Overview
- The Green candidate Ingrid Dodd won the Guston, Kingsdown & St Margaret’s-at-Cliffe by-election by 34 votes, taking 28.8% against Reform UK’s 27.5%, the Conservatives’ 17.1%, Labour’s 14.6% and Restore Britain’s 10.7%.
- Restore Britain, a new party led by Rupert Lowe, polled about 10–11% with candidate Jeremy 'Jez' Hermer and Lowe celebrated the showing on social media as evidence of early growth.
- The Conservatives, who had held the area for decades, fell to third place with a sharp drop in support compared with 2023, underlining local erosion of Tory votes where Reform competes.
- Commentators say the result highlights the danger of three-way competition on the right under first-past-the-post voting because modest third-party shares can change outcomes, but personal and ideological rifts between leaders make formal pacts unlikely in the near term.
- The Dover result fits a broader pattern in recent local contests where divided right-of-centre votes have delivered seats to Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens, a dynamic that could influence national math if it persists.