Green and Reform general election wins tell the tale of two London boroughs

Labour’s dominance makes the headlines in the capital, but an inner London surge for the Greens and gains for Reform on the outer fringes paint a tale of two cities. Sadiq Khan’s victory in May’s London mayoral contest proved an accurate litmus test of his party’s popularity, with the mayor taking 44 percent of the vote compared to Labour’s 43 percent on Thursday, July 4.

Less so for the Tories, whose mayoral candidate Susan Hall won 33 percent of the vote, compared to her party’s paltry 21 percent of the vote yesterday. Instead, some Londoners, who live in Britain’s most diverse city, appear to have rallied to the more radical ends of the ballot, as the anti-immigration Reform UK party took 11% of the London vote .

Reform’s overall vote share of 8.5% was twice what the party achieved in the mayoral election, when candidate Howard Cox, on an anti-ULEZ ticket, won 3.1% of the vote. The Greens also fared better in terms of vote share, with 10.1% of the vote on Thursday, compared to 5.8% for mayoral candidate Zoe Garbett in May.

READ MORE: Full list of London General Election results by constituency

The Tories have just survived a reform scare in Hornchurch and Upminster, where Julia Lopez won with 15,260 votes to the reform candidate’s 13,317. Continuing the trend in East London and beyond, Reform took second place in Dagenham and Rainham; barking; and Erith and Thamesmead, although the party was unlikely to win these seats.

While the Green Party also performed well in Outer London, winning 8% of the vote, up 6% on 2019, the biggest gains were in Inner London with 13.6% of the vote, up by 9%. This put them ahead of the Tories on 13.4%, who were decimated after losing their strongholds of Chelsea and Fulham and the cities of London and Westminster.

The Greens came second in several pollution-hit seats, mostly based in east and south London, but were far from putting any real pressure on Labor to pull off a surprise win. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats’ targeted campaign in south-west London saw them win six seats.

Pro-Palestinian independents are doing well

Independent parties that ran against Labor on pro-Palestinian tickets also did well in east London seats. Comments by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who told LBC Israel was “right” to withhold power and water from Gaza in the days after the October 7 attack, proved a stumbling block to Labor’s support in areas with large populations of muslim.

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