Elected York graduate keeps Labour in majority on the City of York council

Former York student Anna Perret has been elected in the Heworth by-elections, keeping Labour’s majority on the City of York council.

Labour won the by-election to the City of York Council on 15th January. Nearly 500 votes separated it from Reform, which got second place.

Anna Perrett is a graduate from the late 2000s in English Literature and politics at the University of York. She was elected with 1096 votes. This was ahead of John Crispin-Bailey, the son of Computer Science lecturer Chris Crispin-Bailey, who finished with 601 votes, coming second.

Green candidate, Ben French, brought in 591 votes, finishing third. The Liberal Democrat candidate, Ian Eiloart, with 528 votes, came fourth. The election was called in early December after councillor Ben Burton stood down and left York for work.

‘A team who backs residents’ concerns’

Anna, who has lived in York since 2005, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service, “by-elections are always a bit of a referendum, but the scale of our result compared to the other parties shows a team who back residents’ concerns are going to win, rather than people who just turn up for the election.”

Claire Douglas, Labour leader of the City of York council, said to the Local democracy Reporting Service: “I’m really happy, the result’s bucked the national trend; I’ve enjoyed speaking to the people of Heworth, and I was confident that they would recognise our hard work.”

‘Learners and earners’

It wasn’t a coincidence that Labour and Reform both put up candidates with university connections. Council data described households in the Heworth area as “Learners and earners”, highlighting the university’s influence on the local community.

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Reform will be proud of getting 20% of the vote. However, they still remain without a seat on the council, despite their national strength in polls. They only beat the conservatives’ vote in 2023 by five percentage points.

The conservatives vote share collapsed by 300 votes compared to 2023. On the day that Robert Kendrick caused a national political storm by defecting to Nigel Farage’s party, the idea that Tories are fleeing from the sinking ship to Reform does not seem unbelievable.

It may be a comfortable win for Labour, however, Heworth’s demographics do tilt towards groups that tend to vote nationally for the party, rather than the city. So they still aren’t in the clear for the all-out elections next year.

Featured image via Facebook