Bridlington Central & Old Town (East Yorkshire):
UKIP GAIN from SDP.
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) November 27, 2014
This result from a local by-election yesterday sounds impossible. It is explained by the fact that the SDP lingered on in Bridlington long after the party had officially expired.
But then there was a Whig councillor elsewhere in Yorkshire until recently.
I think this was Ray Allerston's old seat - he passed away a couple of months ago. The party still has two councillors...
ReplyDeleteOne wonders what would have happened had Owen kept the party going past 1992. When he shut them down the party was was getting more votes in byelections that the Lib Dems are now. They may have made gains in 1997... and then who knows?
Tony Taylor clung on to his seat in Aberavon ward of Neath Port Talbot CBC in the local government elections of 2012, when his SDP colleagues in the three-member ward were swept away in the Labour surge. (One of their replacements was later arrested for possession of banned substances, a case that seems to have been dropped.) So I reckon that makes Tony the sole SDP elected person remaining in England and Wales after the Bridlington result.
ReplyDeleteIt was an amazingly unconvincing win for East Yorkshire's first (I think) UKIP councillor:
ReplyDeleteUKIP - 401 - 30.8%
Conservative - 352 - 27.1%
Independent - 217 - 16.7%
Independent - 214 - 16.5%
Independent - 116 - 8.9%
TOTAL - 1,300
In the two other council by-elections in East Yorkshire last Thursday, UKIP finished second, with 40.3% and 25.5%.