Alan Francis, MK Green Party agent
Many thanks to all those who stood as Green Party candidates and to those who voted Green.
With a full slate of candidates the Green vote increased to 4900, 8% of votes cast, up from 6% last year. With Proportional Representation that would have given Greens 1 or 2 seats out of the 19 up for election this year. In an all-up election for 57 councillors that would be about 4 or 5 seats.
Elsewhere in the country it was a very good election for the Green Party with gains of 74 seats to take the number of Green councillors over 800.
In Milton Keynes Labour gained 4 seats and Lib Dems gained 3 seats. The Tories lost 7 seats and held onto just 4 seats. Labour now have a majority on the council with 30 seats out of 57.
In the wards the Green vote share varied between 5% and 17%. The wards with the best showing were Wolverton (17%), Danesborough & Walton (10%), Bletchley Park (10%), Woughton & Fishermead (9.6%), Olney (9.1%), Stantonbury (9%), CMK (8.6%).
Turn out was down about 1% on last year. A lot of that was Tory voters staying at home. It is clear that the Tory vote collapsed. Compared to 2021, when these seats/councillors were last voted on, the Tory vote was often halved.
In 9 out of 19 wards Greens beat the Lib Dems and they beat us in 10/19. In 8 wards Greens came third. We didn’t get any second places but Greens came very close to beating the Tories in Wolverton ward and getting second place, just 26 votes short.
Another factor in a few wards was Muslim voters deserting Labour because of its policy on the war in Gaza. This mainly affected wards around the large mosques in Wolverton and Bletchley. Despite a general swing to Labour, in Wolverton the Labour vote fell by 6% and the Green vote increased by 5%.
MK Green Party is now looking forward to the next MKCC elections in 2026 when all of the seats will be up for election on new ward boundaries.
For full results see:
https://www.milton-keynes.gov.uk/elections/27559
