Council by-elections held in different Hackney wards on Thursday have produced one solid hold for Labour, which dominates the Town Hall, and one decisive loss for the party to the Greens, increasing their number of Hackney councillors to three.
George Gooch retained Labour’s three-seat hold on London Fields by a comfortable 309 votes – a share of 54 per cent – in a contest brought about by the resignation of his Labour predecessor a few days before he was charged with two sexual assaults.
But in Stoke Newington ward, a swing of over 19 per cent away from Labour and towards the Greens saw Green candidate Liam Davis (pictured) triumph by a clear 308 votes (a 53 per cent) share, consigning Labour to second place. In this case, the vacancy was brought about by Hackney cabinet member Mete Coban stepping down from the council after being appointed as a deputy of Sadiq Khan.
Both contests, despite their different outcomes, illustrated the consolidation of the Greens in Hackney as the main alternative to Labour for left-leaning electors and, by some measures, the borough’s main opposition party. The two by-elections also explicitly demonstrated the growing alignment between the Greens and the traditional hard left in some parts of London.
The runner-up in London Fields was Sarah Byrne, an Independent supported by the council’s three-member Independent Socialist group – composed of former Labour councillors who resigned from the party in May, having previously been suspended – and by the Greens, in line with a cooperation arrangement for both by-elections announced last month.
Byrne’s campaign combined calls for “decent housing” and against “cuts” with a foreign policy platform based on what she called “three key demands when it comes to Palestine”. These included Hackney Council changing its pension investments and ending a twinning arrangement with the Israeli city of Haifa. Her X/Twitter feed shows her canvassing with Green Hackney councillor Alistair Binnie-Lubbock.
Byrne received 437 votes compared with Gooch’s 746. The Conservative candidate finished third (72 votes), the Liberal Democrat, fourth (71 votes) and a representative of George Galloway’s “for Gaza” Workers Party, fifth (52 votes). Turnout was a very low 14.49 per cent.
In Stoke Newington ward, where Labour won all three seats in 2022, Davis received 1,253 votes, leaving Labour in second place on 945. The Lib Dems came third (87 votes), the Tories fourth (74) and an Independent fifth (12). In this case, turnout was a little higher at 20.4 per cent.
During the run-in to the vote, Davis retweeted X/Twitter output by hard left union activist and Jeremy Corbyn supporter Howard Beckett, hard left Coventry MP Zarah Sultana, who was elected for Labour but is currently sitting as an Independent having had the whip withdrawn, and an endorsement by Hackney resident Heather Mendick, another Corbyn ally, who was expelled from Labour in December 2022. Davis, like Byrne, made Gaza a foreground issue in his campaign.
The Greens have seen increases in support in Hackney by-elections in the past during periods when some left-leaning voters have judged Labour too moderate. As well as Binnie-Lubbock, Davis will join the Greens’ former 2024 Mayor of London candidate and now London Assembly member Zoë Garbett in the Hackney Green group.
With six seats between them, the Greens and the Independent Socialist group match the number of Conservative councillors, who form the largest opposition group in Hackney Town Hall.
Garbett previously ran in the November 2023 by-election for Mayor of Hackney, held following the resignation of Labour’s Philip Glanville. She finished second to his successor, Caroline Woodley, with an increased vote share.
Woodley has appeared to court the hard and far left in Hackney, naming local MP Diane Abbott, a strong Corbyn backer, as an inspiration when seeking the mayoral candidate nomination, despite Abbott having the parliamentary whip suspended at that time because of a letter she had written to the Observer about racism and Jews.
In June, Woodley met Mendick and others who had set up a protest camp in front of Hackney Town Hall and pledged her support for “ethical divestment” of council pension funds from a supplier of equipment to Israel’s armed forces. Last month, Woodley spoke at an anti-far right rally organised by the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party.
Green and Independent candidates campaigning on the Gaza issue between them finished second in over 20 London parliamentary seats in the general election, mostly in inner and outer east London.
At their national party conference last week, a new group of Green Party members was formed to seek a shift towards what it called an “internationalist, anti-capitalist and ecologically transformative agenda”.
OnLondon.co.uk provides unique coverage of the capital’s politics, development and culture. Support it for just £5 a month or £50 a year and get things for your money too. Details HERE. Follow Dave Hill on Bluesky. Photo from Hackney Council.