a minority administration. In the June 2009 council elections the Liberal Democrats gained four seats and, for the first time, overall control of the city council. In 2010 they increased their representation to 38 seats, giving them a majority of 6. In 2011, they lost their majority; leading to a hung council. In the 2013 local elections, in which a third of the city's wards were up for election, Labour gained 7seats and the Green Party doubled their seats from 2to 4. The Liberal Democrats lost 10 seats. These trends were continued into the next election in May 2014, in which Labour gained three seats to take their total to 31, the Green Party won two more seats, the Conservative party gained one seat, and UKIP won their first-ever seat on the council. The Liberal Democrats lost a further seven seats. On 3 May 2012, Bristol held a referendum on the question of a directly elected mayor replacing one elected by the council. There were 41,032 votes in favour of a directly elected mayor and 35,880 votes against, with a 24% turnout. An election for the new post was held on 15 November 2012, and Independent candidate George Ferguson became Mayor of Bristol. In May 2022 the city voted to abolish the position in a referendum, replacing it with a committee system. Marvin Rees, mayor in 2022, will hold the post until 2024. The Lord Mayor of Bristol, not to be confused with the Mayor of Bristol, is a figurehead elected each May by the city council. Councillor Faruk Choudhury was selected by his fellow councillors for the position in 2013. At 38, he was the youngest person to serve as Lord Mayor of Bristol and the first Muslim elected to the office. The current Lord Mayor is Councillor Paula O'Rourke. Bristol constituencies in the House of Commons also included parts of other local authority areas until the 2010 general election, when their boundaries were aligned with the county boundary. The city is divided into Bristol West, East, South and North West. At the 2017 general election, Labour won all four of the Bristol constituencies, gaining the Bristol North West seat, seven years after losing it to the Conservatives. The city has a tradition of political activism. Edmund Burke, MP for the Bristol constituency for six years beginning in 1774, insisted that he was a Member of Parliament first and