Glastonbury joins Britain in decisively voting NO to AV

With a turnout of a fraction under 50% of the Electorate, Mendip has decisively voted against electoral reform and an end to the first past the post voting system in the nationwide referendum.

With a total of 41,581 votes cast, 27,162 votes (65.32%) were for No to electoral reform, while 14,419 votes (34.68%) were for Yes - a majority of 30.65%.  This result was fairly close to the national vote in which approximately 68% of voters chose No.  In a particularly bad day for Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrat Party, which had seen massive losses of seats on local councils this was a final bitter blow, particularly as it had been one of the LibDems major demands when they joined the Conservatives in the Coalition government a year ago.

Provisional figures from the Electoral Commission suggest that the turnout nationally was 41.8%, with 19.1m votes cast.

In the Council Elections across the UK, Labour were by far the biggest winners with a net gain of 790 seats, while the Conservatives gained 77 seats; the Liberal Democrats meanwhile lost 690 seats.

Locally, in the election for Mendip District Councillors, the Conservatives have retained control and have in fact gained ground achieving an extra eight seats giving them a total of 31 while the Liberal Democrats lost 5 seats to win 15 and the Independent candidates lost three seats to win one.

In Glastonbury itself three Conservatives were elected to MDC: Steve Henderson, John Coles and John Brunsdon, while Nick Cottle won a seat for the Liberal Democrats.  We’d like to wish them all well in these challenging times.