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Buckinghamshire County Council Elections 2005-2017

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Buckinghamshire is in some ways the most loyally Conservative county in England; the Conservatives have never lost their majority on the county council since the reorganisation of local government in the early 1970s, even in 2005 they won more than 50% of the popular vote, and in the 1994 European elections - in many ways the absolute nadir of the Conservative Party - the constituency derived from Buckinghamshire was the only one to still record a strong Tory vote. This has been exacerbated by the fact that first the historical county lost the urban Labour-voting area of Slough to Berkshire, and then the new town of Milton Keynes became a separate unitary authority in 1997. However, despite this Tory dominance, there is nonetheless a substantial opposition, though more in the north of the county than the south. Interestingly, northern Buckinghamshire (especially Aylesbury) appears to be a haunt of Eurosceptic Liberalism, an often-ignored strand of British political thought generally found in wealthy areas which also manifests itself in Sutton in London. Historically the people of Aylesbury have tended to elect Lib Dems (and before them Liberals) on the council level and record a strong vote for the party on the parliamentary level, but will turn around and vote for UKIP or Eurosceptic Tory candidates on the European level. In 2013 Aylesbury was fought over by the Lib Dems and UKIP, with those two parties taking the top two positions in almost every division--a remarkable occurrence. UKIP also secured a substantial vote across northern Buckinghamshire and took second place across the county, though the FPTP voting system meant thqat the Tories still easily kept their majority despite falling to 41% of the popular vote. In the EU referendum of 2016, predictably northern Buckinghamshire voted Leave (albeit narrowly) and southern Buckinghamshire voted Remain. It will be interesting to see how Buckinghamshire votes in 2017 with the Brexit process now underway. As a wealthy county, Labour struggle to win any seats here, failing to win back their former presence in High Wycombe from the Lib Dems in 2013 but instead making one unexpected victory on the new boundaries in the western division of the county town of Buckingham itself.

EDIT for 2017: In keeping with the rest of the country, Buckinghamshire saw a strong performance for the conservatives, winning 41 of the 49 seats, many with large majorities. UKIP were, again in keeping with the national picture, completely eliminated from the council, while Labour lost their existing seats but managed a narrow gain in the High Wycombe area. Meanwhile the Lib Dems successfully bounced back towards their former strength in Aylesbury, but suffered a split with both their High Wycombe councillors forming an independent group. Overall, Buckinghamshire represents perhaps the biggest case of a post-UKIP return to form for any English county council.
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