The scale of Labour’s loss to the Greens in Lewisham at May’s local elections was devastating. I have heard it described within the local Labour Party as a rout. One can hardly argue with this assessment when one looks at the facts. Labour lost the Mayoralty that it had held since it was established in 2002. Labour won all 54 seats on the Council at the previous election in 2022 as it did at the election in 2018 and went into the 2026 elections holding 50 seats, having suffered 4 defections to the Greens during the administration. Labour lost a further 36 seats in May leaving the overall result as Greens 40 seats and Labour 14. The results meant the end of Labour’s 55 year reign in Lewisham.
One would have thought that any organisation that experienced such a wholescale rejection by the people it was supposed to serve, whatever sector it operated in, would set aside time for sober reflection as to why such a failure occurred. One would think that a pause for thought would be the order of the day as the organisation allowed time for the dust to settle, the shock to subside and for objective dispassionate analysis to take place. However, this has not been the reaction of many local Labour leaders. Instead, many came out straight after the results were announced to claim that residents were very happy with how Labour had been running the Council and that the outcome was all to do with the ‘national picture’, this being code for dissatisfaction with the Starmer Government. It appears that this is an attempt to establish this narrative as some kind of received wisdom, thereby filling the space that any post mortem would occupy and requiring dissenters to critique it, rather than allow a completely open debate where there are no predetermined battle lines.
In fairness, I received an email from my local ward Labour Party letting me know that our next meeting would be taking place next week at which people would be invited to give their view as to what went wrong and what we need to do to win again in Lewisham. What follows is my contribution to that debate.
Clearly, we saw a huge swing away from Labour towards the Greens across the country, together with a swing towards Reform. But this swing wasn’t uniform, even it we just look at London. I have to be honest and say that I haven’t looked at the data in the way you would expect Sir John Curtice or Tony Travers to examine it. Here I just offer a personal view. But any observer can see that the Greens did better in some London boroughs than they did in others.
The Greens won three boroughs outright in London in May: Hackney, Lewisham and Waltham Forest. But if you look at Lewisham’s Labour neighbours, Southwark, Greenwich and Lambeth, the picture is different. It is worth pointing out that when I was on the Council, these boroughs used to be referred to in reports as Lewisham’s statistical neighbours as they were so similar to us demographically and geographically and therefore provided useful comparisons. Examining performance in these 4 boroughs was seen as comparing organisations in similar situations and facing similar challenges. Whereas in Lewisham, Labour was routed, in Greenwich it retained control of the Council, albeit with a much reduced majority. In Southwark the result meant that Labour lost control of the Council but the Greens did not win enough seats to take control, so Labour remained the largest party on the Council with no party having enough seats to secure overall control. In Lambeth, Labour lost control of the Council with the Greens winning enough seats to become the largest party but not enough to have a majority, leaving a situation where no party had overall control. Given this set of results, I think that it is quite hard to argue that they were due to a general protest vote against the national Labour Government as to do so would be to claim that Lewisham has more in common with Hackney and Waltham Forest (which is an outer, as opposed to an inner, London borough) than it does with its South London neighbours.
So let us look at some local factors which may help to explain why Lewisham did so badly in May. One is the presence of Goldsmiths College in the borough, situated in New Cross in the centre of the old Deptford Parliamentary constituency, now renamed North Lewisham. In the early mid 1990s, Goldsmiths took the decision to development a campus around its site. At the time, it had halls of residence across the borough and as far afield as Sidcup in Bexley Borough which is on the other side of Greenwich. This plan, supported by the Council and public development bodies like Deptford City Challenge, led to a very large amount of student accommodation being built close to the College. This concentration of students provided a strong basis of support for the Greens and a ready pool of potential activists. This led to Deptford (I find it very hard to think of this area as Lewisham North) along with Lewisham West, or so I have been told, becoming target areas for the Greens in the campaigning for the May elections. This meant that these areas were subject to greater levels of activity than other parts of London and this concentration of effort by the Greens appears to have borne much fruit.
Lewisham is covered by the constituencies of Lewisham North, Lewisham East and half of Lewisham West and East Dulwich. North returns 23 Councillors to the Council, East 19 and the Lewisham half of West 12. The Greens won 22 seats in North and Labour held on to 1. The Greens took 7 seats in East with Labour holding on to 12. The Greens took 11 of the seats in West with Labour only managing to hold on to one. Labour in East clearly did better than it did in the other constituencies. Can this all be explained by the fact that North and West were Green targets while East was not and therefore subject to more a greater level of campaigning? Possibly. But if should be pointed out that Labour campaigning was organised on a constituency basis. There were different campaign coordinators in different constituencies and they, along with other local party leaders, devised different campaign strategies. Therefore, it seems plausible that the campaign in East was more effective than that run in North and West.
Another matter that was raised by some residents, which is particular to Lewisham, was the recent history of incumbent Mayors. The first Mayor of Lewisham, Sir Steve Bullock served 4 full terms before standing down in 2018. He continued to be involved in public service but did not seek elected office elsewhere. He was succeeded by Damien Egan, who stood down in 2024 to fight and win a by-election, thus becoming an MP in Bristol. This necessitated a by-election, which cost the Council around £600,000 to run, which was won by the Labour candidate, Brenda Dacres. She was made a peer in January 2026 and then announced her intention not to run for the Lewisham Mayoralty in May. This meant that Lewisham had to select another Mayoral candidate. Amanda de Ryk, who had narrowly failed to beat Dacres in the previous selection contest, was selected following the withdrawal of the other candidate, Will Cooper.
What some residents did say was that they felt that Damien Egan and Brenda Dacres’ decision to give up the Mayoralty, demonstrated that they were only interested in Lewisham for as long as it suited them, that is, until a better offer came along. There was a sense that other Labour candidates who were presenting themselves as committed to serving in Lewisham at elections, were really hoping to move on to higher things elsewhere. Recent experience had dented people’s trust in Labour. It had undermined the belief that local Labour politicians saw Lewisham as a long-term priority and were consequently genuinely committed to serving the local area. In short, what they had experienced in Lewisham had re-enforced an underlying feeling of cynicism about politics and politicians.
It is hard to quantify the effect that this attitude had on the overall outcome. A few weeks after the elections I was talking to a Labour Councillor from another borough. They made the point to me that Lewisham was well-known amongst London boroughs for having a lot of Councillors who wanted to become MPs in other parts of the country. They mentioned to me that they thought that recently 10 had sought to do so. I am not sure whether 10 is right or not. I think that the point is that this was the perception of another Labour Councillor, that they thought that this portrayed Lewisham Labour in a poor light and that this perception is probably quite widely shared within the regional Labour Party.
I was part of Amanda de Ryk’s campaign team when she sought selection to become Labour’s Mayoral candidate in Lewisham in 2024 when she competed against Brenda Dacres. I supported her when she sought to become the candidate in 2026 following Brenda’s ennoblement. I campaigned for her in the May elections. I think that she would have made an excellent Mayor. However, it is inconceivable to me that Brenda would not have done better in the Mayoral election than Amanda given her higher public profile, particularly in Deptford and New Cross. It should be remembered that Amanda lost by less than 5000 votes, or 6% of the total number of votes cast. It is plausible that with Brenda’s higher level of public recognition Labour could have held on to the Mayoralty even though it lost overall control of the Council, as happened in Newham.
If we are looking at possible local factors that contributed to the scale of Labour’s defeat to the Greens, then we should look at Labour’s record in office.
A big part of Labour’s campaign in the elections in May was to claim that Lewisham had the most improved secondary schools in the country based on GCSE results. This claim, by their own admission, was enough to bring @LewishamWatch, Lewisham Council’s very own online apolitical scrutineer out of retirement to provide some explanatory context. You can read his analysis of the facts for yourself on X here He makes the point that this claim is based on Progress 8 scores. These are the ‘difference between pupils GCSEs and what similar pupils would be expected to get based on primary school SATS.’ He points out that progress has been made when you compare performance during the year before COVID, which was particularly bad for Lewisham, and the most recent performance. But they provide a table which shows that, even so, Lewisham still has one of the worst scores in London, coming 24 out of 32 London boroughs.
When you look at actual GSCE results, that is, Attainment 8 scores, then the performance of Lewisham secondary schools ranks them 29th out of 32 London boroughs. In other words, Lewisham has the 4th worst secondary schools in London. Scores for black pupils are the second worst in London.
I have written at some length about the failures of the Lewisham Labour over the last 8 years. If you are interested you can find examples here and here. I will restrict myself to highlighting a few of them.
In March 2023, the Information Commissioner’s Office issued an enforcement notice to Lewisham Council for failing to respond to requests made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The notice stated that Lewisham’s failure to comply with the law ‘erodes trust in democracy and open government.’
Also, in 2023, the Council referred itself to the Housing Ombudsman for the poor quality of its housing stock and its fire safety measures. The Ombudsman launched an investigation and published its report last year. You can view all this online as it is a matter of public record. I think to say that it was highly critical of the performance of the Council is putting it as mildly as possible.
Despite the Council claims, particularly in the run up to the election, that they were investing more resources to deal with it, rising complaints about fly tipping, littering and dog poo have been a feature of Labour’s last 4 years in power in Lewisham. This together with a prevalence of weeds on the pavements have led to a perception of a general deterioration of the quality of the public realm under Labour. Add to this, people’s experience of missed bin collections and receiving parking fines in error, and you can understand why many residents feel that the Council is no longer getting the basics right in the way that it used to.
Lewisham used to have the RingGo Parking App that you could use to get visitor and residents’ parking permits if you lived one of the borough’s controlled parking zones (CPZs). Now there is no App and you have to do everything online on a website which is far more complicated, confusing and time consuming. Are we the only London borough without an App that works for its CPZs?
Lewisham, according to the latest Government figures, not only failed its housing test, but has the worst record of house building in London. At a time when Housing is a major issue for people in London, especially amongst the demographic that the Greens were targeting, it seems plausible that Lewisham’s poor record would have a negative impact electorally. Certainly, it featured in one of the Green Mayoral candidates campaigning videos that I saw. Moreover, Lewisham failed its housing test by such a substantial amount that it essentially lost its role as the local planning authority that it once had. The fact that its housing building performance was so poor meant that Lewisham has to operate under the presumption of consent, or to give it its less dramatic and some might say less alarming name, ‘the presumption in favour of sustainable development.’ You can look up what this means and make your own judgement. To my mind it means that the Council’s role in planning in the case of large schemes has been reduced to being little more than rubber stamping the applications that developers submit. The role of residents to influence the planning process via representations to the Council that they used to have and have grown used to exercising, has been pretty much eliminated to my mind.
Lewisham’s extremely poor record on house building is driven by its extremely poor record of regeneration. Whilst other Labour led London Boroughs are renewing their town centres and communities, sites in Lewisham designated for redevelopment languish untouched. Convoys Wharf, located on Lewisham’s small section of desirable Thames waterfront has remained undeveloped despite receiving an outline planning consent in 2005. New Bermondsey/Millwall, Achilles Street, Lewisham Precinct, Catford Town Centre, Catford Island site – all these sites remain likewise undeveloped. Thousands of new homes are locked up in these moribund sites, together with the millions of pounds of Business Rates and Council tax that they would yield to the Council for it to spend on vital services.
Some of the items I have listed above may seem trivial when looked at in isolation. To suggest that criticism by the Information Commissioner could contribute to an electoral rout seems designed to invite ridicule. I accept that. However, what I am putting forward is the claim that all these areas of poor performance taken together speak to a malaise, a complacency, a lethargy at the heart of the Labour led Council. They are evidence of a lack of dynamism, a lack of urgency and purpose down at the Town Hall. In short, they demonstrate a lack of vision and a lack of leadership.
I have mentioned Lewisham’s poor record and house building. The thing about regeneration is that it generates a lot of opposition to begin with, but this tend to fade over time as the schemes are built out. These feelings of negativity are then replaced with a sense of positivity and of optimism and a sense that an area is improving. New people come in who are untroubled by the previous history of opposition. People want to see and be part of progress. If you travel through Greenwich regularly, one is struck by the contrast between the regeneration that has taken place there and the state of Lewisham’s Town Centres. If you go down Ilderton Road similarly the contrast between the regeneration that has taken place on the Southwark side and the untouched nature of the Lewisham side can only invite unfavourable comparisons between the two Councils.
Most of my life is spent outside of Labour Party events. It is spent engaging with family members, neighbours and friends and with work colleagues, a number of whom live in Lewisham. Most of these people are not engaged in active party politics although they are politically and socially aware. Many used to moan a bit to me about the Council from time to time, but they used to say that on balance they felt that Lewisham was doing a reasonable job in the circumstances. A year ago this started to change. The catalyst may have been different for different people, but there was a growing articulation of a feeling that all was not well in Labour Lewisham. People felt that Labour was having it too easy. A lack of any Opposition to Labour on the Council for such a long time had led to complacency. Labour needed a bit of a shake-up. Many people started to say, more in sadness than in anger, that they felt it was time for a change.
My view is that the strongest force in British politics and may be in the politics of all democratic countries, is that when the electorate feel its time for a change. Ideology doesn’t win elections. This is something that, too often, victors inflict on people after they have won. Voters do not decide who to vote for on the basis of a deep dive analysis of party manifestos. The decision of to whom to give your cross is often just something visceral. And there is nothing more visceral that a feeling that its time for a change. It was this feeling that propelled Thatcher into Downing Street in 1979. It was this feeling that saw Blair through to victory in 1998. It sadly did for Brown in 2010. And it saw Starmer home in 2024.
I don’t think that Labour will be coming back to power in Lewisham until people think that its time for another change. I think that it will take much longer to win back people’s trust if Lewisham Labour merely says defeat was all due to Starmer and that it has nothing to reproach itself for and has no need to change its ways or its words.
Whilst I am glad for the opportunity to participate in an internal Labour debate about why we lost so badly to the Greens in May, it is questionable whether we are capable of the engaging in the dispassionate rigorous scrutiny necessary to make this a useful, illuminating exercise. Indeed a lack of effective scrutiny by Labour Councillors of their Mayor and Cabinet colleagues is arguably a contributing cause of Labour’s failure and why we are asking the questions we are asking now. This being the case, if we really want to know why people voted Green, particularly those who switched from voting Labour in 2018, maybe we should just ask them.
