The 2019 Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council election took place on 2 May 2019 to elect members of Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council in England. This election was held on the same day as other local elections.
After the election, the composition of the council was:
Election results
Overall election result
Overall result compared with 2018.
Results by constituency
Birkenhead constituency
Birkenhead consists of the wards of Bidston and St James, Birkenhead and Tranmere, Claughton, Oxton, Prenton and Rock Ferry.
Wallasey constituency
Wallasey consists of the wards of Leasowe and Moreton East, Liscard, Moreton West and Saughall Massie, New Brighton, Seacombe and Wallasey.
Wirral South constituency
Wirral South consists of the wards of Bebington, Bromborough, Clatterbridge, Eastham, and Heswall.
Wirral West constituency
Wirral West consists of the wards of Greasby, Frankby and Irby, Hoylake and Meols, Pensby and Thingwall, Upton, and West Kirby and Thurstaston.
Changes in council composition
Prior to the election the composition of the council was:
After the election the composition of the council was:
Votes summary
Seats summary
Proportionality
The disproportionality of the 2019 election was 9.56 using the Gallagher Index.
Parties and candidates
Contesting political parties
At the last regular election (2018), The Conservatives, Greens and Labour all ran a full slate of candidates with the Liberal Democrats contesting all but one of the seats available with other parties only putting forward a handful of candidates between them.
Candidate selection
The Green Party selected Steve Hayes on 13 June 2018 to contest the seat of Birkenhead and Tranmere after Pat Cleary was re-elected in May.
On 17 September, incumbent Hoylake and Meols councillor of 20 years Gerry Ellis announced that he had been deselected by the Conservative Party. Ellis appealed against the deselection, claiming he had been "unlawfully" discriminated against because of his age. In December, Alison Wright was announced as the new Conservative candidate.
On 17 October, Phil Davies announced in a party email that he would stand down as Council Leader in May as well as not seeking re-election for his Birkenhead and Tranmere seat after serving on Wirral Council for over 27 years.
Labour's selection process began in October with the left targeting seats such as Liscard, Bidston and St James, Pensby and Thingwall, Rock Ferry and New Brighton. Both Ron Abbey (Leasowe and Moreton East) and Chris Meaden (Rock Ferry) were not selected. Bernie Mooney's re-selection for Liscard was questioned due to apparent irregularities in the selection process. Her candidacy was upheld by the regional party. However, on 27 February she was found to be in breach of Labour rules and subsequently removed from the panel of candidates by the Local Campaign Forum.
TUSC suspended their electoral activity in November so did not put forward any candidates.
In January, Meaden resigned the Labour whip and sought re-election as an independent.
Target seats
Labour targeted Eastham and Wallasey and hoped to hold on to Pensby and Thingwall and Oxton, the latter of which was held by the Liberal Democrats in the subsequent two elections.
The Conservatives' main target seat was Pensby and Thingwall, which they lost by just 23 votes in 2018.
The Liberal Democrats hoped to regain a third councillor in Oxton, and the Greens were looking to take a second in Birkenhead and Tranmere and to make headways in Prenton.
Campaign
On 26 March, Wirral Labour criticised the Conservatives for starting a Crowdfunder page for the election which had, so far, raised £20. This came despite itself having used crowdfunding with Tory leader Ian Lewis saying that they [Labour] needed to "get with the programme".
Outgoing Oxton councillor Paul Doughty was suspended from Labour in April due to campaigning for the Independent Group.
Representatives from all four parties in Council as well as the Independent Group appeared on Sunday Politics North West on 7 April talking about the issues facing the election campaign. Particular attention was given to the Green belt as well as the alleged rifts in the local Labour Party.