3SEP

Reform gains Southey on 15.6% turnout

1 min read

12:41UTC

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 836 ¹. 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

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

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

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

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 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

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.