Further local election disasters for Labour in London as party loses Lewisham and Lambeth councils

A second day of election results brought no relief to Keir Starmer’s Labour Party on Saturday, as it lost control of several key London boroughs.

Lewisham voted overwhelmingly for the Green Party which secured 40 of the borough’s seats as well as the mayoralty, leaving just 14 Labour councillors in place.

It was a similar story in Lambeth as Labour lost control of the council, with the Greens taking 29 seats to become the largest party.

Labour followed behind with 26 seats.

Labour had been in charge of Lambeth since 2006 and Lewisham since 2010 so losing the stronghold councils was a stark example of the party’s poor election in the capital.

Tower Hamlets was won by Mayor Lutfur Rahman’s Aspire Party, keeping control over what was once also a Labour stronghold.

Other London borough losses on Friday included Havering, which went to Reform UK, and Haringey, where the Green secured more seats than any other party.

The Prime Minister is under growing pressure following the decisive routing in local elections, with over 30 MPs calling on him to resign.

Elsewhere, Catherine West, MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet, vowed to trigger a Labour leadership contest on Monday morning if Keir Starmer does not step down after the disastrous local elections for the party .

She told the BBC’s PM programme: “I’m putting people on notice – if I don’t hear by Monday morning of some leadership hopefuls, I will be asking everybody in the Parliamentary Labour Party to put a name against my name, because we need to get this ball rolling.

“But my preferred option is for the Cabinet to do a reshuffle within itself, where there’s plenty of talent and for Keir to be given a different role, which he might enjoy, perhaps an international role, and then for others to come to the fore, who can communicate the message, who are very able, so we can have minimum fuss.”
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The Prime Minister will use an address on Monday and the King’s Speech on Wednesday to mount a fightback after growing numbers of Labour MPs demanded a change at the top of the party.

Sir Keir insisted he would not “walk away” from his job, claiming it would “plunge the country into chaos” if he quit.

“But that doesn’t mean we don’t need to respond, it doesn’t mean we don’t need to rebuild,” he said.

“It doesn’t mean that we don’t need to set out the path ahead.

“That’s what I’m going to do in the coming days.”
He said one of the “unnecessary mistakes” made by his Government was setting out the financial and international challenges facing the country, but not telling people how their lives would improve.

Sir Keir said: “The hope wasn’t there enough in the first two years of this government.”
He added his administration needed to be better at offering hope to people and promised to be clearer about “the values and convictions that drive me”.