GUEST POST Reform and Labour are losing councillors fast

We’ve all enjoyed the regular resignations, defections and disgrace of Reform UK councillors, but the party actually gained councillors from by-election victories and defections, between May 2025 and May 2026. But now, as the latest post from the indefatigable Augustus Carp shows, the tide has turned for them.

The kaleidoscope of local government has continued to twist since the local elections in May, and with it a number of political allegiances have changed. Sometimes a councillor’s defection has little impact, but clustering in some authorities has led to significant weakening in control. For the first time since I started paying any attention to this phenomenon, all political parties have suffered a net loss of councillors, to the benefit of Independents and a number of new Localist groups.

Mark Pack’s website, which diligently catalogues the various defections, expulsions, resignations and arrests of Reform UK councillors, provides a lot of entertainment value, particularly for the type of person who likes watching slow-motion car crashes. But why isn’t anyone paying the same sort of attention to the Labour Party? In terms of defections, ReformUK has lost 48 councillors since the local elections in May. Labour has lost 42 – a similar number, which has received almost no publicity whatsoever. In both cases, there have been a number of councillors in the same political group who have gone at the same time, presumably for ideological rather than just personal reasons.

Seven Labour councillors have gone in Luton, four in Neath, four in Colchester and three in North Tyneside. In Luton, it’s reasonable to assume that the losses from the Labour group were significant in allowing the Lib Dems to form a new minority administration. (But to be fair, the situation there is complex, and the resignation of a senior Lib Dem complicates matters further.)

Four Independents have joined forces with the Conservatives in Braintree, but one has gone the other way. Four of the councillors in Sevenoaks who left the fold in May 2025 to form the West Kent Independent Group have now drifted back. Three others have left the party in Fife

The big losses for Reform UK have been in Durham (8, or maybe 9 councillors, including a suspension) and Plymouth (6) but four have joined in North East Derbyshire and three in Flintshire 

For councillors flying off in all sorts of different directions, have a look at Worcestershire. The Conservatives are unchanged, with two coming and two going, taking at face value their assertion that the national suspension of one of their number doesn’t apply locally. Likewise the Lib Dems are unchanged – one in and one out – but ReformUK are down three. The situation is similarly unclear in some of the District Councils covered by the County.

Across the nation, in the 18 weeks since the local elections in May, the net changes for the number of councillors defecting or getting themselves suspended is:

Conservatives       -6

Labour                 -44

Lib Dem               -15

Greens                  -4

Nationalists           -1  

ReformUK           -48

Independents   +118 

Let’s see if conference season causes any more movement.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.

GUEST POST Why have the Lib Dems given up fighting most parliamentary by-elections?

Lib Dem HQ has decided to stop making an effort in unpromising Westminster by-elections. Regular guest poster Augustus Carp argues that they've got it wrong.

Today I want us to think about a rather unusual chap called Ian Stuart – he was the "area manager" or whatever it was called of the Liberal Party in the Home Counties in the 1980s. On our rare meetings I found him to be a rather genial cove, although I gather he was not always popular with the party hierarchy. Anyway, it was his lot to be the Liberal Party candidate in the long-forgotten Uxbridge by election of 1972.

Long forgotten because, on the very same day (7 December) the Liberal Party won a Famous Victory in Sutton and Cheam. Graham Tope triumphed, Liberal hearts were gladdened, and progress suddenly seemed a little bit more inevitable. 

Ian Stuart told me that the only instructions he received from party HQ regarding his campaign were given to him by Jeremy Thorpe himself: 

"Go to Uxbridge and make a nuisance of yourself. You are going to fight a futile campaign, but in a good cause. You are a diversionary tactic from the main battle in Sutton & Cheam. If you don’t come back with at least two writs issued against you, then you haven’t been doing your job!"

I don’t think any writs were issued, but Ian certainly did his job. As he was the Convenor of Shop Stewards at Heathrow Airport at the time he was fully acquainted with the intricacies of the largest employer in the area, and was indeed able to stir up mischief. He certainly generated enough press releases, silly stunts and outrageous quotes to distract from Sutton and Cheam and keep Conservative and Labour activists away from the target seat. And he went down to a heroic defeat.

Bit here’s the thing – at least he tried. He knew what was needed of him – to fight as good a good campaign as he possibly could, with no money, half a dozen members, and no prospect of any external help. 

Now compare that with the situation today. The Liberal Democrats are infinitely richer in terms of money, activists, experience, MPs and councillors – but the national party seems to have given up on the idea of fighting elections, even as diversionary tactics. 

Why has the national party made so little effort recently, in Rochdale, Gorton, Makerfield, South Aberdeen? No doubt we could name others as well. I have no doubt that the candidates and local parties were doing their best, but where was the support for those campaigns? There wasn’t even an email asking for money. 

My local party is amazing. There’s perhaps only a dozen or so of them, but they are always coaxing me to deliver a few more leaflets, come out canvassing, give them some idea for Focuses etc. Their enthusiasm is infectious, and I am happy to help them – so much so that I probably don’t even qualify as an armchair member anymore. They deserve all the support I can give them. 

But why do I continue to pay my subscriptions to the national party (index-linked since the merger!) when I see so little bang for my buck? Why doesn’t the national party seem to want to put up a fight any more? I wouldn’t want to join a football club that wasn’t particularly interested in playing (or winning) football matches. As a member of a political party, I want to see it – and help it - fight elections. 

I heard the explanation given that the party doesn’t want to spend £50,000 just to save a £500 deposit. That might make economic sense, but it doesn’t make political sense anymore. Getting 2 per cent in a parliamentary by election is actively harming us. It makes us look irrelevant, even to voters in places where we are successful. 

The current political environment needs us to spend the £50,000 just to make sure that we retain some sort of credibility – not just in the relevant constituency, but nationally as well. We might at least try to come third, assuming that the first two places are out of reach – that might get us an honourable mention in news broadcasts. 

If that’s too much to ask, at least we might try to save our deposit. We cannot choose where by elections will fall, so we just have to make the best of a bad job. At least when they do happen, we should fight the good fight, and do the best we can.

Ian Stuart's other great observation to me was that every member of the Liberal Party, with the obvious exception of the two of us, was too bloody clever by half – always overanalysing problems and reinventing the wheel, rather than just getting on with the basics. Perhaps that’s the problem we have in the Liberal Democrats at the moment.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.

GUEST POST Councillor defection scores on the eve of polling day

Augustus Carp offers something to whet your appetite – a curtain-raiser, a short not-too-dramatic offering before the Grand-Guignol horror show that awaits us as the results start to trickle in from late on Thursday night until the following evening.

In the first four months of 2026, the procession of councillors resigning from the political parties that helped them to get elected has continued apace. So far, 299 "events" have occurred; not just defections, but also a few expulsions and suspensions. "Double-hatted" councillors who change their affiliation have been counted twice, as have councillors who resigned and then re-joined (48 hours later, in one celebrated case in North Northamptonshire.)

That’s an average of nearly 18 a week, or 2.5 every day. I doubt if most political pundits realise that the figure is quite so high, which might explain why the subject does not get the attention given to the half-a-dozen local council by elections held every week. An exception is Mark Pack’s regular update of Reform UK defections, but those resignations are indeed worthy of serious inspection because of the novelty value, fuss and general hoop-la associated with the new insurgent populist party.

From an objective perspective, defecting councillors are a significant indicator of a change in local party morale. When they go, they take valuable resources with them, such as knowledge of their wards, help with campaigning and general goodwill towards their former party. Worse still, they might be taking their families and friends with them – perhaps into a rival organisation. They may only constitute a handful of votes, but they could represent hundreds of hours of solid campaigning at a future election, against the former party’s new candidate.

Big parties, big losers

Reasons for defections can be many and various, and can range from the principled to the ridiculous, but the damage can still be significant, regardless of the circumstances which cause it. 

The main losers so far this year have been the Labour party (down 59 councillors) and the Conservatives (down 52). The Labour figure seems to have been exacerbated by the impending London Borough elections, where reselection processes have put some noses and egos out of joint. As one might expect, excluding councillors who have opted for Independent status, most Labour councillors have gone to the Greens, with Conservatives tending towards Reform UK.

The Greens have acquired an additional 21 councillors via defections, with the Reform UK tally rising by 32. On balance, the Lib Dems have lost 13 and the Nationalists are down 2. The balancing figure in the equation is 73, representing various "Independents" (loosely described).

Straight swaps

Three Reform UK councillors have moved to the Conservatives – but 33 have gone the other way. One Tory has joined the Lib Dems, whilst one Lib Dem has travelled in the opposite direction. Four Lib Dems have joined the Greens, with one going against the tide. Eight Labour councillors left for the Greens, two for the Lib Dems, and one (in Hartlepool) for Reform UK.

Although not (yet) counted as a separate party in my system, it is worth noting that Restore Britain has attracted 21 councillors, from the independents and Reform UK. This includes a bulk membership event on Kent County Council in February. Similarly, there has been a handful of moves to Advance UK, mainly from Independents but also one from the Workers Party. (No, I don’t understand it either.)

If the local elections on Thursday pan out according to the pundits, with a large number of Reform UK and Green Party successes, then I confidently forecast that there will be many more resignations and defections over the summer, once the new councillors realise that theirs is a thankless task, with lots of work but little chance of changing anything to do with small boats or Gaza.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.

GUEST POST Local councillors changing party: Augustus Carp’s review of 2025

Augustus Carp finds the Conservatives are losing local councillors, but not as fast as Labour are losing them, and Reform UK are gaining.

Back in January we were solemnly assured by the nation’s leading political commentators that 2025 was going to be a tough year for the Conservatives, and a good one for Reform UK. 

That’s pretty much how it panned out, but why didn’t anyone predict that, when it comes to political defections, the biggest losers were going to be the Labour Party?

The figures are stark. The Conservatives lost a net 212 councillors in 2025, but the Labour Party lost a net 275. For the others, the figures are Reform +138, Greens +32, Lib Dems -14 and the Nationalists -5. The balancing figure is Independents on 336.

To be clear, my methodology treats every single change in status as a recordable event. So a councillor leaving Party A to sit as an Independent in January, and then joining Party B in August is regarded as two separate data points. Suspensions, expulsions and readmissions are all included in the tally.

By my reckoning there were defections in 271 local authorities during the year. Councils where eight or more councillors have changed their allegiance are 

Tameside                      20

Kent                       16

Dudley                      13

Durham                      10

Sevenoaks              10

Wakefield              10

Bolsover                        9

Buckinghamshire        9

Hounslow                9

Oldham                        9

South Kesteven              9

Tamworth                        9

Cornwall                       8

Dumfries & Galloway      8

Portsmouth                     8

Solihull                            8

The figure for Tameside is perhaps a bit misleading – seven Labour councillors had their status changed for them when they were suspended and subsequently reinstated after being caught up in the Shiver Me Timbers WhatsApp fiasco/scandal. Nevertheless there were other goings on there to ensure that Tameside would still rank highly in the table.

Kent and Durham have trouble retaining councillors within their Reform UK groups, and Dudley has seen movements from Labour to Independent and from the Conservatives to Reform UK. Wakefield saw councillors move from Labour, Lib Dems and Conservatives to Independents, and a few suspensions and readmissions in the Labour Group added to the complexity there. Bulk defections have occurred in Sevenoaks (from the Conservatives) and in Buckinghamshire (from the Lib Dems).

Labour defections in the London boroughs increased towards the end of the year, once the reselection season started. Councillor defections in areas which still have two levels of local government (for example Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire) might deserve more attention, as some councillors there wear two hats. 

Watch out in 2026 for problems with party discipline if local government reform is pushed through against local opposition, as has already happened in Suffolk.

It is very difficult to identify how many defections arise out of personality clashes rather than ideology.  There have been 92 defections straight from the Conservative Party to Reform UK, which would seem to be driven by ideology or the survival instinct.

There have also been 28 straight swaps from Labour to Greens in 2025, with another 14 councillors making the slow-burning transition from Labour to Independent to Greens. This, together with the number of ex-Labour councillors forming their own Independent groups, would seem to indicate that politics is more significant than personalities at the moment. That matters when it comes to fielding troops in a general election ground war.

As ever, these figures are provided on a best endeavours basis, so E&OE and DYOR. Perhaps if readers have any simple questions on the goings on in any particular authority, they could put them in the comments below and I will answer them if I can.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.

Councillor quits Reform for second time in 2 weeks

BBC News wins our Headline of the Day Award.

The judges wonder how our regular guest blogger Augustus Carp will cope with this when he posts his next survey of councillors changing parties.

Mark Pack will love it though.

GUEST POST Reform are still gaining councillors and Labour and the Tories are still losing them

The latest Defections Update from Augustus Carp provides a corrective to the view that Reform are falling apart in local government.

Now it is autumn, and the falling fruit,
And the long journey to oblivion….
D.H. Lawrence

The Seer of Eastwood probably didn’t have local government defections in mind when he wrote The Ship of Death, so it falls to us to consider these mysteries on his behalf. 

The toll continues, mercilessly. Since early September, a further 227 elected councillors have decided that they will be better able to serve their wards, or advance their careers, or sleep more easily in their beds, if they leave the party that supported them when they were elected. Their reasons for doing so may be many and various, but the consequences are similarly disturbing.

As has been noted before, defections by sitting councillors probably tell us more about local politics, and the health of local parties, than council by elections. Of course, personalities play a large part in this, and some people seem to be impossible to accommodate within any of the existing party disciplines. Nevertheless, when these people resign, defect, or flounce out, it is indicative of problems in the local party that may run deeper than appears on the surface.

For example, a number of Labour defections – particularly in London – are occurring now, in the run-up to candidate selection for the all-up Borough elections next year. Serving councillors are not being reselected, for whatever reason, and so are serving out their time as Independent councillors. 

Whether they decide to seek re-election has yet to be determined, but in any event they have deprived the party of canvassing time, campaigning ability and local knowledge. Their friends and family might also stop delivering leaflets and sitting outside polling stations – time will tell. 

If they do stand for re-election as Independents, they might take a significant number of personal votes with them, and can probably be guaranteed to slag off their old party, much to the mirth and merriment of the local press and the other candidates.

The little coverage this topic receives in the mainstream media tends to be used to reinforce today’s bigger political narrative, i.e. that lots of Conservative councillors are leaving, and as a consequence Reform UK is on the rise. As ever with political analysis, it seems to be a bit more complicated than that. For one thing, the Conservatives have not lost as many councillors as Labour recently.

Since September, a net total of 57 councillors have left the Conservative party, compared with 75 from the Labour Party. The Lib Dems are unchanged, the Greens have gained 13, and the Nationalists have lost 3. Reform UK have gained 34 councillors, and the balance have become Independent, non-aligned etc.

As usual, there are very few straight swaps between Party A and Party B. The process seems to be to leave Party A, become non-aligned or independent, and then see the light and join Party B. The duration of these moves can be extensive.

Clearly, in the current political climate, most direct party-to-party defections involve Reform UK - of the direct changes between parties, 32 Conservatives have moved to Reform UK, with one going in the opposite direction. One Lib Dem and one Labour councillor have both made the same move. 

Nine Labour Councillors have become Greens, and one has gone to Reform UK. Other Labour defections (included in the Independent category for now) have expressed their intention to join Your Party in due course – the Labour defectors seem to be going in many more different directions than Tory defectors.

Activists are (or at least should be) getting ready for the May 2027 elections now – the selection, reselection and deselection processes in all parties might persuade many more councillors to defect before then.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.

GUEST POST Defections Update: Lib Dem Conference Special

The Conservative and Labour Parties are continuing to lose councillors in significant numbers, finds Augustus Carp in his latest survey of political defections.

Danny Kruger, MP for East Wiltshire, may be getting the headlines in the defection newsfeeds, but he’s just the tip of the iceberg. The rate at which councillors are changing their political allegiance doesn’t seem to be slackening.

Since June, 39 councillors have defected from the Conservatives and 56 from Labour. The Lib Dems are unchanged, Nationalists have lost 1 and the Greens are up 4. Reform UK has gained 29 and the Independents (widely defined) make up the balance with 63.

The pattern over recent years has usually been for defecting councillors to become Independents and then, if so inclined, to join a new party after a respectable period in the wilderness. Straight switches from Party A to Party B are not as frequent, but they do happen – 18 of the former Conservative councillors have moved straight to Reform UK, but one has joined them from the Greens.

The Lib Dems have lost one councillor to Reform UK (in Burnley). Three Labour councillors have moved to the Lib Dems, with the same number joining the Greens and one going to Reform UK. The remainder of the departing Labour councillors have aligned themselves with a variety of Independent political mini-groups, ranging from the Broxtowe Alliance to the Potteries Party.

The net figure of departing Labour councillors would have been much higher had it not been for a large number of suspended and unwhipped councillors being readmitted to the party over the summer. One hopes that the majority of them have learned their lessons regarding the inappropriate use of social media.

Some of these defections have had a significant impact on the local councils – Labour have lost notional control of South Tyneside, and the Labour group on Reigate and Banstead has evaporated. Senior figures have been involved in recent defections – the former leader of the Conservative group on Aberdeenshire Council is now an Independent, as is the former Labour leader in Caerphilly.

As Jonathan Wallace has noted in his blog, we are now also seeing defections from Reform UK – perhaps the most curious of which is a councillor in Kent moving from them to UKIP. Jonathan has provided some useful background on the defections of Reform UK office holders in the North East of England, but only elected councillors have been included in these figures.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.

GUEST POST Councillor defections: The trickle becomes a stream

Augustus Carp presents some remarkable figures in his latest report on councillors who have resigned the whip or joined another party.

It doesn’t just continue, it gets worse. One would have thought that the run up to the last major local elections – held not quite two months ago – would have prompted wavering councillors to reconsider their political affiliations then, but it seems not.

Since 1 May there have been 154 identifiable instances of councillors changing their stated political allegiances. Some of these changes have led to an ostensible change of control of the Council. 

The net figures are:

Conservatives: -56; Labour: -41; Lib Dem: +4; Greens: +3; Nationalists: no change; Reform UK: +16; Independents: +74.

This means that 1.26 per cent of Conservative councillors have defected since 1 May. The figure for Labour is 0.66 per cent.

As ever, the press and broadcast media are obsessed with Reform UK, who are getting all the headlines, but the significant number of councillors leaving the Labour Party is surely worthy of some coverage. Are they going because of Gaza, or the Winter Fuel Allowance, or Sir Keir Starmer, or because they regard their erstwhile group as chumps? More information would be welcome

The defections from the Conservatives replicate the tensions within the wider party, with councillors going off "in all directions at once" – to Reform, to the Lib Dems and even to Labour. 

In several councils (e.g Dumfries & Galloway, Sevenoaks, Solihull, Wirral) former Tory councillors have congealed into new "Definitely Not Conservative" groups, which are regarded as Independents for analytical purposes.

Defections of this order of magnitude must be having an impact on the parties' campaigning ability at constituency level.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.

GUEST POST Forget your two-horse race: Increasingly it's a cavalry charge

Augustus Carp wanders off from his usual subjective enquiries into councillor defections to consider some objective examples of real voters casting real votes for real candidates in the recent local elections.

If you are a regular reader of this site, you are probably well aware of the iniquities of our election system. You don’t need a lecture from me or, probably, anyone else on the subject, but you might like to consider some of the more unusual results thrown up in the recent county council elections.

To set the scene, in order for a candidate - or party -  to succeed using the current system, the procedure for nearly the last 100 years has been to engineer public opinion to regard the contest as being between just two parties. 

That way, Party A can tell the voters that it’s a straight contest between them and Party B, and that it’s the duty of the electorate to recognise that a vote for Party C is a wasted vote. Verily, “It’s a two horse race!”, say the leaflets, and no other considerations are required.

However, the political world is changing, and changing rapidly. The number of two-horse races has declined, to be replaced in some contests by veritable cavalry charges, with a handful of candidates all vying for the voters’ attention with almost equal success. There are some extraordinary examples from 1 May.

Some 1405 contests took place for the English County Councils. Remarkably, in 32 contests, five candidates all managed to get over 10 per cent of the vote. 

In some cases, the result was still clear. For example, in the Leamington Milverton Division of Warwickshire, the Liberal Democrat got 53.5 per cent, with four other candidates getting 14, 13, 12 and 10 per cent. In Bedwardine (Worcestershire) Reform won with 41.5 per cent, the other candidates getting 24, 14, 10 and 10 per cent. Clearly, the winning candidates had a solid core of support. 

But what about Heavitree and Whipton Barton in Devon? There the Green won with just 26.2 per cent of the vote, the others getting 25.6, 25.4, 12 and 11 per cent. Or over in Alphington and Cowick, in the same county, where Reform won with 26.8 per cent but two other candidates both got over 25 per cent? 

How do people still justify the use of First Past the Post elections, particularly for local government elections, which produce results like those?

However, the Joint Prize for the Most Indecisive Result has to be shared by Bierton, Kingsbrook and Wing Division in Buckinghamshire, and Truro, Moresk and Trehaverne Division in Cornwall. There, six candidates all managed to get over 10 per cent of the votes each. 

The Conservative in Buckinghamshire won with 26.5 per cent of the vote, and the Lib Dem in Cornwall won with 18.9 per cent - not so much a ringing endorsement as an indication of grudging tolerance.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.

GUEST POST 256 local councillors have changed party allegiance since 1 January

Local councillors are leaving the party under whose name they stood - and often joining a different one - in remarkable numbers, finds Augustus Carp in his latest survey for this blog

With the local government elections taking place on Thursday, here’s a quick appetiser – a snapshot analysis of recent defections amongst local government councillors. 

It’s long been my contention that defections, suspensions, resignations and flouncings out might be telling us something significant about the morale in local party groups, which surely must have an impact on their campaigning abilities. 

However, it’s been a complicated few months in the Byzantine world of local government defections of late – so much so that it’s probably best to consider the numbers for the year to date, rather than just provide an update since my last review for Liberal England (posted 2 March).

In total there have been 256 identifiable incidents of councillors changing their political allegiances since the New Year, resulting in the following net changes:

• Conservatives  -60
• Labour -90
• Lib Dems -15
• Greens +2
• Nationalists 0
• Reform UK +61
• Independents +102

I expect that most people at Christmas would have forecast an increase in the number of defections to Reform, but who would have guessed that it would be the Labour Party that would have suffered the greatest number of losses? Not losses to Reform, to be sure, but fractures within party discipline, and the actions (and inactivity) of the Labour Government at Westminster have led to pressures that could not be contained inside several Labour council groups.

Additionally, in the special category of 'Being Suspended from the Group', ex-Labour councillors lead the field by some distance. The main problem areas for Labour appear to be Nottinghamshire (particularly Beeston), Stockport, Tameside, Dudley and Wakefield, all areas where they have lost at least three councillors. In Beeston, depending on how you count them, it’s somewhere in the region of 19 to 21.

The Conservative groups to have lost three or more councillors appear to be Durham, Kent, Mid Suffolk, North Northamptonshire, Oldham and Tamworth.

For the Liberal Democrats, the only group to see more than three defections was Buckinghamshire, with some sort of personality dispute leading to the loss of five councillors, all in the Aylesbury area.

There have been 37 instances of straight swaps between political parties. That’s rather high, because usually defections are to some manifestation of Independent, although that move in itself is often a precursor to a subsequent attachment to a new political party.

The 37 'straight swaps' consist of 26 councillors moving from Conservative to Reform, 3 from Labour to Conservative, 2 from Labour to Reform, 2 from Labour to Green, 1 from Labour to Lib Dem, 1 from Lib Dem to Conservative, 1 from Lib Dem to Labour, 1 from Lib Dem to Green and 1 from Green to Conservative.

Another factor to consider, which might be hiding in plain sight, is the number of resignations from the Council before the end of a standard four year term – are the by-elections we see always for reasons of ill health or work commitments, or is it really because the group leader has a bit of a Napoleon complex? Sadly, for this category, there’s no way of burrowing into the truth behind the press releases - but there might be a story there as well.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.

GUEST POST Defections of local councillors have doubled in 2025

Augustus Carp sees early signs that the shifting of tectonic plates in national and international politics may be reflected in local government too.

All the experts tell us that the political order is changing in ways previously thought to be inconceivable. Alliances are shifting, established relationships are faltering and old friends are becoming foes. But that’s not just the case in international relations – the world of local government seems to be undergoing a heightened wave of upheavals as well.  

The rate of political defections in British local government has accelerated significantly in 2025. By way of comparison, there were 52 defections in the first two months of 2024 – resulting in a net decrease of 19, 20 and 1 councillors for the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats respectively, counterbalanced by an increase of 1 for the Greens with the remainder going to the Independents.

In 2025 the numbers have doubled, with 101 councillors identified as having changed their political allegiances so far. The net impact is that the Conservatives are down 38, Labour down 54, the Liberal Democrats down 8 and the Greens down 1. Reform UK has gained 21, with the other gains going to various manifestations of Independent.  

One feature this year is a significant number of mass defections, most notably in Broxtowe, where 18 ex-Labour councillors set up the Broxtowe Independent Group, which now controls the council (although they should not, of course, be confused with the 5 other Independents on the council). Add in two more from the same patch on Nottinghamshire County Council and it’s clear that the People’s Party are in a bit of a pickle there.

Several purges have also reduced Labour’s numbers in Tameside (10) and Stockport (2) as a consequence of the ShiverMeTimbers WhatsApp Group fiasco, which also saw two MPs suspended. Remember, if you can’t say it in a leaflet you probably shouldn’t put it on social media….

Compare and contrast with the four former Conservatives on Mid Suffolk Council (and a few more elsewhere) who have resigned in protest at their erstwhile party nationally and locally supporting the Labour government's unheralded plans to impose wholesale changes in local government administration. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats have lost five councillors in Buckinghamshire, all in Aylesbury.

One councillor has gone directly from Labour to the Conservatives, but Reform are clearly on the up. As well as welcoming 21 councillors from the Independents, four Conservatives have switched directly to Reform, together with two from Labour. Details are sketchy, but there are reports of a former councillor having joined Reform from the SNP, and of an independent councillor joining the Liberal Democrats "having flirted with Reform".

It will be interesting to see whether the international scene (Trump, Ukraine, Nato etc,) will have as much of an impact on council defections in 2025 as the Middle East did in 2024.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.

The strange ride of Alan Amos

Embed from Getty Images

Augustus Carp, our Defections, Principles and Opportunism Correspondent, has drawn my attention to the remarkable career of Alan Amos. What follows comes from research by Mr Carp, backed up by investigations of my own Wikipedia.

Amos was first heard of as a Conservative councillor in Enfield, sitting between 1978 and 1987. He unsuccessfully fought Walthamstow at the 1983 general election, but had more joy four years later, when he was elected for Hexham in far-off in Northumberland.

He was to become a victim of John Major's Back to Basics campaign, or rather of a briefing given to the press by the now-forgotten figure of Tim Collins - he was the Tory MP Tim Farron defeated to gain Westmorland and Lonsdale in 2005.

As far as Major was concerned, Back to Basics was about bringing back the three Rs in school and the timely repairing of pot holes. But when asked by journalists if it was also about private morality, Collins said yes.

The result was the appearance of a never-ending stream of scandals (or minor incidents dressed up to look like scandals) involving Tory MPs. And Amos was involved in one of them, having the misfortune to be arrested for what sounds like cottaging on Hampstead Heath just before the 1992 election. 

Amos was not charged, but he accepted a police caution for indecency, and stood down as MP for Hexham. Perhaps this might have been survivable by the Nineties, but in the climate engendered by Back to Basics he was toast.

While at Westminster, Amos was known for his vehement opposition to abortion and his enthusiasm for corporal punishment. So it was a great surprise when, in 1994, he announced he had joined the Labour Party. In 2000 he was the star of a Guardian article about the former right-wingers who were now approved Labour parliamentary candidates.

And he was given a seat to fight, losing to Peter Lilley in Hitchin and Harpenden in 2001. He was elected as a Labour member for the Millwall ward of Tower Hamlets in 2002, but lost four years later as the yuppies invaded the Isle of Dogs. In 2008 Amos was elected to Worcester City Council.

In May 2014, with the Council hung, he resigned from the Labour Group to become an Independent, allegedly because Labour hadn't put him up for Mayor.  At the Council AGM in June, Amos accepted the Conservative nomination for Mayor, and as Mayor he then voted for council control to change from Labour to Conservative.

A year later, hours before his tenure as Mayor came to an end, Amos announced he was rejoining the Conservative Party. In May 2024 he was to find himself returned as the last remaining Tory on Worcester City Council.

And, a few days ago, Amos resigned from the Tories to become an Independent once again.

So, over the years, Amos has gone from Conservative to Labour to Independent to Conservative to Independent. What comes next? Will he perhaps rediscover his enthusiasm for reactionary social policies and join Reform?

GUEST POST Old Carp's Almanack: Councillor defections in 2024

Augustus Carp, our man with the Local Government Chronicle and a slide rule, looks back on a year packed with defecting councillors.

As a start to the New Year, here’s a handy cut-out-'n-keep souvenir edition of all the defections by local government councillors we are aware of in 2024. The net changes are 

• Conservatives -186
• Labour -192
• Lib Dems -69 
• Greens +8
• Nationalists -20
• Reform UK +58 

The balancing figure consists of 401 Independents, broadly defined, as not all changes are directly from one party to another. 

I freely confess that when I started this exercise a couple of years ago I had no idea of the numbers involved, but for 445 elected representatives to change their party allegiance in just one year strikes me as rather high.

Nevertheless, for sensible analysis of local politics we need to rely on the experts – people like Andrew Teale, Mark Pack, Britain Elects and the others, who examine the by elections, calculate the swings and thence extrapolate into the future.

They provide us with solid sustenance, whereas the defections summarised above are perhaps more like herbs and spices – they might add something to the dish, but can be somewhat repulsive if relied on too much, so please use them with caution.  

“But what”, I hear you cry, “about the mass Labour defections in Broxtowe? And that unusual Conservative resignation in Oldham?”  

Well, the thing is, they all happened in 2025, so you will have to wait a while before they are tallied and collated – perhaps until late April, when I will look at the situation again, just before the (cancelled?) local elections in May.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.

GUEST POST Councillors changing party: Christmas update

Augustus Carp finds that 84 councillors have changed allegiance since his last report.

The last time I reviewed the state of political defections by councillors was in October, so a brief update is probably in order. The rate of change seems to have picked up since the autumn - 84 councillors on first-tier authorities have changed allegiances in the last three months.

The significant beneficiary has been Reform UK, which has picked up 16 councillors from the Conservatives and the Independents. There are some examples of 'slow burn' defections, with councillors going Independent before joining Reform.  It will be interesting to see if more of these become apparent in the spring, particularly in the run up to council elections in May (assuming, of course, that the Labour government allows us to have them).

The Conservatives have lost 22 councillors, Labour 19, the Lib Dems six and the Greens two. The Nationalists have acquired one new councillor.  The balancing figure is 32 new Independents.  Note that these are net figures, which can disguise a lot of movement – even Reform lost one councillor to the Independents. There are also a few examples of 'double hatting', where one individual has defected from two council groups.

Aberdeenshire seems to have had the most febrile body politic recently, with five individuals responsible for seven events - two of those being delayed defections to Reform from the Conservatives via the Independents. Newcastle has experienced 6 defections from Labour, who have formed a new Independent group, and North East Derbyshire has seen four new Independents, with three from the Lib Dems and one from the Tories.

No other authorities have seen more than three recorded changes of political allegiance, but for all we know there might be turbulence beneath the surface which will only become apparent when political pressures (or personal animosities) become too great to bear.  

As ever, these figures have been taken from reliable sources, but might not stand up to rigorous forensic scrutiny, so are provided on an “errors and omissions excepted” basis.  I will try to do a full tally scorecard for 2024 some time in the new year, but in the meantime, "a deep and meaningful Yuletide scenario to you all".  

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.

GUEST POST No sign of an end to defections in local government

Thanks to Augustus Carp for his latest bulletin on local councillors changing parties, though I'll have him know that I lived in Hemel Hempstead between the ages of 3 and 13.

Well, it's been three months now since the General Election, and in Parliament we have seen several expulsions from the Labour Party together with a rather sudden resignation. In my innocence I had assumed that people would have left their political parties before the election, rather than in the immediate aftermath, but the evidence shows that resignations have continued apace amongst our local councillors.

Since July, there have been 17 defections from the Conservative Party, 13 from Labour, 17 from the Lib Dems and 6 from the Nationalists. The net beneficiaries have been the Greens (up 3) and Reform UK (up 12). The balancing figure is described, perhaps not accurately enough, as 'Independents', who have picked up the remaining 37.  

If I had more time and patience I would no doubt try to do a bit of analysis of the various independents. I am using the category to cover ratepayers, residents associations, localists, single-issue hobbyhorse jockeys and people who are incapable of working within any sort of group structure, and many more besides.  

Some councils have one or more competing groups who fall into the Independent category. Note that councillors sometimes become Independent as a sort of casualty clearing station, where they reside after resigning from A before seeing the light and joining Party B.  

Of the 103 defections, only five councillors have made a direct swap between parties - 2 from Labour to Green, 1 from Tory to Green, 1 from Lib Dem to Labour and 1 from Labour to Lib Dem.  

One trend that seems prevalent at the moment is a disproportionately high number of defections in Wales. Since July, 14 councillors have changed their colours – 5 from Labour, 4 from the Conservatives, 3 Independents (who have transmogrified into a Reform group in Torfaen) and a Liberal Democrat.  The situation is similar in Scotland – 4 each from the Tories and the Nationalists, 3 from Labour and 1 Independent. 

The dramatic move for the Lib Dems was the mass defection of eight female councillors in Dacorum, over allegations of sexism and bullying. 

It's a matter of conjecture whether personal grievances or political ideologies are the main reason for councillor defections – there might be a doctoral thesis in it for someone with a high pain threshold.  

Incidentally, the reason the local authority is called Dacorum is to prevent the residents of Berkhamsted from having to say that they live in Hemel Hempstead.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.

GUEST POST Councillors changing party: general election update

Rather to his surprise, Augustus Carp finds himself offering an update on the latest trends in councillors changing party.

I am not particularly good at political forecasting.  I had expected a quiet summer, with just a slight peak in the number of local council defections in the run-up to the local elections in May. 

Well, it’s only been eight weeks since then, and a grand total of 115 councillors have changed their political allegiance one way or another.  Some have had it changed for them, by way of expulsion or suspension. 

In any event, that’s a net figure of 85 defections once movements in different directions are taken into account; those changes are bound to have an impact on the leafletting, canvassing and telling operations of the parliamentary candidates in those areas.

Clearly, the general election has caused a number of people up and down the land to reassess the way they want their political ideals to be made manifest. Five councillors have resigned in order to stand as Independent General Election candidates – three Conservative, one Labour and one Lib Dem. 

A Tory in Sussex has gone Independent having publicly supported a Labour parliamentary candidate, and in a famous case discussed in this forum, an East Anglian Lib Dem has been expelled for supporting tactical voting with a little too much enthusiasm.  

A net 29 Conservatives have left the party that saw them elected, but that number is exceeded by the 43 who have left Labour. The Lib Dems have lost eight, the Nationalists four and the Greens one. Six Conservatives have joined Reform, including four who have formed a group in Tendring, which covers the Clacton constituency. 

Most defectors seem to join a new party after a few months as a notional Independent (broadly defined) but there have been six instances of councillors immediately changing Party labels – two from Labour to Lib Dem, one from Tory to Lib Dem, one Tory to Green and one each way Labour to Tory or vice versa. 

The Conservatives and Lib Dems have both (on paper) lost control of councils as a result of defections, but it’s the Labour Party who seem to be nurturing nascent opposition groups within their bosom – new Independent groups have formed out of the Labour Party in Flintshire, Hackney, Kirklees and Worthing.  

Anyway, here’s a forecast – depending on what happens after 4 July, the number of councillor defections is either going to decline slightly or accelerate out of all proportion, depending on the Conservative Party’s relationship with Reform. Who knows, I might have to start counting MP defections as well.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.

GUEST POST So far this year, 49 councillors have left the Tories and 42 have left Labour

Augustus Carp gives his latest bulletin on councillors who have changed party. Individually, these moves may be insignificant, but the overall totals do show which way the tide is running.

It’s odd the things that political journalists think important, isn’t it? On Saturday evening a somewhat obscure Suffolk MP crosses the floor, and it’s headline news. Meanwhile, nearly 100 councillors have defected since the New Year, and it barely gets a mention in their local paper.

Obviously, the actions of a former health minister have more immediate impact than those of a sometime chair of the highways and byways subcommittee on Slagthorpe Borough Council, but the cumulative effect of numerous small-scale defections might, on balance, be rather more significant.

So far this year there have been net defections of 49 Conservative councillors, 42 Labour, 1 Lib Dem, 5 Greens and 2 Nationalists. The balancing figure is a net increase of 99 'Independents', broadly defined.

There are only 12 examples of councillors defecting directly from one political party to another - five prefiguring Dan Poulter MP and moving from Conservative to Labour, four from Conservative to Lib Dem, one from Lib Dem to Labour and one each from the Conservatives and Labour to the Greens.

My thesis is a simple one: a councillor defecting from a political party means that they will be less likely to vote - and, more importantly, to work - for that party at a general election. Their families and friends might withdraw from the fray as well, and their local knowledge of their ward will be lost to the party they formerly represented.

Does it matter? Well, that depends on how important you think leafleting, canvassing and sitting outside polling stations might be for a parliamentary election. A winning team in a close contest needs to expend thousands of volunteer hours, a process which is very difficult to organise, manage and motivate.

Perhaps that’s why some bright young things would rather try to maximise support and get voters to the polling stations via social media alone, but personally I still think a bit of physical effort is required.

The well-reported mass defections of Labour councillors have continued this year, notably the 10 in Pendle. This action has been replicated on a smaller scale elsewhere, with some Labour defectors expressing dissatisfaction with the party’s position on Gaza and other, undefined, 'leadership issues'.

As a consequence, several new, ostensibly 'Independent' groups have been established in some authorities by ex-Labour councillors. Meanwhile, Reform, the People’s Party and Alba have all attracted new converts, but they remain scarce.

The local election results on Thursday and Friday will no doubt overshadow Mr Poulter’s resignation, and all of those tallied above, but it might not be long before pressures, personalities and politics create fissures in the newly elected council groups.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.

GUEST POST Martyn’s Law and its unintended ecclesiastical consequences

The protect duty proposed under Martyn's Law will place a heavy burden on churches and other religious buildings, argues Augustus Carp.

With the world being the complicated place that it is, we shouldn’t be surprised if good intentions sometimes have bad consequences. Such is the case with an apparently unobjectionable piece of legislation before the House of Lords at the moment, which is causing conniptions and consternation amongst the archdeacons of the Church of England, as well as those responsible for buildings for other religious faiths.

One of the consequences of the Manchester bombing in 2017 was that Figen Murray, whose son Martyn was killed in the explosion, steered some legislation before Parliament to make the owners of premises responsible for the security of their sites, in order to deter terrorist outrages.

The eponymous Martyn’s Law seeks to impose a 'protect duty' on anyone operating premises that can accommodate over 100 people. Although probably not intentional, the legislation catches a lot of churches, chapels, mosques, synagogues and gurdwaras.

The legislation is intended to have minimal costs, maximum benefits and general acceptance, but it’s not turning out like that. It’s clear that the drafters of the legislation have little, or no, idea about the way religious buildings work. The consultation document supporting the legislation says:

For most organisations in scope of a Protect Duty, we propose that compliance would be demonstrated by providing assurance that the threat and risk impacts had been considered, and appropriate mitigations had been considered and taken forward … For organisations at the lower end of criteria thresholds, this would entail simple low – or no – cost preparedness measures such as ensuring that:

• Staff are trained and aware of the nature of threats, likely attack methodologies and how to respond;
• Staff are trained to identify the signs of hostile reconnaissance and take appropriate action; and
• There are plans in place for an organisation’s response to different attack types, which are regularly trained and exercised.

That means training a changing cohort of volunteers to an appropriate standard – which will come at a cost. Proper risk assessments will have to be carried out, and standards agreed for security. What happens if someone attending 6.30 Evensong refuses to be searched? It’s a problem, particularly as the right to attend Church of England services is enshrined in law.

Unfortunately, the legislation is aimed at premises, rather than activities. For the best of reasons, if this legislation is passed unamended, a new industry will be established, to go alongside the existing CRB vetting procedures, where the costs and time involved vastly outweigh the benefits for most voluntary organisations. It will be consultants, training organisations and insurers who will define what is optimal for each establishment, and price things accordingly.

Churchyards are not excluded – so it might be easier for churches to close them to the public, particularly in urban areas. Similarly, closing places of worship other than at times of services will be the cost-effective way forward for most rural churches, which until now have often been left unattended.

Going beyond ordinary health and safety legislation, the introduction of the protect duty places the responsibility and the potential fault on those who might be victims – the clergy and volunteers who run the churches – rather than on the terrorists who might perpetrate an outrage. 

In Britain today, some religious people take risks simply by exercising their faith in public. There are bad actors in the world who would like people to cease exercising their faith in public, indeed to stop exercising it at all. However, terrorising people into private spaces, and all for reasons of public safety, risks colluding with that desire to drive religion, quite literally, out of the public square.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of an occasional contributor to this blog. According to his autobiography, he is the Churchwarden of St James-the-Least-of-All, Kennington Oval.

GUEST POST Councillor defections: The scores on the doors at the end of 2023

Augustus Carp with an end-of-year update on the number of councillors who have left the party under whose flag they were elected.

The end of the year is probably as good a time as any to consider recent changes of political allegiances amongst our elected councillors. For divers reasons, numerous individuals have decided to re-align themselves away from the political party whose views they espoused when elected.  

What this might mean is for you to decide – maybe it’s irrelevant, perhaps it’s just the manifestation of personal vanity, or it might be evidence of impending political change, either locally or nationally.  

In any event, I would suggest that any councillor jumping ship means the loss of a formerly dedicated party worker (and perhaps some of their family and friends) on whom their erstwhile parties might have been relying for the impending General Election. Have the parties kept centralised canvassing records, or will they disappear with the resigning councillor? Who will deliver the leaflets in that ward now? Who will run the poling stations on election day?

In headline terms, the net change in councillor defections since the last council elections in May 2023 is Conservatives down 48, the Lib Dems down 15 and the Nationalists down 12, with the Greens flat. The Labour tally of 100 defections elegantly mirrors the Conservative figure when I wrote my first guest post on this subject in February.  

Without a doubt, the biggest surprise of the year has been the series of mass defections from Labour, caused by events in Palestine. 

It’s difficult to ensure absolute accuracy, because a number of factors might have been in play, but over 60 Labour councillors have said that they have resigned because of these events; there have also been a handful of suspensions for the same reason.  

Mass resignations in Burnley (12 councillors) Oxford (11) Blackburn (10) and Walsall (9) have led to changes in the running of the council. Other mass resignations in Sheffield (8) and Hastings (10) do not appear to have the same cause, but it might be a factor in the latter case.  

It will be interesting to see if the Labour Party nationally is able to devise a face-saving mechanism to entice most of the defectors back into the fold, but perhaps the damage is done.  

Meanwhile, the Conservatives have lost on average 1.4 councillors every week. Let’s see what happens in 2024 when the local elections will be largely a replay of 2021, when the Conservatives made significant gains. It could be that, rather than defect or resign, more Conservative Councillors will retire early, in order for the vacancies to fit in with the May timetable.    

Postscript: Probably in an attempt to confuse my arithmetic, the Liberal Democrats have just announced half a defection to them – the Leader of Shetland Council has joined the Party, but will continue to sit as an Independent councillor.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.

GUEST POST Look out for lobbying in the Listed Election

Augustus Carp on the emergence of a new lobbying group - just in time for the general election.

Do you live in a listed building? And do you live in a marginal seat? If so, it looks like the next general election is the one for you!

The Listed Property Owners Club (a buyer’s club and lobbying group) has been campaigning for years for VAT to be waived or reduced for repairs to listed buildings.  

They also have doubts as to whether or not HMRC is implementing VAT on listed buildings in the way originally intended by parliament.  

Obviously, that’s shameless special pleading for a vested interest, but it’s an interesting proposition for all that – maybe it might be a Good Thing if repairs that need to meet exacting local authority Listed building standards were a bit less expensive, in order to preserve both old buildings and the housing stock.

Whatever. At the next General Election, the Listed Property Owners Club has decided to lobby all candidates in the marginal seats with the most listed buildings in them, to seek agreement for their policy paper on the subject. 

So far, they have identified Mid Devon (4756 listed buildings), Frome (4155) and Berwick on Tweed (3574). They assume 2.5 voters per listed building, and say “You can see how important our vote will be.”

Time permitting, they hope to get candidates’ responses back to their members before polling day.  So, if you are canvassing a Grade II* Georgian Rectory or a weaver’s cottage with interesting  plasterwork, be on your guard for some rather unusual questions about the Whole Heritage Agenda and the standards for local authority consent orders.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.