UPDATE: It is now past 5pm – we’ve been ‘at it’ for 12 hours and the still outstanding results are coming in too slowly. For the latest results, the latest ‘score’, please go here – Tory losses are increasing by the minute, the latest number now stands at -1072 … you can watch them going down …
So we’re now closing down this live blog, comments are of course open.
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The results of yesterday’s local elections have been coming in. We are publishing them here in a Live Blog. start at the bottom, the latest results will be added at the top. This is a joint undertaking by the editorial team of INDEPENDENCE Daily: Debbie, Mark, Laura and Viv.
The data are taken from “Britain elects” and the comparison (in brackets) refers to the last election results in 2015.
Please note that we publish the overall results once they’re in, not the results of the single wards because of space constraints on our site. We will publish interesting results from single wards at the bottom of the page.
The people have spoken yesterday – here is their verdict!
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Results will take a little while longer to come in, meanwhile have fun with these pages and spreadsheets:
Report in the DM (here), with photos of spoiled ballot papers. Apparently the masses of spoiled ballot papers delay the counts:
“An official in Ipswich’s Corn Exchange said: ‘We thought there would be quite a few spoilt papers, but nothing on the level we have seen – it took everyone by surprise. There seems to be a lot of anger and frustration out there.’ In Basildon alone there were 800 spoilt ballot papers, reported BBC Essex. Brexit Party MEP candidate Michael Heaver said the figure showed ‘huge anger out there’. It was 200 in Immingham, Lincolnshire, with councillor David Watson saying: ‘That is a phenomenal amount. The residents have disengaged with the political process.”
BBC’s #LE2019 Projected National Share of the vote:
Con: 28% (-7) Lab: 28% (-7) LDem: 19% (+3) Oth: 25%
A worrying report from Hull:
“The people of Hull stayed away from the polling stations with a Brexit backlash blamed for voter apathy. There was a fear turnout figures could dip below the dreaded 10 per cent mark in some wards. While that never materialised, areas like Marfleet in East Hull only managed a 13 per cent turnout and in total the turnout across Hull stood at 22.2 per cent. This number was lower than last year’s turnout, which saw 25 per cent of the electorate cast their votes.Traditional voter apathy, a backlash over the Brexit stalemate and yesterday’s poor weather were all contributing factors.” (my bold)
I’ve not seen general turnout figures, so let’s hope things were a bit better elsewhere.
At 16.50pm, according to the BBC Scoreboard, the Tories have now lost over 1,000 seats. Still about 50 councils to declare …
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Newton & Hoole (Cheshire West & Chester) result: Lab: 39.4% (+9.1) LDem: 18.7% (+2.7) Con: 17.7% (-4.7) Grn: 14.1% (+6.1) Ind: 10.1% (+3.2) UKIP: 0.0% (-15.7)
Farndon (Cheshire West & Chester) result: LDem: 60.8% (+21.1) Con: 35.1% (-10.5) Lab: 4.1% (-5.7) LDem GAIN from Con.
Long Ashton (North Somerset) result: LDem: 33.1% (+14.4) Grn: 28.8% (+9.0) Con: 28.2% (-13.3) Lab: 9.9% (-10.0) LDem GAIN FROM Con (X1). Grn GAIN from Con (X1).
Helsby (Cheshire West & Chester) result: Grn: 54.8% (+48.2) Con: 28.3% (-23.8) Lab: 14.1% (-22.6) LDem: 2.9% (-1.7) Green GAIN from Conservative.
Upton (Cheshire West & Chester) result: Lab: 40.4% (+9.3) Con: 37.0% (+1.7) LDem: 15.6% (+0.9) UKIP: 7.0% (-2.8) Lab (X1) hold. Con (X1) hold.
Handbridge Park (Cheshire West & Chester) result: Con: 45.3% (-2.5) Lab: 31.5% (+7.4) Grn: 13.6% (+2.2) LDem: 9.5% (+0.4)
Western (Leicester) result: Lab: 42.8% (+3.2) Con: 17.1% (+17.1) Grn: 15.7% (+3.7) UKIP: 13.3% (-10.6) LDem: 11.2% (-8.9)
Holme Valley South (Kirklees) result: Lab: 31.9% (+5.7) Con: 28.2% (-15.5) D&V: 14.1% (+11.8) Grn: 10.6% (+2.6) LDem: 9.4% (+2.1) UKIP: 5.8% (-6.7) Labour GAIN from Conservative.
Portishead South (North Somerset) result: LDem: 41.4% (+19.6) Con: 41.2% (-14.7) Lab: 17.4% (-4.8) Liberal Democrat GAIN from Conservative. Three votes in it.
Gaisford (Worthing) result: Lab: 47.0% (+28.4) Con: 36.8% (-7.0) LDem: 16.2% (+6.1) UKIP: 0.0% (-16.0) Lab GAIN from Con.
Parkgate (Cheshire West & Chester) result: Ind: 60.2% (+21.0) Con: 25.9% (-11.1) Lab: 9.3% (-3.9) LDem: 4.6% (+4.6)
Lache (Cheshire West & Chester) result: Lab: 51.4% (-0.7) Con: 38.1% (+7.6) LDem: 10.5% (+7.0) No UKIP (-9.3) and Grn (-4.6) as prev.
Cambridge (Sefton) result: LDem: 41.3% (+12.8) Con: 28.4% (-2.7) UKIP: 14.5% (-6.9) Lab: 11.2% (-3.6) Grn: 4.5% (+0.2) LDem GAIN from Con.
Redlands (Reading) result: Grn: 46.7% (+26.4) Lab: 36.5% (-6.0) Con: 10.7% (-13.5) LDem: 6.1% (-2.4) Grn GAIN from Lab. [Should now be Greenlands]
Earlsdon (Coventry) result: Lab: 42.0% (+6.5) Con: 39.9% (-3.9) Grn: 10.4% (+3.9) LDem: 7.7% (+2.8) UKIP: 0.0% (-6.9) Lab GAIN from Con.
Mile End (Colchester) result: LDem: 62.2% (+29.9) Con: 19.9% (-18.5) Grn: 9.3% (+2.6) Lab: 8.6% (-4.3) UKIP: 0.0% (-9.7) LDem GAIN from Con.
Clayton-le-Woods & Whittle-le-Woods (Chorley) result: Lab: 48.3% (+13.7) Con: 40.8% (-4.2) LDem: 10.9% (+3.4) No UKIP (-13.0) as prev. Lab GAIN from Con.
Elton (Bury) result: Lab: 42.2% (+3.1) Con: 41.6% (+1.4) Grn: 11.8% (+8.5) LDem: 4.5% (+2.0) UKIP: 0.0% (-14.9)
Trafford, vote share: Lab: 41.3% (+1.4) Con: 29.4% (-14.5) Grn: 12.6% (+4.0) LDem: 10.6% (+4.1) UKIP: 5.0% (+3.9)
St Albans, vote share: LDem: 39.7% (+16.7) Con: 29.0% (-14.6) Lab: 19.0% (+0.5) Grn: 9.6% (+3.3)
Swindon, vote share: Con: 39.4% (-3.2) Lab: 39.4% (+8.2) UKIP: 7.1% (-7.8) LDem: 6.5% (+1.0) Grn: 6.7% (+1.1) Important to note the vote share given Labour saw a net seat loss.
Sunderland, vote share: Lab: 32.8% (-16.8) UKIP: 23.9% (+4.4) Con: 19.1% (-1.7) LDem: 13.0% (+9.9) Grn: 8.4% (+4.9)
Havant, vote share: Con: 43.8% (-7.2) UKIP: 20.5% (+0.4) LDem: 19.5% (+11.4) Lab: 10.6% (-1.9) Grn: 5.6% (-1.7)
Chorley, vote result: Lab: 52.6% (+7.1) Con: 36.1% (-3.0) LDem: 4.3% (+2.3) UKIP: 3.2% (-9.0) Grn: 3.8% (+2.6)
Basildon, vote result: Con: 50.2% (+7.7) Lab: 24.8% (+0.8) UKIP: 4.5% (-23.9)
Very easy to apportion blame to GB due to the TR / CB ‘obsession’ but then why weren’t we wiped out across the whole country?? Huge success in Sunderland and a few other pockets in the North and Midlands. Rest was a disaster though I agree. That said I would like to see the UKIP actual share of the vote across the wards we did contest. Only then can we start to draw more measured conclusions.
Incidentally, we were also savaged in the local elections last year when there was no such thing as the TR / CB associations so how do you explain that??
GB may have made a fundamental misjudgement in so publicly endorsing TR and CB but if Brexit is SO important to the UK you would really think that Leave voters would have got off their ‘moral high ground’ dislike of these two geezers and voted UKIP in their droves to drive home a message to Appeaser May surely? After that then by all means look to ‘moderate’ the UKIP ‘infatuation’ with these characters and even disown them but last week should have been the time for Leave voters to get behind the only true ‘Leave’ Party standing. That they didn’t just proves the wimpish and politically correct nature of the current British public unfortunately.
All over and Tory losses exceeded my hopes (no disrespect to the councillors) at 1331 and the loss of 44 councils. Lab down 81 and lost 6 councils. Winners were LibDems (boo!) , Indies, and Greens (grrr). Water off May’s limpet shell back no doubt but gotta hurt.
Make that 1332…
On the face of it, this has been a pretty disappointing day for UKIP and I’m not going to start throwing blame around here.
The one positive I am taking away is the ‘rise of the independents’, and I’m glad to see that some of the electorate have turned on the ‘big parties’ by voting for independents instead.
But the big negative as always is the low voter turnout. With no local elections in Birmingham until 2022, I’ve been keeping an eye on Sandwell, where I spent much of my life growing up and I still have family, friends and other connections in the area.
https://www.sandwell.gov.uk/info/200205/elections_and_voting/4265/elections_2019
There are only two wards I can see where the turnout was greater than 30%, with a shocking 16.78% turnout for Princes End (about 18% last year).
Not surprisingly Labour retained their HOLD on Sandwell, which they have done for the last forty or so years since the authority was established. The truth is that Sandwell is a one-party state, where ALL of the councillors are Labour, and therefore there is no ‘opposition’.
And it is only this apathy that keeps this status quo as it is. I know people who say “there’s no point voting, Labour always win”.
Labour ‘won’ the Princes End seat with 599 votes, out of a total electorate of 9128. That means the Labour candidate was elected by 6.6% of the electorate. Talk about ‘tyranny of the minority’…
So once again, there has been a failure to engage with the ‘did-not-voters’ and get them to make the effort to go and cast their vote, and while a number did ‘punish’ Labour and the Tories by voting for other candidates from other parties, or independents, we still need to learn why these voters did not find UKIP appealing.
But this is also a situation that ‘pleases’ the Establishment, and all eyes will be on the EuroParl elections later this month to see how UKIP fares against Farage’s single-issue Brexit Party. I fear this will end badly and thus the demise of UKIP will be celebrated across the media.
I think UKIP should have just conceded the EU election to TBP, the whole thing is a farce anyway and the outcome will have zero influence on national policy other than as a kind of proxy Ref2. The resources should go on winning over deprived white working class areas who noone else gives a monkey about. Think small and concentrate everything on getting a council or MP from one of these neglected areas abandoned by Labour in favour of their new electorate.
My ward’s results are in and something for everyone. One of my Inds got in 1st place, the most passionate of the 3 Cons that doorstepped me the other day came 2nd with the last seat going to a LibDum. Low 40s% turnout and minimal spoiled ballots courtesy of having Inds to soak up the bile.
Interesting about the turnout – Indies have done very well across the board, and I like your remark that they ‘may have soaked up the bile’.
I wonder if the “Tommy Robinson, ‘Islam is a death cult’ and ‘we don’t want crusty old Tories’ strategy was a really bad idea, like everyone has been saying all along” will now finally (or ever) drop.
Unlike you to be ambiguous : do you mean that you wonder if those who have been promoting ‘Tommy’ and ‘Islam as Death Cult ‘ messages as being a good thing for UKIP will finally realize the error of their ways and stop doing it ?
Or the opposite, that the penny will finally drop that these were good things for Gerard to be promoting ?
UKIP’s poor local elections results can be laid firmly and squarely laid at the leaders feet and nobody else. I don’t know of any UKIP candidate here in Kent who won their ward/seat, including myself. Three months hard work down the drain, out every day delivering leaflets an d canvassing at the doorstep, and all for diddly squat An absolute disaster and we had some really good candidates standing as well who deserved so much better, and who now feel thoroughly let down by the party leadership yet again, by choosing to promote Tommy Robinson, Carl Benjamin and others at the expense of Brexit and holding Theresa May to account. UKIP needs to elect a replacement leader at the earliest opportunity, and until such time should allow the Brexit Party a free reign over the EU elections.
Many commiserations if you were standing.
I know what hard work it is.
Badly badly let down by the Leader’s adolescent infatuation with Stephen and fantasy that getting down with the social media kids would bring in votes.
Suggest you email the NEC and ask them will they PLEASE at last declare the election for Leader and announce arrangements. And while they are at it vote No Conf in GB. Something they should have done when they had the chance after he made S Y-L his personal adviser in defiance of the NEC’s wishes to put all that stuff to one side till after the local elections.
https://www.ukip.org/ukip-representatives_cat-3.php
I suspect Gerard is just too stubborn to accept that his line of argument and his strategy have manifestly failed and the decent thing to do would be to resign with immediate effect. Does he really think that the Euros will go any better for UKIP with him in charge and this time competition from TBP ?
Fully agree Rhys. If Gerard is the decent chap I think he is he should accept full responsibility for UKIPs disasterous electoral defeat and stand down immediately.
Ok,not good but let’s wait until the European election to get a full view of what is happening out there,the electorate are totally fed up to say the least of the main parties and the Kibdums are seen as the least worse option in the locals. To my mind as I have said before UKIP will always get bad press from the media so the answer is to be seen out there on the streets to get the UKIP message across…..thoughts
The Brexit party has the backing of the media but to my mind it has a very disparate membership,ok,they all want to leave the EU but they are so totally different in political background there are going to be splits,especially with Farage in total charge…it all depends how quickly the splits happen
Please wait until the Euro election results are known before jumping on the “lets slag off Sargon” bandwagon.
He will actually be on that ballot paper!
If he polls poorly then by all means speculate on the wisdom of including him on the candidate list.
Being critical at this stage just looks like an attempt by the devious to prove a political point.
I suspect that the people guilty of that will have to eat some humble pie in the near future.
The local elections have proven beyond doubt that people are heartily sick of the disgraceful Conservative & Labour Parties.
People will not vote in significant numbers for the LibDems in the Euro elections. (As a protest vote they were prepared to trust Cable’s crew to get their bins emptied!).
Come the Euro’s only the MSM brainwashed will not consider voting UKIP.
Another slice of humble pie Anyone?
You may not have noticed but in these local elections there has been NO Brexit party to split the UKIP vote.
So this is the first time that it has been possible to gauge in terms of real, actual, humans putting their crosses on the ballot papers VOTING just whether or not all these predictions that the ludicrous Sargons and Stephens would bring all their millions of ‘social media followers’ to the party and improve UKIP’s appeal.
Well, as some of us have predicted, it hasn’t happened has it ? I had hoped to be proven wrong but the results are plain.
Apart from a few laudable exceptions such as Sunderland where there is a marvellous UKIP stalwart in the form of Richard Elvin ( our Lead candidate for the Euros ) UKIP ‘s vote seems to have largely crumbled across most of the country .
It is sad for the good local candidates but the truth is that Gerard’s stubborn obsession with his mate ‘Tommy’ and rest was not only wrong in principle, but as it now is shown does not even garner in any votes – rather the contrary it would appear.
The only hope for UKIP to not be totally crushed by TBP at the Euros is if Gerard stands down this weekend and someone opposing his pro Stephen / Sargon etc. stance takes over to redeem UKIP’s good name.
The media silencing of UKIP means that getting a decent ukip website is a must, although it never has and probably won’t happen . (why?). it doesnt spell things out enough. It doesnt make sense that mainstream voters are still voting for parties bringing EU taxation without representation, plus totalitarian means to suppress dissent for a start. Surely they dont want that. And that’s before we even start on immigration…..
Torquil Erikson’s writings should be reflected on the ukip website too.
Or have the voters and their poor descendents got to learn the hard way what a totalitarian state is like……
## Redlands (Reading) result: Grn: 46.7% (+26.4) Lab: 36.5% (-6.0) Con: 10.7% (-13.5) LDem: 6.1% (-2.4) Grn GAIN from Lab. [Should now be Greenlands]. ##
No I think you had it right the first time! ;). (Watermelon Party)
Here’s a Twitter account to keep you going, with excellent maps:
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK
You don’t need to have a twitter account to read those tweets, btw.
These excellent albeit very localised results for FBM and UKIP in the NE show where they should be concentrating their resources in the GE (if we ever get another one) to get an MP or several. UKIP was always spread too thin – second is just the first loser.
Sargon of Akkad went down well in Swindon then……..
Did he stand there for the Local Council?
No. But the bad publicity did the damage.