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.