After more than a day of recounts, with a council that wasn’t declared until gone 3pm on Saturday Labour have lost control of Lambeth Council, while the Greens failed to gain their expected majority.
The Greens needed 12 of the remaining 27 seats after counting was stopped overnight, but came up three short as Labour forced no overall control.
The Greens still knocked Labour’s control of their 20-year stronghold, winning 29 seats out of 63 compared to Labour’s 26.
Prior to the election, Labour held 58 of these seats and attempted to hold onto as many as possible in the face of an expected Green sweep, calling for lengthy recounts on five of 25 wards in Lambeth.
Swathes of candidates from Reform, Lib Dems and Conservatives alternately began to leave as early as the second result.
Jacqueline Bond, elected as a green councillor for Vauxhall, said: “This is unprecedented and I think we’re going to see the end of two party politics forever, hopefully forever – we’re not gonna make this a blip.”
Multiple Green candidates reported succeeding more than expected, reflecting on wins they claimed they didn’t campaign much for, attributing their popularity to namesake over specific issues.
When asked what he attributed Lambeth’s Green surge to, former Jeremy Corbyn speechwriter turned Green candidate, Michael Chessum, said: “I think the Corbyn project created this huge mass of people determined to see a proper left political alternative in the mainstream, and it also made the Labour right absolutely determined to prevent that from ever happening in the Labour Party.
“I’ve always, very much been opposed to politics that’s based on a cult personality, so I was never a loyalist Corbynite.
“But we have to make sure it doesn’t become too much of “the Zack [Polanski] show”, as it were, but I think Zack is well aware of that.”
Outside of these wins, the mood was tense between Labour and Green.
A Green council candidate arrested last week for alleged antisemitism, Sabine Mairey, arrived during the count, at which point Labour candidates allegedly stood up and said that she “shouldn’t be here” – a brief altercation followed which led to Mairey leaving.
In response to their losses, Labour candidate Edwin Sheppard also stated Lambeth Labour should respond by “being piranhas”, picking up where the Greens “fall down”.
He said: “Greens are inexperienced. They’re at a high point and the moment that high point slips, Lambeth Labour can be there to really jump in.
“This, this is obviously, certainly a bad defeat, but it’s not the end, not at all.”
“I do wonder what I’m going to do with my time. I’m gonna have to go back to playing computer games”
When asked why Reform and Conservatives failed to pick up a single right wing seat in Lambeth Gareth Mitchell, a Reform Candidate for West Dulwich said: “I just don’t think at this stage Lambeth was ready to move far enough to the right.
“I believe seeing the results nationally that are coming out today, seeing the 1000s of seats, that people will realize that we are a serious party – there were certainly people who didn’t think that we could win.”
Regardless of Green’s failure to take the majority, the loss of such a central Labour council is deeply significant.
Reflecting on her win for Brixton, Green party Serafina Spicer said: “I have been knocking on thousands of doors for the last couple of months, and they were all saying the same thing, that they don’t want to engage with the system anymore because of how badly they’ve been treated.
“I think we’ve been able to offer a real alternative to Labour, who’ve forgotten about the people who live in Brixton.”
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