The independent councillor who holds the deciding vote on Wandsworth Council has suggested he will side with the Conservatives, giving them control of the swing south London borough following the 2026 local election.
Malcolm Grimston, the only independent in a deadlocked borough that has 29 Conservative and 28 Labour councillors, has indicated he will support his former party.
It is a huge loss for the previous majoritive Labour Party who thrived in 2022 to steal the council from the Conservative Party’s 44 year grasp.
With 58 seats up for grab, the Conservative Party has gained seven seats since the last local election, to match Labour’s seven seat loss- but neither have the majority control.
Grimston has been a local councillor since 1994, first as a Conservative Party member but independent since he left in 2014, and will, determine the council’s voting direction by siding with one party over the other.
Speaking to SWLondoner today, he said: “On paper it looks like having a very powerful position. In practise, I think the people want to have an elected Conservative Council and that’s the way its going to go.
“For me to support Labour to stay in, I would need to actively vote with Labour and then they would need to engineer the mayoralty for next year, so they have the mayor’s casting vote.
“Having said that I think as an independent I can actually go between the two groups and I hope I can be something of a moderating influence on the main group.
“They’re a pretty moderate lot anyway I don’t want to suggest otherwise.”
When speaking on his priorities for the next four years and his demands to give support to one side he said, Grimston touched on his dissatisfaction with the previous Labour council.
He said: “I was really very unhappy with the previous administration.
“I would hope that the new administration is going to be more upfront about the very serious financial challenges that we are facing.
“Also the chamber got very fractious and very churlish really.
“I’ve put to both of them but certainly the ruling group that if they want me to be nice, the ongoing passive or half active support, I would hope they would treat the opposition rather better than they were treating themselves and be a bit more mature about it.”
He explained that recent council meetings had become more about in-fighting than positive discussions.
Grimston added: “You’d think there were a lot of people who’s only role in life was to tear chunks out of each other.
“I hope to see a bit more constructive in challenging each other and criticising ideas.”
“I hope to try and get us back towards single-mindedly focussing on the issues that are affecting peoples loves, not scoring often rather cheap parts of political points.”
This follows Councillor Grimston’s post on X following the result: “So I was reelected with 4081 votes and now hold the balance of power at Wandsworth Council. Funny old world.”
Earlier today he replied to a comment on X questioning who he will be supporting he said: “I wont be applying to join a political party.
“Will probably come to some confidence-and-supply agreement to create some stability around the new administration.”
Whilst the seat share still matches the two-party duopoly of the borough’s political history, the vote share reflects the nationwide move to multi-party politics.
The traditional leaders, Labour and Conservatives, both declined in vote share- 8.9% and 9.4% down respectively.
Meanwhile the Green Party has seen almost a double their in 2022 vote share, jumping from 8.9% to 17.3%, and Reform UK also took 7.3% of the overall share.
The largest increase in Green voters was in Tooting Broadway.
PollCheck had predicted a Conservative minority win previous to the official poll, but also predicted seats won for Reform, Green and Lib Dems, which did not happen.
The Conservative Party though are pleased with their performance.
Councillor Aled Richard-Jones, Leader of the Conservative Group on the council, said: “Fundamentally, I think this was a very local verdict on four years of a failing Labour Wandsworth Council.
“I really think the public are starting to take another look at the Conservatives, under the leadership of Kemi Badenoch.
“But also the real, practical offer that we had here in Wandsworth, that responded to people’s every, bread and butter concerns.”
Speaking to GB News he said: “This is a great result for Wandsworth and a great result for us as a local party.
“We are confident we can can form an administration and run the council again.
“It is a real credit to the campaign we ran locally.”
Another successful Conservative councillor is Matt Corner who has been re-elected for Nine Elms.
He said: “I really enjoy doing this role, and I’m really pleased to have earned the support and trusts of residents of Nine Elms to continue dog the work in the community.”
You can check out all of South West London’s 2026 local election here.
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