23AUG

Labour crumbles in two more wards

1 min read

19:09UTC

On the same night Reform lost Old Catton, the Conservatives gained Dereham Toftwood and the Greens gained Fletton and Woodston, both from Labour, with Reform holding second in each.

← Back to Reform loses three wards, wins Clacton Jump to analysis ↓

PoliticsDeveloping

Key takeaway

Conservatives and Greens took two more seats from Labour, which lost ground in all three 16 July by-elections.

The Conservatives gained Dereham Toftwood on Breckland council from Labour on 16 July 2026, with Reform UK a strong new second on 36.9% and Labour's share down more than 35 points⁠¹. On the same night the Green Party gained Fletton and Woodston on Peterborough City Council, also from Labour, with Reform again holding second on 29.7%⁠².

The Fletton and Woodston seat fell vacant after a Labour councillor quit alleging "sustained bullying" over her push for closed-circuit television (CCTV) in taxis⁠³. Neither result unseated Reform; both unseated Labour, the same pattern visible in Reform's own loss at Old Catton the same evening.

Read across the three contests, Reform lost only where it was defending its own seat and grew where it attacked a Labour incumbent. Labour lost in all three. Burnham's party changed leaders this month to relieve exactly this pressure, and the first by-elections of his premiership deepened it instead.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Two more council by-elections on 16 July went badly for Labour. The Conservatives took Dereham Toftwood from Labour in Norfolk, and the Green Party took Fletton and Woodston from Labour in Peterborough. Reform UK came second in both. A council by-election fills one vacant seat; it does not change who governs nationally. But a run of losses like this in a single day suggests Labour's support has weakened at the local level too, beyond what the national opinion polls show.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

An unnamed Labour councillor's complaint of 'sustained bullying' in Peterborough points to local party organisation problems compounding the national polling slide, a structural weakness in activist bases Labour has not defended seriously since boundary changes, rather than a single cause.

Reform UK holding second place in both contests despite Labour's collapse shows the party's roughly 40 cumulative councillor losses nationally by early July have not yet cost it its position as the default opposition-to-Labour vote in these wards.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Consensus view: Professor Rob Ford of the University of Manchester has argued that repeated fourth and fifth-place finishes for Labour in wards it held only a few years ago reflect a genuine erosion of its core vote, because the same pattern is now visible across dozens of separate contests rather than one outlier result.

Counter-view: The Institute for Government has cautioned against reading too much into by-election vote shares on the low turnouts typical of these contests, arguing single-ward results reflect motivated opposition voters turning out rather than any broad shift in Labour's underlying support.

Key tension: Whether Labour's repeated low finishes signal a genuine collapse in its core vote, or the low-turnout dynamics that always favour whichever party is angriest at the government of the day.

Sources:Bin The Labour Party

Mentions:Peterborough City Council →Green Party →Reform UK →Old Catton →Norfolk →Institute for Government →Labour Party →

First Reported In

Update #13 · England's council map redrawn as five sue

Bin The Labour Party· 24 Jul 2026

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Causes and effects

This Event

Labour crumbles in two more wards

Labour, not Reform, was the consistent loser across all three of the 16 July by-elections.

Led to

Clacton's ballot paper splits the right four ways

The two wards where the anti-Reform vote stayed split show Reform holding second place, contrasting with Old Catton.

Occurred 17 Jul 2026

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Greens take a seat Reform came second in

Continues the mid-July pattern of opposition parties consolidating against Reform and Labour incumbents in council by-elections.

Occurred 6 Aug 2026

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Different Perspectives

Rhun ap Iorwerth / Welsh Government (Plaid Cymru)

Ap Iorwerth presented six priorities to the Senedd on 22 September without numeric targets or a named partner party, promising to work across the chamber where there is common ground. He says his government will be judged on results.

Michael Marra / Scottish Labour

Marra won the leadership on 19 September, and three days later his 17 MSPs backed Swinney's right-to-decide motion once their child-poverty amendment was written in. He says Scottish Labour's task is to tell voters what it stands for.

Andy Burnham / Labour Party

Burnham told conference in Liverpool on 29 September that Labour's next manifesto will commit to changing the electoral system, and invited every party into a National Commission on Electoral Reform. He has not named a replacement system, and no chair or remit has been published.

Conservative Party (frontbench peers and Kemi Badenoch)

Conservative frontbench peers argued against retrospective rules at the Lords Second Reading on 14 September, a position that protects gifts made before any cap. Kemi Badenoch rejected Burnham's electoral reform commission on 2 October, accusing him of using it to entrench the left.

Reform UK

Reform denied wrongdoing after the Channel 4 News programme, called the sting a hoax by climate activists and said it would cooperate with the Metropolitan Police. In the same month it announced £36m gifts from Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne.

Steff Aquarone / Liberal Democrats (North Norfolk)

Aquarone told Rayner in the Commons on 7 September that North Norfolk District Council had spent money preparing for a reorganisation the Government has now withdrawn. He puts the cost of the cancelled merger on districts in the four areas.