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.