The election battle in City of Westminster could be between Labour and the Conservatives

In May 2022 the Labour Party gained control of Westminster City Council for the first time ever. It had been a straight fight between Labour and the Conservatives; and those of us who woke on the morning of 6 May to the news of a historic Labour victory could hardly believe our ears. The Tories had been in charge of Westminster since it became a London Borough in April 1965, and for most of that era they had seemed immovable. 

Today the political horizons appear to have shifted considerably, at least on the national level. Reform UK and the Green Party are now major electoral contenders, and the LibDems are doing quite well too. In the recent Gorton and Denton by-election on 26 February the Greens were victorious in what had once been the safest Labour seat in Manchester; while Reform beat Labour to second place by just over 1,000 votes.

As it happens, I was born in Gorton in the late 1940s, so I can personally testify to the fact that the area has changed enormously in the last 75 years. Basically it has been gentrified; and there have also been significant boundary changes. Even so, the recent result does seem to throw our expectations into some disarray.

Yet sources close to the Labour Party are predicting another one-on-one confrontation between Conservatives and Labour in the upcoming election in London’s City of Westminster, with all the other parties still left out of the picture. It will be very tight, they say. How can this be? 

My source suggests that Westminster-wide, the Greens and Reform will each increase their share of the vote by 10 to 15 per cent. The LibDems will add about 10 per cent to their tally. And that will leave Labour and Conservatives with about 30 per cent of the vote each instead of the roughly 40 per cent which each of them won in 2022. So it will be a straight fight, once again. Despite the rise of Reform and the Greens, Labour believes the Conservatives are their biggest danger.

Tony Travers, Fitzrovia resident and a professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, has a similar view. In a recent article in the Standard he says: “If you want to vote anti-Labour in Westminster … frankly you have to vote Conservative.”

Of the three most marginal boroughs in Greater London Travers believes that Westminster is the one which the Tories are most likely to regain, followed by Wandsworth and possibly Barnet. The Greens might pick up the “odd seat” in Westminster and Wandsworth, he adds, but that’s as far as it goes.

In order to persuade residents not to return to the Conservative flock, Westminster Labour is naturally keen to emphasise its achievements over the last four years. In that time, they say, Labour has delivered over 350 council flats, making it the fifth largest council-house builder in the country (not bad when you consider what land values are like in Westminster).

It is now, with some help from Sadiq Khan, providing free school meals to every child in the borough between the ages of three and 14. So this means that there is none of the means-testing which for one reason or another helps to keep many of the UK’s children hungry. And it has delivered £9.9mn of government-sponsored support to the families most affected by the cost-of-living crisis, and in addition has contributed more than £9mn from its own resources to the same fund. The Labour line is: “We have achieved a lot, but there’s much more to do. Don’t let the Conservatives ruin it”.

Will these measures and others like them be enough to keep Labour a short head in front of its rivals in London’s May elections? Only a reckless idiot would be willing to place money on it. But in a couple of months’ time we’ll know the answer. Just watch this space.

Sue Blundell is a playwright and lecturer in Classical Studies. sueblundell.com

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