Howard Tobias won the Ramsey and Bury seat in the Cambridgeshire County Council by-election, keeping Reform UK in the council. He took 506 votes after the seat became vacant when James Sidlow resigned.
Tobias, who already serves as a Huntingdonshire District Council councillor, finished nearly 100 votes ahead of the second-placed candidate. That margin gave Reform UK a clear hold on the seat rather than a change of party.
James Sidlow resignation
Sidlow stepped down because of personal circumstances and wider pressures in his life, which triggered the contest in Ramsey and Bury. The by-election filled the vacancy left by his resignation and returned one councillor to Cambridgeshire County Council.
Reform UK in Cambridgeshire
The result keeps Reform UK as the third-largest party on Cambridgeshire County Council, behind the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. For voters in Ramsey and Bury, the practical change is that the seat stays with the same party, while Tobias now adds county council duties to the role he already holds locally.
The result also leaves one detail unresolved in the public picture of the contest: how many votes the runner-up received exactly. On the figures available, the safest reading is that Tobias won comfortably enough to preserve Reform UK’s position on the council, but not by a margin that changes its place behind the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives.
