How the road to Sadiq Khan’s election win began in Greenwich & Lewisham

Only one local reporter was at the London mayoral election count for Greenwich & Lewisham on Saturday. The Greenwich Wire editor DARRYL CHAMBERLAIN saw how Labour squeezed the Tories out – with a little help from the Greens and Reform UK.

Labour’s Sadiq Khan secured a third term as mayor of London on Saturday, a decisive victory that will be felt at Westminster as well as City Hall, over in the Royal Docks.

On the London Assembly, Len Duvall won a seventh term as member for Greenwich & Lewisham. The Labour veteran, who led Greenwich Council through the 1990s, is the only member to have sat on the assembly since it began in 2000.

The assembly poll marked a decisive moment for the Greens too – Karin Tearle came second to Duvall, nudging the Conservative candidate, Kieran Terry, a former Bromley councillor, into third. Reform UK’s Mark Simpson came fourth and pushed the Lib Dems’ Josh Matthews into fifth.

Much of south and east London had their votes counted at the giant Excel exhibition centre, a short walk from City Hall. They took place alongside Grand Designs Live and A Place in the Sun Live, giving proceedings for some boroughs a slightly surreal atmosphere. The Greenwich Wire had to decline two gentlemen’s offer of a Spanish holiday home on the way in.

The Greenwich & Lewisham count took place away from the crowds in a carpeted suite upstairs, with teams from both councils beavering away on a three-part count – the mayor, then the assembly member, then the London-wide assembly members. 

They were among the first to declare their results, meaning the road to Khan’s win began in Greenwich & Lewisham.

Tension was high early on thanks to rumours spread by Westminster correspondents on social media that the Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall, who had pledged to roll back Khan’s ultra-low emissions zone and criticised his record on crime, could be on the brink of a surprise win.

That wasn’t an entirely out-of-this-world prospect, as pollsters and commentators often struggle to capture London’s complex and diverse population, and Khan had been run close by Shaun Bailey in 2021.

Turnout figures, released on Friday, amplified those worries – in southeast London, they were up in Bexley & Bromley, where Hall’s campaign was aimed squarely at, but down in Greenwich & Lewisham, which was mostly ignored.

The rumours turned out to be nonsense – something those journalists should reflect on – but they amplified the jitters. “I’ve never had so many doors slammed in my face,” one Labour campaigner reflected on the campaign.

Another said it was clear that Labour voters in Thamesmead – a town built around the motor car – had stayed at home, fuelled by anger at Ulez.

Those present when votes were being validated said that Labour had also suffered in Eltham, the most suburban part of Greenwich & Lewisham. But something else was going on. Many of those votes were going to Reform’s Howard Cox, rather than Hall.

Cox was an inspired choice for Reform – as the head of FairFuel UK, which claims credit for fuel duty being frozen for 14 years, he has become a figurehead for protests against Ulez. 

If you were angry about Ulez, as many in the outer boroughs are, why go for unleaded Hall when you could go for four-star Cox? His efforts helped Reform bagged its first ever London Assembly seat, something that would emerge much later in the day.

But Labour were piling up votes in more middle-class areas, like Blackheath and Telegraph Hill. One noted Green voters in east Greenwich had swung behind Khan – swallowing anger at the Silvertown Tunnel – while Lib Dems had also lent their votes to Labour. 

Hall was being squeezed out, and the Conservative government’s switch to first-past-the-post had backfired on them. A switch to first-past-the-post away for this election – past polls had allowed voters to give a second preference – had backfired on the Conservatives.

The winning pledge? Khan’s policy of free school meals for primary school children. 

“The messaging has worked,” said one activist. “Susan Hall wanted to starve children.”

“They might not have liked Sadiq, but when we told them Susan Hall could win, you could see the look on their faces,” another said.

As news came through from across London, Tory faces began to drop, baleful eyes looking across at the sharp-suited Reform team. They were almost lost for words about what was going on. And it was hard to catch up with the Green team – they were in the count rooms,  keeping a very close eye on their growing tally.

The results bore out those early samples. “Four more years!” sung some Labour voices as news came through of the mayoral result in Greenwich & Lewisham – Khan had won strongly.

By the time of the assembly result, the big guns had showed up  – Greenwich leader Anthony Okereke, Lewisham elected mayor Brenda Dacres and Erith & Thamesmead MP Abena Oppong-Asare. And the mood was getting giddy.

In his acceptance speech, Duvall revealed that he had suffered health problems during the last election, which led to him having open-heart surgery a few months later. He paid tribute to his partner, Jackie Smith, a long-serving Greenwich councillor. 

“I would not be here today if it wasn’t for my partner, Jackie,” he said. “When we stand for elections, we sometimes don’t think about our partners and families. Our time is taken up and we are a bit odd compared to the rest of… – we shouldn’t think it’s normal to be a political activist. So I really want to shout out to our partners and friends, family and colleagues who have to endure us. We can be insufferable at times, as my partner will tell you.”

Speaking to The Greenwich Wire after, Duvall said: “I think what we’ve seen locally is people trusting Labour. People that have never voted Labour clearly voted in that mayoral campaign and clearly there is still strong support for us across Greenwich and Lewisham or I wouldn’t be standing before you. 

“So I think across London and across the country, people are saying, I think we would like change.”

Duvall said that the work of councillors across the two boroughs – Labour has all 54 seats in Lewisham and 52 of 55 in Greenwich – had helped the party.

He said: “I think what was really interesting I found on Greenwich & Lewisham doorsteps was real strong support for the councillor and the work that they do. We’re very fortunate about that, given the numbers of councillors that are there. 

“I’m urging my colleagues, they’ve got to have their listening ears on as we go through this period of time where Labour looks like it could be in power, not just at London wide level, but at national level.

“We need to actually start thinking about that and how we work with local communities in delivering plans that best suit the challenges they face.”

London mayoral election results: Sadiq Khan, Labour – 1,088,225 (43.8%); Susan Hall, Conservative – 812,397 (32.7%); Rob Blackie, Lib Dem – 145,184 (5.84%); Zoe Garbett, (Green) – 145,114 (5.84%); Howard Cox, Reform UK – 78,865 votes (3.17%); Natalie Campbell – 47,815 (1.92%); Amy Gallagher, SDP – 34,449 (1.39%); Femy Amin, Animal Welfare Party – 29,280 (1.18%); Andreas Michli – 26,121 (1.05%) Tarun Ghulati – 24,702 (0.99%); Count Binface – 24,260 (0.98%); Nick Scanlon, Britain First – 20,519 (0.83%); Brian Rose, London Real Party – 7,501 (0.3%)

London mayoral election votes in Greenwich & Lewisham: Sadiq Khan, Labour – 83,792; Susan Hall, Conservative – 36,822; Zoe Garbett, (Green) –1 1,209; Rob Blackie, Lib Dem – 7,713; Howard Cox, Reform UK – 5,716; Natalie Campbell – 3,502; Amy Gallagher, SDP – 2,813; Nick Scanlon, Britain First – 2,092; Femy Amin, Animal Welfare Party – 1,915; Count Binface – 1,706; Andreas Michli – 1,610; Tarun Ghulati – 1,033; Brian Rose, London Real Party – 507

London Assembly constituency member vote in Greenwich & Lewisham: Len Duvall, Labour – 80,101; Karin Tearle, Green – 28,294; Kieran Terry, Conservative – 25,960; Mark Simpson, Reform UK – 13,405, Josh Matthews, Lib Dem – 11,975.

Full results at londonelects.org.uk.