Local elections 2014: Great victory as TUSC 'rebel councillor' re-elected

Keith Morrell, Southampton rebel councillor, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

Southampton 'rebel councillor' and TUSC national steering committee member Keith Morrell has been re-elected to his council seat in Coxford, in a vindication of the bold stand that he, and fellow rebel councillor Don Thomas, made against the Labour council's cuts (see http://www.tusc.org.uk/press180213.php )

Keith has been decisively re-elected with 1,654 votes, a 43% share of the vote. At the last full council elections in Southampton in 2012, Labour won Coxford ward with 1,647 votes. This time Labour dropped to third with 724 votes (19%), as UKIP came in second with 796 votes. The Tories polled 500 votes, and the Lib Dems 168.

Keith said: "This result is a victory for the people of Coxford who fought to save local services and won an important victory to re-open our local swimming pool. It shows what is possible. Other significant results across the city for TUSC candidates show the potential that exists for a new party that stands up for working people, campaigns for jobs and housing, and tackles the growing poverty that affects so many families in the city".

At the time of posting, there is still only a patchy picture of TUSC's results overall, with half of the councils with elections this year only starting their count on Friday morning.

The Coventry results are in and, while Labour held on to the city's St Michaels ward, TUSC's national chairperson Dave Nellist polled a very good 974 votes, coming second with a 29.7% share. Another solid result was Rob McArdle's 248 votes in Lower Stoke ward, a 6.2% share. Overall, TUSC candidates polled 2,592 votes across the city.

In Birmingham TUSC's twelve candidates polled 1,766 votes, with James Redfern scoring 9.3% in Tyburn ward and Ted Woodley 7.6% in Stockland Green.

Also on 9.3% was Amanda Dilley, the top TUSC result in Stevenage council.

And lastly, news has just come in on the Newham mayoral election, where the TUSC candidate Lois Austin, polled a very creditable 1,708 votes (a 2.2% share), just 49 votes behind the Liberal Democrats.

More results will be published as they come in and when all the results are declared we will post up a comprehensive seat-by-seat report on how the TUSC candidates fared.

An initial TUSC post-election leaflet is now available at http://www.tusc.org.uk/txt/299.pdf.