How some of Croydon’s election results just don’t add up – Inside Croydon

CROYDON COMMENTARY: After his second election campaign in five months, PETER UNDERWOOD, who represented the Green Party in Croydon East, reflects on how the number of votes cast should be a warning to the two bigger parties.

We knew there would be some changes in Croydon following the boundary review which increased Croydon’s constituencies from three to four (or, strictly speaking, three and a half as we share one with Lambeth).

At first glance, it may seem that not much has changed: Croydon has a Tory MP in the south of the constituency, and the rest of its MPs are Labour.

Unreformed: four of the five Croydon East candidates came forward for the statement, with Peter Underwood (third from left) alongside new Labor MP Natasha Irons

But politics has never been just about who wins the seat. Far more interesting information is what effect the result will have on those MPs and how it could influence what happens next in both national and local politics.

In the four constituencies of Croydon, Croydon South, Croydon East, Croydon West and Streatham and Croydon North, Labor obtained a total of 79,829 votes, 45.4% of all votes cast in Croydon. This was 3.8 percentage points down on what they achieved in 2019.

The Conservatives got 43,187 votes, 24.7%. This decreased by 10.5 points compared to 2019.

The Green Party got 18,436 votes (including 7,629 in Streatham and Croydon North, where our candidate, Scott Ainslie, finished second) for 10.5% of the borough’s vote – up 7.4 percentage points from now five years.

The Liberal Democrats got 16,645 for 9.5% of the Croydon vote (down 0.8).

And the reform got 14,153 votes, or 8% of the votes.

Labor will be celebrating that they are now the new government after winning the election.

But getting only one-third (33.7%) of the national vote, but almost two-thirds of the deputies, shows how broken our electoral system is. It has already been described as “the most disproportionate election in British history”.

I suspect calls for electoral change will get louder now.

Disproportionate: 34% of the votes, two thirds of the total mandates

In Croydon, even though Labor won three of the seats, their overall vote is low.

The rise in the vote in Croydon South masks the significant decline in the party’s vote in the other three seats. After all the celebratory champagne has been drunk, Labor will have to deal with the hangover of realizing they are actually Less popular than they were. And despite throwing everything they had into trying to win Croydon South, they fell short.

For the Tories, holding Croydon South was one of the few bright spots – locally and nationally.

After reading the body language at the Croydon count in the early hours of Friday morning, Chris Philp would like to make an effort to win over his own local Tories, as it appeared to me that they were cheering the Party, not the candidate.

The Tories knew they were going to have a very bad election, and after the way they’ve been in government for the last 14 years, I think they’ve deserved it. But a further concern for the Tories in Croydon is that while they lost votes in every seat, the biggest falls were in areas where they were strongest – losing around 7,000 votes in both Croydon South. and Croydon East, much of which was Croydon Central, where Gavin Barwell was MP until 2017.

Survival Sheet: how Chris Philp fared in Croydon South

The general election results suggest that in the 2026 local elections, the Conservatives will not only lose the mayor, but also struggle to keep many of their councillors.

The Green Party had a very good night, winning almost 2 million votes nationally. The broken electoral system has meant we still only have four elected MPs – but four is a lot better than one. In Croydon our vote went up in every seat.

This election felt very different from a green perspective. In conversations with locals, it was clear that the Green vote is no longer seen as a ‘protest vote’ or a ‘wasted vote’. More people see Green politics as a genuine alternative to the old parties and this was reflected in the Croydon vote. Not only did we finish third overall, but we also had a higher increase in vote share than any other party.

It was a mixed night for the Liberal Democrats. They won many more MPs nationally, including winning back the two seats in Sutton, but failed to make any real impact on the general public. The LibDem gains appear to be due to the collapse of the Tory vote rather than any increase in the LibDem vote – their share of the national vote rose by just 0.6 percentage points.

Locally, the LibDems rose in two seats and fell in two, and their vote fell overall.

Like the Tories, their biggest declines seem to be in the areas where they were strongest. It could be a concern for their sole councilor in Croydon that Streatham and Croydon North is where they have seen the biggest drop in votes.

For Reform, their yo-yo electoral performance was on the rise this time. Perhaps not surprising, given the endless media coverage given to the millionaire public schools that run their limited liability company. Fortunately, their impact in Croydon is not that significant and their vote share growth here is well below the national figure.

Again, this is probably not surprising given that most of their candidates couldn’t be bothered to do anything during the campaign and didn’t even show up for the election count – I still have no idea what the candidate listed for on the ballot. my constituency really looks like.

The reform saw five MEPs elected and, based on my experience of how their predecessors behaved in the European Parliament, I feel sorry for their constituents and the rest of us. Brexit MPs have done no useful work and have only been interested in lifting their spending controls and making racist speeches to their social media followers. I’m afraid we’ve been the same for years now.

Nowhere to be seen: Galloway bypassed the Earl of Rochdale

I think the “others” are worth mentioning. The bulk of this vote was for the three UK Labor Party candidates (they did not stand in Croydon East).

Now that their leader George Galloway hasn’t been re-elected in Rochdale (he didn’t even bother to run for the earl) I suspect this party will go the way of Galloway’s previous ego trips and fade into non-existence. What’s left can be reborn under a new name for the next time Galloway thinks he can trick people into voting for him. If you truly believe in changing the system for the better, then following a nasty egomaniac is not the best way to go.

For the other small and local parties, just showing up to the elections and expecting a lot of people to vote for you will never work, even if you have the support of millionaires and gullible media like Reforma).

I would also say that you need to think about how the behavior of your party members appears to the public. I’m a big believer in pissing off powerful people who don’t deserve the power they have, but if your supporters piss off the people you want to vote for, then you’ll never get very far.

Of course there was a strange twist on the 4th of July, election day, when the Croydon Greens and I had our Twitter/X accounts suspended without any prior warning.

Over the years I have reported accounts for the most offensive and abusive posts and have always been told they will not be suspended.

So for both me and the local party account to be suspended on election day seems like something very fishy going on. As of this morning, my account, which has 5,000 followers, remains suspended, still without explanation.

I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who voted for me and the Greens in Croydon. I plan to take some time off to recover from the campaign, but I will soon be back to work to make Croydon better and happier, and I hope to see many of you doing the same.

Read more: It is not about my personal power or glory. It’s about principles
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• Peter Underwood, pictured right, was the Green Party candidate in Croydon East where he polled 4,097 votes to finish fourth

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• ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s most rotten boroughs for the seventh consecutive year in the annual summary of civic advertising in Private magazine