A By-Election in the St Ann’s Ward of Haringey Council (Tottenham Constituency) has seen the first ever Green Party Councillor elected.
Veteran observers and participants of North London politics might wonder how it has taken so long.
In the July 2024 General Election Green candidates ran second in most North-East London Constituencies (which Labour won).
In the days when Bernie Grant was MP for Tottenham and I was Chair of Haringey TUC we would run election hustings but only invite the Labour candidate. However as a nod to the reality that there is political life beyond Labour and broadly to the left I would always invite the Green Party to have a stall.
Just as I’ve seen Labour as a Party that has some socialists in it, I’ve seen the Greens as a party that has some left-wingers. Indeed the Green candidate in St Anns Ruiaridh Paton describes himself as a socialist on his Twitter avatar.
Labour also had a strong candidate, who hopefully will find his way on to the Council in 2026 but in a liberal-leftish Ward like St Anns the record of the Government (or at least how it was seen by voters) and the Council’s very poor record on Palestine and Gaza no doubt counted. There is clearly scope for further independent left candidates in the future on those points.
Notably Reform managed 3.6% of the vote and the turnout of 28% was at the high end of recent local Council Elections.
One can wish Paton good fortune in at last having the chance to make an impact for Green politics on the Council
St Ann’s (Haringey) Council By-Election Result: 🌍 GRN: 55.4% (+14.1) 🌹 LAB: 30.8% (-21.5) 🌳 CON: 4.3% (New) 🔶 LDM: 3.7% (-2.8) ➡️ RFM: 3.6% (New) 🧑🔧 TUSC: 1.8% (New) ⚒️ CL: 0.4% (New)
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