The City of Westminster is in one sense just one of the 32 London boroughs, providing local services and functioning as a democratic representative institution for the 200,000 or so people – or at least those entitled to vote – in its patch. But at another level it is a uniquely prestigious local authority whose concerns cover places of national and international importance – no other council has as much to do, day to day, with central government and even the royal household.
Westminster is also the location of a lot of strategic London assets that attract the attention of the Mayor of London, such as the entertainment and tourist economy of the West End and the most formal parts of a global city. The council’s perspective, like that of its residents, does not always chime with those of other levels of government. For example, in its early days the last Labour government and the then Conservative-controlled Westminster fell into conflict over the pedestrianisation of the north side of Trafalgar Square. The national government, its strategic role in the capital inherited by London’s first Mayor, Ken Livingstone from 2000, prevailed and the square is better for it.
Some of Westminster’s residential neighbourhoods are very wealthy, with long-term inhabitants a minority and many properties rented or owned by the international rich. Others are wildly diverse and transient. But Westminster also contains some more ordinary inner London neighbourhoods, particularly in its north west. Two by-elections held last Thursday (19 September) illustrated the complexity and diversity of London’s innermost borough, as Labour defended one seat in West End ward and another in Harrow Road ward.
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Even for central London, West End ward is exotic. The epicentre of its politics is Soho, and its territory extends out to Mayfair and Westminster’s part of Fitzrovia. It covers the length of Oxford Street, from Marble Arch to Tottenham Court Road, and the north side of Piccadilly – basically most of the more expensive half of the Monopoly board. Local politics is complicated by issues that arise only in the heart of the city, such as rogue “American Candy” stores and pedicab regulation, along with acute cases of broader conflicts between, for instance, a global city’s night time economy and the interests of local residents. Community politics in these parts is conducted by well-organised and articulate groups.
West End’s political complexion has usually been Conservative – the qualified electors in residential properties of Mayfair give the party of the right something of a foundation. But Labour has been improving in recent local elections. They picked up one of the three seats (on different boundaries) in 2018 and in Labour’s Westminster council annus mirabilis in 2022 they swept them all up. One of those 2022 winners was Jessica Toale, who was subsequently selected as Labour candidate for Bournemouth West parliamentary constituency. The Dorset seat was one of Labour’s first-time gains in July’s general election, and last month Toale stepped down from the council to concentrate on her new responsibilities.
West End was always going to be a tricky ward for Labour to defend. The party’s 2022 majority was narrow, and winning the council for the first time ever had inevitably introduced some friction and disappointment into relationships with electors. Then, in the week of the by-election, Sadiq Khan announced that it intended to proceed with the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street.
While the state of street is not the pride of London and there is surely a majority across the capital for doing something about it, the people who are most worried about the impact of road closures and the massive rerouting of buses are concentrated in West End. The local campaign was also concerned with normal issues such as crime, but West End experiences street disorder in different and perhaps more intense forms than other wards. It was fought with high intensity the Tories and Labour, with activists, including new MPs, pounding the sticky pavements of the heart of the city.
The Conservatives candidate, Tim Barnes (pictured), emerged as the West End winner, returning as a West End council member having lost his seat there in 2022 and going on to be defeated in the general election contest for Cities of London & Westminster, one of Labour’s many gains. But he was the Tories’ strongest vote-winner in West End in 2022 and is regarded as an effective and hard-working local advocate who knows his way around the complex world of local resident and business groups.
He received 627 votes compared to 489 for Labour’s Fiona Parker. Green Rajiv Sinha (94 votes) and Liberal Democrat Phillip Kerle (74 votes) were squeezed out in this two-party contest. However, a turnout of only 16.8 per cent was extremely poor for such an energetically-contested seat. Even with local issues and a strong candidate helping them, the Conservative won because of a slump in Labour support rather than an increase in their own.
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Harrow Road ward seems half a world away from West End. It is in the corner of Westminster that has always been a Labour stronghold, although its Walterton and Elgin estates were central to the gerrymandering scandal of Westminster’s days as a Tory flagship in the 1980s. The ward covers an irregularly-shaped patch of the inner city around the road from which it takes its name, including Fernhead Road and Elgin Avenue. It is a neighbourhood labelled on maps with names like Maida Hill, West Kilburn and Westbourne Green, none of which really capture its identity – the ward name does a better job.
As with West End, the by-election was a consequence of the general election and a first-time Labour win far from the capital. Until January, Tim Roca was the council’s deputy leader. Originally from Cheshire, in July he became the first Labour MP for his home constituency of Macclesfield. There were more candidates for Harrow Road than for West End – as well as hopefuls from the “big four” London parties, there was an Independent and a candidate from George Galloway’s Workers Party (“For Britain, For Gaza”, according to the ballot paper slogan).
As with West End, the electorate was not particularly responsive to their collective efforts and turnout was even lower, at 14.6 per cent. Even for a safe ward amid the desultory calm of the post-election period and in September before political life has properly got going again after the summer lull, participation was low. The Labour share of the vote fell much more sharply than in West End – down 27.6 percentage points compared to 10.5.
The principal beneficiaries were Faaiz Hasan of the Greens, who came second with 244 votes despite the party not standing in 2022, and the third-placed Workers Party, who went from its own standing start to 166 votes. Labour’s Regan Hook took the seat with 512 votes. Despite the steep Labour drop, the result was not particularly close. in this respect it rather resembled the three Camden by-elections held a fortnight ago.
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What conclusions can be drawn from the two results? An obvious one is that Westminster will be closely-contested at the next borough elections, due in 2026. It will be hard for Labour to repeat its triumph of 2022, when the Conservative national government was unpopular, Boris Johnson was attracting the disgust of many of the wealthy and educated centre-right voters who form the local Tory bedrock, and the Tory-run council had made avoidable blunders such as the Marble Arch mound. Labour’s administration in Westminster has been accomplished and progressive in many ways, but that may not be enough.
Another conclusion is that Labour is now weak in areas of previous strength, following the general election. The party can get away with this in a national ballot – indeed, it was part of the formula that led to its vote being distributed efficiently. But there may be a price to pay in local government contests. The same goes for turnout. This always falls in Labour areas when there are Labour governments, and this could presage some uncomfortable local election outcomes.
The two Westminster by-elections were not even Labour’s worst last week – defeats in Bromsgrove and Worthing probably had more of a sting. Losses of some kind are inevitable in the years ahead, but councillors and council candidates must be hoping for fewer missteps and more solid achievements from the Starmer government if they are to weather the adverse climate.
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