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UK Local Elections 2026
3SEP

Greens take a seat Reform came second in

2 min read
12:41UTC

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's £4m arrived as cash, not cryptoJump 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 →Hooley, Merstham and Netherne →Green Party →Reform UK →Reigate and Banstead →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.
Led to
Greens take Dover ward on 28.8%
Dover repeats the Green-gain-with-Reform-second pattern seen at Reigate and Banstead.
Occurred 27 Aug 2026
Read story →
Different Perspectives
Scottish Labour members
Scottish Labour members
Scottish Labour's published leadership nominations show 33 MPs and MSPs backing Michael Marra against 12 for Joe Fagan, with members voting until 17 September and a result on 19 September. Elected members do not cast the ballot, so the nomination gap measures the parliamentary party rather than the membership that will decide it.
Electoral Commission
Electoral Commission
The Electoral Commission published its Q2 2026 donations register on 3 September, recording Reform UK's £5.44m as the highest of any party and Ben Delo's £4m as two cash gifts. The register records a donation's form and amount, not the origin of a donor's wealth, so a cash gift shows the same as any other.
Reform UK
Reform UK
Danny Kruger, Reform UK's MP for East Wiltshire, called the Bill "a flagrantly partisan attempt to kneecap Reform UK" during the 2 September debate, objecting to its trade-union exemption. Reform enters its Birmingham conference having topped Q2's donor register at £5.44m, £4m of it in cash from Ben Delo, a form the new ban does not reach.
Ian Davidson, Acting Returning Officer for Clacton
Ian Davidson, Acting Returning Officer for Clacton
Davidson's office printed a 90cm ballot paper for the record 34-candidate field, with nothing in electoral law capping candidate numbers or the £500 deposit each pays. He expects the paper's size to raise printing costs and slow the count into the early hours, a strain that follows from the major parties' boycott, not from turnout.
Labour Party
Labour Party
Labour gained Penistone East from Reform on 20 August but lost Harraby South to Reform the same night, a wash that undercuts any claim of momentum. The party can point to beating Reform in a genuinely fought contest, but not to a pattern running only in its favour.
Liberal Democrats
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats took two of Reform's May wards, Almondbury on 13 August and St Neots Eynesbury on 20 August, the latter on a 29.8-point rise in their own vote share. Both results let the party claim it is the beneficiary when voters turn against Reform, not Labour or the Conservatives.