels rather than vote switching figures.
Much of the source data for this table comes via Britain Elects, Election Maps UK or ALDC. Thank you to all three.
Contests counted include delayed elections from the the usual May round of local elections (usually delayed due to the death of a candidate).
The by-election scorecards for previous years are also available: 2022-23 and 2021-22.
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“–” Why are all the boxes blank ?
This is the new scorecard for 2023-24, so no by-elections have yet happened to start populating the table with.
Shouldn’t the latest results show a LAB gain from SNP becuse of the Bellshill result?
Yes, thanks for pointing that out as I’d not included it in my last update. Now included.
Do you have a specific scorecard for London to give us a feel aa to ‘what is happening below the surface’ so that we can get a better feel as to what might happen next May?
I don’t Tony, though the relatively small number of by-elections in London mean even if there was one, it’d be of relatively limited use. Given the big variations between the circumstances of individual council by-elections, you need to aggregate on a reasonably large scale to get meaningful trends.