Lewis Baston: Eight thoughts about the 2024 general election in London

The political complexion of London has once again turned redder. Labour gained eight seats in the capital at the general election of 4 July, 2024 – highlighted in the map above – all at the expense of the Conservatives. They lost only one: Islington North, to Jeremy Corbyn standing as an Independent. The Liberal Democrats also did well, gaining three seats from the Tories, highlighted in bright yellow.

And yet beneath the headline outcomes the behaviour of voters in the capital was far more varied and revealing than it may at first appear. To help make more sense of a complicated story, here are eight thoughts about the fortunes of different parties and candidates in different places and the voting preferences of different groups of Londoners.

1: There was not one London election but several distinct sorts

As expected, London was a low-swing region – just 3.1 per cent to Labour compared to 11 per cent nationally – and overall support for all three of the main political parties, Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, fell.

But this doesn’t tell the full London story, as there were very few London constituencies where the movement of votes resembled the London average. There was a contrast between seats Labour was defending, where there was virtually no swing between the main two parties, and those the Tories were defending, where there was a 10-point swing to Labour – not far below the national average. And these averages themselves conceal a wide range of voter choices within different constituencies.

The map below illustrates the change in Labour’s vote share between 2019 and 2024. It picks out the party’s strong performance in the suburbs and the collapse in its vote share in north east London. Dark red shows increases in Labour’s vote share of over 5% and orange, increases of 0-5%. Beige shows a decrease 0-10%, light blue a decrease 10-15% and dark blue decrease of 15% or more.

Different parts of London had different, disconnected elections, defined by where the parties started in 2019 and the social compositions of individual seats

• In the outer south-eastern and eastern suburbs there was a very large swing from Conservative to Labour, amplified by the rise of the Reform UK vote, which resembled the pattern in most of previously Conservative England outside London.
• In affluent parts of inner and middle London to the west, and also in Barnet, there was a conventional contest between Conservative and Labour. Total support for the two together was generally down, although by less than in most of the country. Labour prevailed, but on a swing that was smaller than the national average.
• In north east London (except Havering) the Labour vote fell spectacularly and the beneficiaries were mostly Independent candidates, many of whom centred their campaigning on Gaza.
• In inner south London, plus Hackney, there was a routine Labour victory but with the party’s vote dropping significantly in favour of the Greens, who achieved 18 second places in London.
• In six seats in the south west there was a contest between the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, which the Lib Dems won convincingly.
• In Hindu west and north west London the Conservatives managed some of their best results in the country.

2: Labour’s gains were on a smaller scale than in the rest of the country

Labour’s relatively better swing in Conservative-held seats – 10 per cent rather than no swing in Labour-held seats – meant the party gained more seats than would be expected, given the 3.1 per cent London regional swing, but still fewer than one would have thought, given the pattern of proportional swing against the Tories.

The very highest London swings to Labour were in constituencies where the Conservatives had large majorities in 2019. However, Bexleyheath & Crayford was the only Labour gain that needed more than the national uniform swing of 11 per cent – there were 85 such gains from the Conservatives in the rest of the country. The swing, even in Tory parts of London, was not quite high enough or well-distributed enough for London Labour to share in the miraculous bounty of seats the party won in other regions.

Labour’s subdued performance in London is also apparent at the lower end of the target list. Of the 103 seats nationally where the 2019 Conservative majority was vulnerable to an 11 per cent swing to Labour, the Tories saved only three, two of which were in London – Chingford & Woodford Green and Harrow East.

The London Tories kept the swing below the national average in most of the seats they lost. There was a particularly valiant rearguard action in Hendon, where the swing was only four per cent and the Labour majority a mere 15 votes. The Tories lost but were not blown out of the water in the prosperous inner London seats they were defending, including for these purposes the new seat of Kensington & Bayswater with a notional Labour majority in 2019 but defended by incumbent Tory MP Felicity Buchan. The swing there was only 3.2 per cent.

Some of the London Tory resistance must reflect the fact that, unlike the rest of the country, the Conservatives did poorly in London in 2019 by any past comparison and the remaining Conservative vote and seats were harder-core elements of the Conservative electorate than the new Tories in the Red Wall or traditional marginals. The central London Tory seats also have larger and wealthier Conservative memberships than anywhere else. The defence of, for example, Chelsea & Fulham was better-organised and more vigorous than could be managed in any other seat that was comparably marginal on the 2019 results.

Looking past the battle lines in 2024, there are, though, fewer crumbs of comfort for the Tories. Their parlous state in London is the result of a cumulative process, not a sudden reversal. Labour’s margins in 2024 in most of the London seats that traditionally swing with the tide were huge – larger than in 1997. To get back on the same sort of form as in 2010, which was a disappointment to them at the time, the Tories now need vast swings – 13 to 15 per cent – to win seats such as Battersea, Ealing Central & Acton or even Putney, which they lost as recently as 2019. Some Tory strategists talk seriously of writing off the likes of Battersea, which would be a major change of character for a party that once traded on aspiration.

3: It was an astonishing election for Independents

Party competition has broadened considerably. Every constituency in London had a candidate from the “big five” parties – Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem, Green and Reform UK. But another new development in 2024 was the success of candidates from beyond the big five, principally Independents. “Others” scored 6.7 per cent across London.

Seventeen candidates unaffiliated with the main five parties saved their deposits by polling more than five per cent in 2024. Nine of them managed over 10 per cent, including Corbyn. In 2019 there was only one deposit saved by such a candidate – Ilford South’s incumbent ex-Labour MP Mike Gapes running for the  Independent Group for Change and polling 7.3 per cent. In 2017 there was also one such candidate: Independent Ajmal Masroor in Bethnal Green & Bow. There were no such saved deposits in 2015.

All of the “Others” who received more than 10 per cent of the vote stood as Independents, except for Sophia Naqvi in West Ham & Beckton who represented the Newham Independents (a local political party). However, they represented a distinctive collective current of opinion: left wing on domestic policy (though not necessarily socially liberal) and strongly pro-Palestinian on the Middle East conflict. The bulk of their vote, particularly in north east London, came from Muslim communities, but their electoral coalition reached wider, particularly for Corbyn in Islington, Andrew Feinstein in Holborn & St Pancras and Faiza Shaheen in Chingford.

Eight more “Other” candidates saved their deposits by polling more than five per cent of the vote: four Independents and four standing under the banner of George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain (WPB). In Stratford & Bow, an Independent and a WPB candidate both passed five per cent. The “Other” vote in that constituency was 22.5 per cent in total.

The Independent vote was concentrated in north east London – Barking & Dagenham, Newham, Redbridge, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest. It is clearly a potential threat to Labour in the borough elections of 2026, even if fences can be mended with Muslim voters over the Middle East in the next two years. There are already equivalents in local politics in Tower Hamlets and Newham.

In less Muslim areas there may be less chance of converting the Independent vote surge into lasting party infrastructure, although there are probably enough Corbyn supporters who have resigned or been expelled to be an organised challenge to Labour in Islington. They will, however, have to do without Corbyn’s 41-year personal vote in council elections.

4: The Greens did reasonably well without challenging for a seat

A ten per cent share is easily the best Green performance in a London general election, beating the party’s 4.9 per cent in 2015. Its vote was highest in two patches: one in inner north east London around Hackney, the other in inner south London. But it was present throughout London and enough to save a deposit in all but seven constituencies, including the three where they were tactically squeezed as part of a Lib Dem gain.

Green candidates came second in 18 London constituencies, in every case to Labour. However, these were all distant second places – the nearest they came to winning was in the new seat of Stratford & Bow, where they finished 26 points behind the winner.

(Key to map above: Dark green: Green vote over 15%; light green: Green vote 10-15%; beige: Green vote 5-10%; grey: Green vote below 5%, lost deposit.)

Greens will point out that they were far behind in 2019 in three of the four constituencies they won in other parties of England in 2024, but these are not an entirely convincing precedents. The party’s vote share rose sharply in those seats and Labour was losing ground in places where it had won in 2019. The same factors may not be apparent at the next election.

All the Green gains nationally came as a result of targeting, so it can more realistically be said that the 2024 election will enable them to identify a London seat where they can concentrate their efforts and possibly break through next time. Yet the results themselves do not point to any one seat where there is much more potential than in any of the other second places they secured. The Greens may, however, be a threat to Labour in by-elections. Keir Starmer’s government may wish to avoid, where it can, vacancies in inner London Labour seats.

5: Liberal Democrats – mission accomplished

The Lib Dems have reason to be satisfied with their London performance. They gained their two top targets, Wimbledon and Carshalton & Wallington, and also their stretch target of Sutton & Cheam, where the Conservative majority was larger and the Lib Dems had faced local strife over candidate selection.

Their majorities are well-padded, too: the party is eight points and 3,801 votes ahead in the most vulnerable seat of their new seats, Sutton & Cheam, which is the only one where the Lib Dem share of the vote is smaller than the combined Conservative and Reform UK total. The Labour share rose in all six of the seats the Lib Dems won, suggesting further potential for tactical voting in future. It will be difficult for the Tories to get any of this gang of Lib Dems out, now they have become established.

Having recognised their success in target seats, one must also acknowledge that the Lib Dem share of the vote fell in London. Their out and proud Remain campaign in 2019 attracted general support that was not sustained in 2024. Their vote also fell away in several seats they had targeted in 2019 with defector or celebrity candidates (Finchley & Golders Green, Cities of London & Westminster, Kensington & Bayswater).

Beyond the six they won, there was only one seat – their old stronghold of Bermondsey & Old Southwark, where they won 24 per cent of the vote – where the party can realistically claim to have planted the seeds of a possible future victory.

6: The Conservatives did well in places with large Hindu communities

The Tories’ solitary gain in Leicester East was in a heavily Hindu seat and their London results were much better in the Hindu areas of Harrow and Brent than in the capital as a whole. The Tory vote as a proportion of its 2019 share dropped less the higher the proportion of Hindus in the population. It might be tempting to ascribe this to Rishi Sunak being the first Hindu leader of a major party, but the trend was already apparent in the London borough elections in 2022, so it predates the Sunak effect.

7: Politics defeats demographic determinism

There have been times when social change has been seen as determining political outcomes, but the 2024 election provides counter-examples to several trends that once seemed inexorable.

Labour’s gain of Ilford North in 2015, for instance, was powered by the growing Muslim population in this formerly white and Jewish section of suburbia. But this year the seat saw one of the very best Independent performances against Labour, precisely because of its increasingly Muslim composition. Ilford North has changed in a comparatively short period from being a suburban Tory seat that Labour could only win in a good year to one where Labour has to watch its left flank.

Labour polled particularly well in Harrow and north Brent in 1997 as the Asian population in that areas grew, but the increasingly Conservative Hindu vote (and the constituency role of its MP Bob Blackman) has seen Harrow East become the Tories’ best seat in the country and Labour majorities in the adjacent seats dip.

Conversely, the Tories in the recent past seemed to be consolidating seats like Putney and Battersea with the votes of young professionals, but the Brexit realignment and the Conservatives’ slump in popularity have produced record Labour majorities in those seats.

8: General elections are different from London Mayor and Assembly elections

The elections of May and July 2024 give us a chance to compare outcomes for different sorts of election held in close succession over a period during which public opinion did not change much.

The most obvious difference between the two is that the London electorate saw the mayoral election in May as a two-party contest, while votes splintered all over the place in the general election in July. The two biggest parties together polled 76.5 per cent of mayoral votes and only 63.5 per cent of general election votes. Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall received a larger number of raw votes than all the Conservative candidates to be MPs combined. The difference between her percentage share (32.7 per cent) and the Tories in July (20.5 per cent) was big enough to compensate for July’s higher turnout. Sadiq Khan polled a higher vote share than Labour in July, but not by much.

The coalitions of support for each party were different in May and July. The “doughnut” pattern of the Tories doing better in outer London was much weaker in July – the biggest swing to Labour from the Mayor and Assembly results was in the Bexley & Bromley Assembly constituency area, which is safe Tory in London elections but where Labour polled the most votes in the general election.

Khan and Labour’s Londonwide list candidates were more strongly supported in inner London. For a labour candidate, winning a mayoral election involves a different set of considerations to those for maximising parliamentary constituency wins – it is worthwhile running up the score in safe Labour seats in the former but not in the latter. In 2028, there will an electoral incentive for Sadiq Khan or his successor candidate to run a bit to the left of the Starmer government, particularly if the Supplementary Vote electoral system, with its second preference option, has been restored.

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