Labour crashed to defeat in the latest London borough by-election, which took place in Redbridge Council’s Mayfield ward on Thursday. After a few weeks when the anti-Labour tide seemed to be ebbing in the capital, the scale of the loss – vote share down nearly 45 percentage points – was a shock to the party.
The winner was the candidate of the Ilford Independents, one of several localist, left wing and Islamically-inflected political parties that have sprung up since 2022.
Mayfield is a suburban ward on Redbridge’s southern border, south of Ilford town centre and adjoining the Upney area of Barking. The housing stock is mostly Edwardian and inter-war semi-detached and terraced dwellings, and largely owner-occupied. There is very little social housing.
Mayfield is unusual for an area of London in that bungalows are numerous there. The ward’s main landmark is Ilford’s South Park (not to be confused with its cartoon namesake in Colorado).
Mayfield is one of those ordinary areas that tells a broader story of social and political change in outer London. The ward’s population is predominantly Asian. At the time of the 2021 census, 67 per cent of the population had Asian ethnic origin. White people account for 17 per cent and black people, seven per cent. By religion, the largest community is Muslim (51 per cent), although there is significant Sikh (11 per cent) and Hindu (nine per cent) representation. Twenty-one per cent are Christian.
Redbridge as a whole has seen dramatic demographic change in the last decade, although Mayfield already had a strong BAME majority (73 per cent) at the time of the 2011 census – its ethnic transition came earlier.
Politically, it used to be a Conservative ward, forming one of the Tories’ stronger sections of what was then a suburban marginal parliamentary seat. from 1950 to 1979, it was represented in the Commons by either Albert Cooper for the Conservatives and Arnold Shaw for Labour, who trading places in the general elections of 1966, 1970 and February 1974.
When Labour’s Mike Gapes won Ilford South in 1992, it was the first time Labour had preavailied in the seat without winning nationally, and Labour colleagues won Mayfield for the first time in the borough elections of 1994.
The ward remained marginal for a while, with the Conservatives winning two of its three seats in both 2002 and 2006. But Labour won decisively in 2010 and, until the latest by-election, had not looked back since.
The party’s slate won over 70 per cent of the Mayfield vote in both 2018 and 2022, in the latter year also racking up an enormous majority of 58 seats to five Conservatives across the borough. Only as recently as 2014 had Labour won its first council majority.
Among the winning Mayfield candidates for Labour since 2010 was been Jas Athwal, who went on to become leader of the council in 2014 and was elected MP for Ilford South in July 2024. Prior to that, the internal Labour politics of the seat had become disputatious.
Gapes defected to Change UK in early 2019 and the succession was bitterly contested. Athwal seem to be favourite for selection for the general election of that year, but was suspended on the eve of a crucial membership vote because of an allegation made against him. He was later cleared, but not until after the Left’s preference to run for the seat, Sam Tarry was selected and then elected to the Commons. Later, Tarry was deselected and Athwal became his successor.
By last year, the politics of Ilford South had shifted a lot since the days when it swung with the national pendulum. Athwal was elected MP with only 40 per cent of the vote, down 25 points on Tarry’s result in 2019. The Conservatives finished a bedraggled third with 15 per cent, while candidates to the left of Labour polled 36 per cent, the largest section of that being 23 per cent for an Independent candidate, Noor Jahan Begum.
Thursday’s by-election was triggered by Athwal standing down from his council seat. Its backdrop was formed by the fragmentation in 2024 of the previously solid Labour vote in Ilford South and across north east London generally. So too, earlier borough by-election contests at which Left and Muslim-aligned Independents and local parties had emerged to challenge Labour.
It was Noor Begum (pictured above, right), having polled creditably in Ilford South last year, who stepped forward to contest Mayfield under the label of Ilford Independents, a local political party, with the backing of a coalition of localist and left-wing groups.
Begum works as a commissioner of health and social care and serves as a magistrate. The five large English parties put forward candidates too. Mazhar Saleem defended for Labour having contested Fairlop ward in 2002, one of the two left in Redbridge to elect a Conservative that year. Robin Thakur stood for the
Tories, offering a singularly uninformative website. Nadir Gilani (Green), Neil Hepworth (Liberal Democrat) and Paul Luggeri (Reform UK) completed the ballot paper line-up.
The Begum campaign for Mayfield was similar to her general election effort, with Palestine as a doorstep issue but her public platform concentrating on local matters, alleging that Labour in Redbridge had “a very shoddy record.”
She also criticised Athwal, who was the subject of an August 2024 BBC investigation about the poor conditions of properties he was renting out to tenants and failing to comply with the landlord registration system that he himself had introduced in Redbridge. Begum pointedly promised “integrity.” The national context of cuts to the winter fuel allowance and disability support was also unhelpful to Labour
In 2017, there was some adverse comment about the general election of that year taking place during Ramadan, with fears expressed that it would make it more difficult for Muslims to participate. However, the Muslim Council of Britain thought there was no reason why it would, and turnout among Muslim voters was fine. Voting is not inherently more tiring than any ordinary daily task, and Muslim scholars generally agree that taking part in elections is not haram.
There was no problem, either, eight years later, with Redbridge scheduling a by-election in a majority-Muslim ward during the month of fasting and prayer. Turnout was 25 per cent, down only six points lower than in May 2022 and one of the smaller falls in participation in recent by-elections. Begum’s victory was comprehensive. She won 1,080 votes (42.5 per cent) while Saleem polled 663 for Labour – 26.1 per cent compared to 70.7 per cent for the Labour slate three years ago.
The loss was easily the worst in terms of vote share Labour has suffered in a London by-election in the current cycle. In such a polarised contest, the Conservatives (494 votes, 19.4 per cent) did reasonably well, increasing their vote share by a few percentage points. The other parties all polled less than five per cent.
Begum is the first Ilford Independent to be elected to Redbridge council and will take her place on the opposition benches alongside three ex-Labour Independents and five Conservatives. There are
still 53 Labour councillors, so the party’s majority is in no immediate danger.
There will soon be another by-election in Redbridge, this time in Hainault ward on 1 May, following the resignation in disgrace of Labour councillor Sam Gould. Hainault’s is a different sort of community from Mayfield’s, being mostly white in a council-built estate. It might therefore see a challenge to Labour from a different source – it provides Reform UK with its best chance so far of winning a seat of a London council.
However, there are more Redbridge wards that resemble Mayfield than resemble Hainault, so although national politics seems to revolve around the battle for voters who float between Labour, Conservative and Reform, London local politics – particularly in the north east of the city – is more about the danger to Labour’s left flank.
There seems to be a particular problem for the party in Redbridge, following the large falls in vote share in the two Ilford seats in the general election and now in Mayfield. That said, Begum was a particularly strong candidate and was able to draw on support from activists both locally and from further afield. These weren’t only from elsewhere in London. After the result, Begum thanked campaigners from Birmingham and Hertfordshire for their help.
It remains to be seen, therefore, whether the Ilford Independents can run a broader campaign across multiple wards and find sufficient credible candidates to mount a significant challenge to Labour at the next full borough elections in May, 2026. But there is clearly potential for it.
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I wonder in what way the Ilford Independents are to the left of Labour?
Yes, in some of their statements they seem so yet from the successful candidate, a magistrate, it was more mixed – for example, her call for lower Council Tax which is traditionally a call from Conservatives against ‘high-spending’ Labour councils. Her other statements could be from any party – we want better services, less anti-social behaviour, etc.
The Newham Independents in next-door Newham supported this party. That group has had mixed results in Newham, but it now has three councillors: two elected in that name and one who was elected as a Labour councillor and then changed.
“Islamically-inflected”. What does that mean? It is a party that attracts Muslims simply as there are many of that faith in that ward. I don’t see them as a sectarian party and remember there are quite a few Labour councillors in Redbridge who are Muslim as was their candidate in this by-election.
I guess, and it is just such, that Labour’s large lead in the number of elected in Redbridge and also I think in Newham and Waltham Forest may fall not because the religion of voters is different in, for example the former Tory stronghold of Redbridge from what it was, but because many incumbent parties annoy voters through being such and the bad examples they produce – such as the actions of Jas Athwal MP, former Redbridge Council Leader.