Our 2026 local election campaign in London
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Five of us were at the count last night. It finished after midnight. Here’s the result:
Clapham Park:
Green – 842 (43.8%)
Labour – 799 (41.5%)
Lib Dem – 108 (5.6%)
Conservative – 85 (4.4%)
Reform UK – 71 (3.7%)
CPA – 12 (0.6%)
Socialist – 6 (0.3%)There was a low turnout. Down to 20 percent compared with the 33 percent at the full council elections in May. Only 1,952 of the 9,559 on the electoral registered bothered to vote.
The Greens held on to the seat but they lost the other Lambeth council by-election to the LibDems, a bit of a surprise but even by the standards of conventional politics it’s difficult to see the difference between the Labour, the Greens and the LibDems.
Well done to all those who took part in the campaign – I know a lot of time and effort was put in to leafletting, making posters etc.
There is another local by-election a few tube stops from Head Office in Clapham, in neighbouring Wandsworth’s Trinity ward. London branch won’t be contesting it but we will be distributing leafletting in the ward a leaflet suggesting that those who want socialism should write “SOCIALISM” across their ballot paper.
Wandsworth is odd in that it is one part of the country where the two main contenders are still Labour and the Tories. Neither Reform nor the Greens enter into it.The council is made up of 29 Tory and 28 Labour and one independent. The by-election has been caused by a Labour councillor moving up the greasy pole.
The first few hundred leaflets were distributed through letter-boxes yesterday. Here is what it says. It is designed to be distributed at elections where there is no Socialist candidate and has already been used in a by-election in Bolton and the elections for the new Mayor of Greater Manchester.
WHY WOULD ANYONE BOTHER WITH VOTING?
Can’t be bothered with voting?
Fair enough.
So let’s do this instead!We know, they’re all rubbish. Red, blue, yellow, green, whatever colour that other lot are this week. They all want the same thing: to keep things ticking along for the people who own everything while the rest of us graft for a living.
Not voting will look like you don’t care and these career politicians will use that as a mandate when the election is over.
Get down to the polling station. Take the pencil. And write SOCIALISM right across the ballot paper.
Why bother? Spoilt ballots get counted and published. Sitting on sofas doesn’t. It tells them, you’re not apathetic. It tells them you want the whole lot replaced, not just the faces at the top.
What we actually want: No bosses. No buying and selling of people’s lives. The factories, hospitals, land, the lot; owned by all of us, run for all of us. That’s socialism. Not state control. Not more welfare. Not reformism (tweaking the system) and hoping for the best. Actual common ownership.
None of the parties here are offering it. So don’t pick one. But don’t be silent either!
SPOIL IT PROPERLY. WRITE SOCIALISM.
for more information visit SPGB.NET
We distributed 600 or so leaflets inserted inside one of our general leaflets yesterday. We probably won’t cover the whole ward (no need to as we have no candidate) but will put a few hundred more through letter boxes before polling day on 27 August. Both the Tories and Labour have been leafletting too but none of the other candidates as far as we have been able to see. Just token candidates to keep their party’s name in the public eye.
SPEW, disguised as TUSC, contested this ward in May. It is difficult to see why as it doesn’t seem their territory with only 10 percent in “social housing”. In the event their candidate — Adam Powell-Davies, the leader of their student front organisation — got only 0.1 percent of the votes cast.
We met a real live fascist in the proper historical sense of the word. An Italian supporter of Mussolini. He showed us a photo of his father as a Blackshirt as well as a picture of Mussolini. He didn’t say who he would be voting for but there is no reason to suppose it would be RefUK as they are not fascists. Maybe he will write “Fascismo” across his ballot paper.
Local online news outlet reports on our leafletting campaign:
A further 500 were distributed yesterday. The Tories and Labour canvassers were out too. It is a vital by-election for them because, if the Tories win, it means they control the Council. The seat was held by Labour. So far we have seen 4 different Tory and 3 different Labour leaflets (and one Vote Green window poster).
Another 200 or so were distributed this morning in the Balham part of the ward, making 1700 so far. More could have been but we want to keep some for Sunday when a filmmaker doing a short film about the party wants to film an example of party activity. We are going to meet outside Balham tube/mainline station at 12 so we can be filmed giving out leaflets there and then putting them through letter boxes in nearby streets.
Yesterday we distributed the last 300 of the 2000 set aside. We also held a literature stall outside Balham mainline and tube station. Both were filmed by a novice filmmaker.
While filming the door to door leafletting we came across a group of Labour canvassers (presumably councillors or would-be councillors — who else would canvass for the Labour Party?). They weren’t keen to be filmed and so the film won’t show them, but the exchange of views was recorded. Their main argument was that, in calling on people who wanted socialism to write ‘SOCIALISM’ across their ballot paper this risked letting the Tories win and so control the council. But this is to assume that such people would otherwise vote Labour which is highly unlikely and, in any event, Labour, Tory, Same Old Story.
We also found evidence that the Green Party had been leafletting in some streets in this part of the ward. The QR on their leaflet took you to a page with the Wandsworth Green Party’s 2026 manifesto. In it there was none of Polanski’s eco-populism and its wild promises to increase wages around and other leftwing nostrums. Instead, it was what the Green Party used to say before him — that the main problem was global warming and that measures (such as solar panels, insulation, less car use) should be taken by the council to shield Wandsworth from its effects.
The election is on Thursday.
For the record, Labour won. For those interested in the vagaries of conventional politics another feature of this election is the collapse of the Green vote, from 14.4% in May to 5.1% yesterday. The Labour vote went up from 39.7% to 47.5%. Is the Green bubble deflating?
The percentage of spoilt ballot papers went up from 0.08% to 0.15%.
Our campaign gets a mention in this report of the result:
Labour holds Tooting seat by 127 votes, denying Conservatives control
Another local by-election near Head Office has been called. It’s in Myatt’s Fields ward in Lambeth on 8 0ctober. This ward is next door to Brixton North which we contested in the May council elections.
London branch will be putting up a candidate.
The by-election has been caused by the death of the long-standing Labour councillor. It has two council members. In May 1 Green and 1 Labourite were elected. Both Shake-it-up contested last time. Turnout was 37.1 percent.
The nomination papers were handed in to the Returning Officer at noon today and accepted.
We won’t know who our opponents are till nominations close on Friday. But we can expect at least the gang of five — Labour, Green, LibDem, Tory and RefUK.
The Greens have chosen their candidate — another defector from Labour over Gaza.
Sonia Winifred selected as Green candidate for Myatt’s Fields by-election
More about the candidates declared so far, including us miscalled “the Socialist Workers Party of Great Britain” (we’re getting that corrected).
Myatt’s Fields by-election confirmed for Thursday 8th October 2026
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