London 2026: The Green wave threatens senior Labour MPs

There is a clear winner in London, the Greens. In September last year, the party elected former deputy leader Zack Polanski to be their sole leader, breaking from a tradition of co-leaders dating back to 2017. He had an impressive social media campaign and, once in office, skyrocketed party membership from nearly 70,000 to over 230,000 in less than a year, overtaking the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, and putting them close to the Labour party who recorded fewer than 250,000 back in December. The party won the February Gorton and Denton by-election near Manchester with Hannah Spencer, marking their first by-election win. Now, the party has made significant inroads into the city.

Spin doctors at both Labour and Conservative HQ may try to downplay the Green performance, both parties did finish ahead of the Greens, but they miss the significance and scale of the party’s growth in just a single 4-year cycle. Labour lost 450 seats across the capital, slumping from over 1100 back in 2022, and several councils in the heart of the city. However, some could dismiss these as abstract figures. We need to look at the specific councils that Labour lost to the Greens.

Greens take control

In Lewisham, not only did their mayor Damien Egan leave mid-term for the seat of Bristol North East at the general election, but Labour went from total victory in 2022, controlling all 54 seats on the council, to an astounding defeat of 40 councillors. Neighbouring Southwark saw the Labour party remain the largest party but ahead of the Greens (previously on zero) by 9 seats, and completely unable to form a minority administration.

In Waltham Forest, the Greens again came from nowhere with zero seats to eke out a majority at the expense of both Labour and the Conservatives. In Hackney, the local party didn’t even stand a full slate of candidates, but won a staggering majority on the council.

The Greens in Haringey ate into much of the Labour heartland, bringing them from no seats to short 1 of a majority, which they may pick up at an upcoming council by-election, and crowning them winners of the popular vote. The story is the same in Lambeth where the Greens went from 2 to 29 seats, managed 37% to Labour’s 35% in vote share, and are now 3 short of a majority.

Deputy prime minister's overconfidence

There are many MPs at risk of losing their seats to the Greens here. David Lammy, the Deputy Prime Minister, told the New Statesman in March, “I can 100% tell you, knowing my seat as I do, that there is no prospect of the Greens taking my constituency.” At the local elections, in the wards that make up Lammy’s constituency of Tottenham, the Greens managed 39.8% to Labour’s 39.2%, with a caveat.

The Greens stood down for the Haringey Socialist Alliance in some areas, such as West Green, where their sole candidate received 2,000 votes but their HSA partners received ~800 votes for their two candidates, allowing Labour to sneak two extra seats on an average of ~1,500 votes across three candidates. Even if you include the HSA’s vote counts, which would bring the Greens up to 45% of the vote, you still miss out on the potential 2,000~ extra votes the Greens might’ve received here- this one ward alone could’ve bumped up a HSA-backed Green vote share to nearly 47%.

Of course, voting intention shifts drastically in a general election compared to local election, but Tottenham (located mostly in Haringey) has been a Labour seat since 1964 and recorded a Labour win on 80% of the vote as recently as 2017.

Allies to the Starmer project

The threat of the Greens in Haringey may have been a reason for Catherine West to prompt a leadership challenge against Keir Starmer. She said, “We lost very badly in London, including the local leaders of my own borough and that of the leader of the Labour party”, referring to Haringey council leader Peray Ahmet losing re-election in the Noel Park ward to 3 Greens, with Labour on 38%, down from 72% in 2022, and the Greens on 44%. She declared the results, “an electoral emergency”, and was swift to try and remove the prime minister from office.

There are several other important MPs in the region. Lewisham is home to Ellie Reeves, a Chair of the Labour party in recent memory, and the sister of current Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance secretary) Rachel Reeves; Hackney is home to the Mother of the House Diane Abbott, although it can be said that she is not politically aligned to Starmer, and Emily Thornberry who was snubbed out of a cabinet position- although got to interrogate Morgan McSweeney, Starmer's former Chief of Staff, at the Foreign Affairs committee which she chairs.

Waltham Forest houses Stella Creasy, an old ally to Ed Miliband, who may also be making manoeuvres with the ongoing leadership chaos. Furthermore, there’s several MPs on the soft left, such as Vicky Foxcroft or Janet Daby in Lewisham, who may be tempted by the Green challenge to be more outspoken against the government.

Lambeth nearly being lost to the Greens may be familiar to the Labour elite too. Back in 2002, Labour suffered a defeat here to the Liberal Democrats, and the campaign to take back control of Lambeth council in 2006, in a year where Labour lost many councils across London, was possible due to people very familiar in the modern Labour movement: Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s former Chief of Staff; and Steve Reed, the Housing Secretary.

Lambeth has had its longest period of Labour majorities since Reed’s leadership of the council, and the movement they created has the Labour party in a headlock right now. The symbolic destruction of the Labour party there to the Greens may show that their movement has lost momentum.

Southwark saw the Greens and Liberal Democrats form a combined administration led by James McCash- a former Labour councillor elected leader, but disqualified, and now Green leader. One of the many who celebrated his removal from office, Labour MP Neil Coyle, went on a twitter tirade calling him a marxist, claiming the coalition will "McCrash and burn", and says McCash has an "entitled approach to politics." Just further evidence that the politics of Labour nowadays is to ruthlessly attack their enemies in the most undignified public displays.

Potential green electoral alliances

Interesting side note: Waltham Forest also covers Chingford and Wood Green, the constituency of former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith. He had managed to hold onto his seat at the last general election despite the swing to Labour due to a split in the vote.

The party had de-selected Faiza Shaheen, their 2019 candidate, for twitter posts she had liked, including from before she was a Labour member- in reality it was probably because of her Corbynite past, and she has since been outspoken against Starmer and friendly with Your Party and the Greens. But in de-selecting her, she ran as an independent, and got almost an identical vote share to Labour, 25%, allowing Duncan Smith to sneak through with a 35% low. Will the Green vote here translate into support for a Shaheen independent or other left-wing party run in 2029?

New mayoral victories

There are two more results I want to mention, the party’s first ever directly elected mayors in England. Winning candidate Liam Shrivastava was a Labour member as recently as the 2022 local elections, but has now won 40% for the Greens in Lewisham. Zoë Garbett won a 12 point margin over Labour, reaching nearly 50% in a five party FPTP election, after her unsuccessful London mayoral campaign and 2-year career as a London assembly member. Although they aren’t necessarily as symbolic as the council results, their victories will lead credence to the idea that the party can win larger mayoralties, and that a vote for the Greens is not wasted- this may be important should a by-election occur in a certain Greater Manchester area this summer.

Other London results

If you're curious about how the London electoral results turned out for the other parties, view the other articles such as our general overview, Reform's result, and the major parties' results.