While Labour topped both the European and Reading Borough Council elections, their share of the vote in them varied dramatically as Ukip picked up Euro votes at their expense.
In the local elections, Reading Labour received 39% of the vote – but in the Euros that support slipped to 31%, still way ahead of the national average of 25%.
Ukip’s share of the vote soared from 9% in Reading’s elections to 20% in Reading’s Euro vote. In the Euro vote, they picked up 4 MEPs in the South East, but they didn’t win a single seat in Reading Borough Council’s elections. The nearest they came to a win was in Tilehurst where another couple of hundred of votes would have seen them unseat the Lib Dems.
The Conservatives lost 3 percentage points – down from 26% locally to 23% locally.
Reading’s fourth party in terms of vote share – but third party in terms of council seats – is the Green Party and their share of the vote barely changed in the Local and Euros.
Likewise, the Liberal Democrats, which is all but wiped out on Reading Borough Council with just two seats, saw its share of the vote stay reasonably constant – both were down around 1.5%.
| EURO | % | LOCAL | % | |
| Labour | 12,071 | 31.24 | 15,024 | 39.02 |
| Conservatives | 8,996 | 23.29 | 9,826 | 25.52 |
| Ukip | 7,812 | 20.22 | 3,446 | 8.95 |
| Green | 4,777 | 12.36 | 5,243 | 13.62 |
| Liberal Democrats | 2,836 | 7.34 | 3,414 | 8.87 |
| Other | 2,142 | 5.54 | 1,553 | 4.03 |
| Total votes | 38,634 | 38,506 |
However, the biggest winner in the Local and Euro elections in Reading was the people who stayed at home – turnout was 33%, meaning two-thirds of voters decided not to vote.
Last modified on Monday, 26 May 2014 14:56
