Labour will have nowhere “to hide” in the May local elections as it fights to avoid disastrous results in London, says a leading political expert.
Sir John Curtice, Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University, highlighted the threat posed to Sir Keir Starmer’s party by the Greens in the capital.
However, he suggested that many wards in London were such Labour strongholds that it might cling onto many of them despite the Green Party, under leader Zack Polanski, gaining ground.
Speaking after the Government abandoned plans to postpone elections for 30 councils, Sir John told Times Radio: “It still wasn’t going to be the case that these elections on May 7th were going to give anywhere Labour to hide, because...all of the seats in London are up for grabs.
“This is Labour’s strongest area, they have nearly two thirds of the seats in London, and there are 1800 seats in London at stake.”
He emphasised that Labour faced a “severe electoral test” from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK in provincial England and with the new threat from the Greens in London.
Scrapping the delays to elections for 30 councils also meant that the Conservatives would now be defending more seats than Labour, with Kemi Badenoch’s party facing a challenge from Reform.
The Conservatives will be seeking to regain three boroughs in London, Westminster, Wandsworth and Barnet which were all once Tory strongholds but were lost to Labour four years ago.
Mr Farage, who has announced members of his frontbench including Robert Jenrick as economic spokesman, has set his party the goal of winning councils in the capital, with natural targets including Havering, Bexley and Bromley.
Sir John stressed that it was only in the “odd borough” in Outer London where Reform would be the challenger, and most of these are currently held by the Tories.
But the rise of the Greens posed a growing threat to Labour in the capital.
“Maybe the one thing that Labour can hope is that so many of their wards in London are so safe that even if the Greens do advance, that maybe they’re not able to advance enough to turn this in terms of seats,” said the polling expert.
“But we should just remember London is full of the kind of young, middle class professionals amongst whom the Greens are doing well.
“It also, of course, has a quite significant Muslim population in parts, and that is a community with which Labour have not yet reconnected.”
Labour will be defending more than 1,150 seats in the capital on May 7 as it battles against the Greens, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Reform and pro-Gaza independents.
Shortly before the last borough elections, in 2022, Labour was on 50% in a YouGov poll but has now slumped to a record low of 31%, according to a survey by Savanta.
Sir John believes that Reform, Labour or the Greens could win the Gorton and Denton by-election on February 26.
Labour MPs who have campaigned in the constituency believe their party’s vote is holding up.
But if Labour loses the seat, after blocking Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham from being the party’s candidate, it would be a major blow to Sir Keir.
