Corbyn’s relaunch week ends with the LDs taking a LAB council seat in one of its heartlands on a 36% swing
And the yellows pick up a CON seat on a big swing
The 2017 council by-election season has opened with the Lib Dems taking seats from both CON and LAB on big swings. The results are above.
In Sunderland, where only 39% voted REMAIN on June 23rd, Farron’s party had the most surprising result. It appeared to be a LAB-UKIP contest and few anticipated a move on this scale. Last time the LD got just 4.5% in the seat and were in fourth place.
This could be a reaction to BREXIT or the lacklustre Corbyn leadership but there’s little doubt that Farron’s party is fired up at the moment with their confidence boosted enormously by the Richmond Park victory last month.
The result will, no doubt, provide further ammunition for Labour’s Corbyn sceptics.
What’s also noteworthy about Sunderland Sandhill is how poorly UKIP did in a part of the country where you’d expect it to do well.
The Three Rivers gain from CON was in what had been a longstanding LD seat and it would have only been a surprise if the LD had failed to take it. The margin of victory was significant.
Coming up soon we have the Copeland Westminster by-election. The LDs are the first party to have selected a candidate and she has already flagged her main campaign points BREXIT and the NHS.