23AUG

Reform gains Southey on 15.6% turnout

1 min read

19:09UTC

Paul Jakeman polled 1,133 votes against Labour's Jayne Dunn on 836 in Sheffield's Southey ward, a seat Reform UK had never previously contested.

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PoliticsAssessed

Key takeaway

Reform gained Southey from Labour on a 15.63% turnout, in a ward it had never contested before.

Reform UK's Paul Jakeman won the Southey by-election on Sheffield City Council from Labour on 27 August, polling 1,133 votes to Jayne Dunn's 836⁠¹. Jakeman took 50.6% of the vote against Dunn's 37.3%, on a turnout of 15.63%⁠²⁠³.

Southey covers post-war estates in north Sheffield and has returned Labour councillors for decades. Reform put up no candidate there in May, so this is not a seat the party is defending or recovering. Reform had never stood in Southey at all until this by-election.

Reform's advances keep taking this shape. The party took Harraby South from Labour on Cumberland Council a fortnight earlier in the same manner, another northern ward where the party had no incumbent and no record to run on. A by-election settled by roughly one elector in six rewards whichever side can locate a few hundred motivated supporters, and a newer party carrying no local history has less to defend and fewer disappointed voters to answer to. Dunn's 836 votes would have held Southey comfortably at a May turnout. On 15.63% they were not enough.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

A council by-election is held when a single seat becomes vacant between the main elections. In Southey, a ward on Sheffield City Council, Reform UK's Paul Jakeman beat Labour's Jayne Dunn, taking the seat from Labour. Jakeman won 50.6% of the vote against Dunn's 37.3%. Only 15.63% of registered voters turned out, a low figure typical of by-elections held outside the main polling day.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

Turnout fell to 15.63%, low even for a single-ward by-election, which structurally favours whichever party can turn out its own committed voters most reliably.

Reform UK's pattern across the domestic results in this run, gains in Southey and Harraby South, holds in Throckley, alongside losses in Billinge and Trinity, suggests a party whose vote is now more organisationally dependent than in May, when a single national swing carried wards it had barely campaigned in.

Sources:PollCheck·Sheffield City Council

Mentions:Reform UK →Labour Party →Jayne Dunn →Cumberland Council →Harraby South →Sheffield →

First Reported In

Update #17 · Reform's £4m arrived as cash, not crypto

PollCheck· 3 Sept 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Reform gains Harraby South from Labour

Southey continues Reform winning wards it had never previously contested.

Occurred 20 Aug 2026

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This Event

Reform gains Southey on 15.6% turnout

Reform's summer gains keep arriving in wards it never fought in May rather than in the ones it already holds.

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.