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| Labour Councillor Mike Denness Photo: Southampton City Council |
A fortnight ago, we reported exclusively on Lee Whitbread, a Labour Redbridge ward councillor, being sacked as Labour's candidate in Redbridge Ward. It took the Daily Echo another fortnight to report it. We also reported on another Redbridge Labour Councillor Sally Goodfellow being sacked as a school governor by her own Labour-run Council.
We can exclusively reveal that another Labour Councillor, this time Mike Denness for Bevois ward, is standing down at the local elections on 7th May 2026. No other local media has covered this.
Mike Denness has been the subject of multiple complaints and investigations, and has been a controversial figure, having been Conservative and then Labour.
The official list of candidates for the 2026 Southampton City Council elections was recently published. And Denness is not on it.
His seat was up for election, but Denness is not standing in Bevois or anywhere else in Southampton.
Somebody called Paul Kenny is Labour's candidate in Bevois ward. Kenny stood unsuccessfully in Harefield ward in 2024.
As reported by Southampton Independents, the latest complaint to the Council was instigated by our Co-Founder and former Councillor Andrew Pope, who complained about Denness' register of interests not being accurate, which it wasn't, and still isn't at the time of writing.
The only action that was taken by Southampton City Council was that Denness was advised by a legal officer to make it accurate. Denness' register has not been updated. It is still as it was before the complaint, inaccurate and misleading. The register itself states that it is an offence for misleading information to be on a register, yet the Council has not acted to discipline him.
Denness was also subject to multiple complaints in relation to his business activities as a planning consultant being a perceived conflict of interest with his sitting as Chair of Southampton's planning committee. This came to a head in 2018 during a Planning committee that he chaired and in which Councillor Andrew Pope objected to his chairmanship due to evidence of a conflict of interest (as shown in the photo above).
There were also internal Labour group complaints to the Labour Group Whips about the same topic.
Denness lost his Millbrook seat in 2018, when Southampton Independents deliberately stood a candidate against him to try to unseat him. It was a successful move. Our candidate Ed Edworthy received more votes than the difference between Denness' tally and the winning Conservative candidate. We weren't happy that a Conservative won, but at least Denness had been ejected.
Labour accused Conservative councillor Jeremy Moulton of a "vendetta" against Denness. Moulton also lost his seat at the same 2018 elections, as did Labour Leader Simon Letts after we investigated the Arts Complex funding.
Denness was previously Conservative Basingstoke MP Maria Miller's election agent, before defecting to Labour in Southampton. He had also stood for the Conservatives in Southampton. Southampton Labour decided not to allow Millbrook ward members to choose the candidate for the by-election caused by the mid-term resignation of student Labour councillor Georgie Laming. Local party officials of Southampton Labour IMPOSED Mike Denness as the candidate, without a vote of Millbrook ward Labour Party members.
Conservative Councillors for Millbrook ward Steve Galton and Jeremy Moulton have again been contacted for contact. They made no comment on Mike Denness, despite having previously lodged complaints about him.
