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UK Local Elections 2026
12AUG

Greens take a seat Reform came second in

2 min read
14:07UTC

The Green Party gained Hooley, Merstham and Netherne from the Conservatives on 41.8%, with Reform UK second on 24.4%. Reform finished runner-up in four seats it did not win.

← Back to Reform bleeds councillors, wins by-electionsJump to analysis ↓
PoliticsDeveloping
Key takeaway

The Greens gained a Surrey seat, and Reform finished second in four it lost.

The Green Party gained Hooley, Merstham and Netherne on Reigate and Banstead in Surrey with 41.8%, ahead of Reform UK on 24.4% 1. The seat came off the Conservatives, whose worst result of the night ran to three defences lost: two to Reform and this one to The Greens. That continues the mid-July pattern of other parties consolidating where the anti-Conservative or anti-Reform vote has somewhere to go .

Reform finished second in four of the seats it failed to take, which is not the shape of a party in retreat. At Great Dunmow North on Uttlesford in Essex the Conservatives gained on 50.5% against Reform's 27.9%. At Bro'r Llynnoedd on the Isle of Anglesey, Plaid Cymru held with 48.5% against 39.3%, and at Hengoed on Caerphilly Plaid held again with 49.9% against 36.4% 2. Plaid, which leads the Welsh government, held both wards comfortably enough, with Reform the challenger in each.

Elsewhere in the same set of ten contests, the Liberal Democrats held Hedge End South on Eastleigh in Hampshire with 46.1% on a 2.7 point swing towards them, and an Independent took Rumworth in Bolton from Labour with 42.3% 3. Independents win these vacancies more often than national polling suggests, because a ward-scale contest rewards a known local name over a party label.

A runner-up finish leaves no councillor and no committee seat, so it registers nowhere in any tally of party strength. It does tell the parties where to spend money next May.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

In a first-past-the-post election, the candidate with the most votes wins even if most people voted for someone else. When four or five parties are competing seriously in the same ward, as is increasingly common in England, the winning share can be well under 50%. In Hooley, Merstham and Netherne, the Green Party won with 41.8% of the vote, and Reform UK came second with 24.4%, well ahead of the Conservatives who had held the seat. Which party finishes second varies enormously from ward to ward depending on very local factors, which is why the same set of ten by-elections produced a Green win here, an Independent win in Bolton, and Reform holding or gaining seats elsewhere.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

Under first-past-the-post, a four or five-way split vote lets a party win a seat with well under half the votes cast, and the same split can put very different parties in second place from ward to ward depending on which challenger has the stronger local organisation.

In Reigate and Banstead the split ran Green first, Reform second, leaving the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats trailing, while the same ten-by-election set saw an Independent beat Labour in Bolton and the Liberal Democrats hold Eastleigh against different opponents entirely.

The result also reflects each party's uneven ground campaign investment: the Greens have concentrated activist resources in specific target wards since 2022 rather than spreading thinly across every seat, which produces exactly this pattern of scattered, locally-earned wins.

What could happen next?
  • Meaning

    Reform's second-place finish in Reigate and Banstead shows the party's local support is broad enough to beat established parties even where it does not win the seat.

  • Consequence

    A widening four and five-way split across English wards makes individual by-election results a less reliable guide to any single party's national trajectory.

Sources:Local democracy reporting
Mentions:Hackney →Lewisham →Hengoed →England →Suffolk →Essex →Hampshire →Green Party →Reform UK →Liberal Democrats →Plaid Cymru →Labour Party →
First Reported In

Update #15 · Reform bleeds councillors, wins by-elections

Local democracy reporting· 12 Aug 2026
Read original →
Causes and effects
Caused by
Labour crumbles in two more wards
Continues the mid-July pattern of opposition parties consolidating against Reform and Labour incumbents in council by-elections.
Occurred 16 Jul 2026
Read story →
This Event
Greens take a seat Reform came second in
Reform's second places across four contests, from 24% to 39%, give it a base to defend in 2027 in wards no headline counts as a gain.
Different Perspectives
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Plaid Cymru
Plaid Cymru
Plaid Cymru held both Welsh wards Reform challenged in the same set of by-elections, Bro'r Llynnoedd on Anglesey by 48.5% to 39.3% and Hengoed on Caerphilly by 49.9% to 36.4%. The party that leads the Welsh government kept Reform in second in both.
Conservative Party
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The Conservatives lost three of ten council by-elections fought on 30 July and 6 August, two wards to Reform in Norfolk and one to the Greens in Surrey, continuing a run of losses since the May sweep. Every seat gone had been Conservative-held going into the contest.
Reform UK
Reform UK
Reform's 56 lost councillors since May came from defection, suspension and resignation, not lost votes, while the party gained three of ten council by-elections and finished second in four more over the same fortnight. That record undercuts reading the churn as electoral retreat.
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