Super Thursday 2021 part 4: The London Assembly and Mayor of London race

With a record 20 candidates, the race for Mayor of London was bound to produce some interesting results. It did but not for the reasons one expected: Shaun Bailey, who before was widely regarded as having run one of the worst Conservative campaigns in London and was seen as out of touch with ordinary Londoners, managed to trail incumbent London Mayor Sadiq Khan by only 108,670 votes (amounting to 4.7%) in the first round, although as expected Mr Khan easily won in the second round. In the same way that the north and the Midlands are trending towards the Conservatives, London is trending towards Labour although this is slowing down.

Mr Bailey managed to retain most of the Conservative votes Zac Goldsmith did primarily because the Conservatives are connecting rather well with Hindu and Sikh communities in London, which accounts for Mr Bailey being able to carry both Brent & Harrow and Ealing & Hillingdon in the first round of the Mayor of London contest, and follows on from the above average pro-Conservative swings seen in Harrow East and Brent North in the 2019 general election, contrary to London overall swinging to Labour or only slightly to the Conservatives that year due to Liberal Democrat surges. Mr Khan's transport policy, meanwhile, especially with regard to proposed airport expansion, also drove some Labour voters to the Greens and their mayoral candidate, Sian Berry. Inner-city voters nevertheless remained more impressed with him than with Mr Bailey. 

As with 2016, Sian was the only candidate from a party other than Labour or Conservative to save her £10,000 deposit, doing so handily with 7.8% of the vote although this represents a surprisingly low increase of 2%, given the fact that the Greens made a net gain of 88 council seats across England and at the same time elected a third AM, Zack Polanski, to join Sian and Caroline Russell. The inquiry that concluded that air pollution levels were definitively to blame for the death of Ella Kissi-Debrah, daughter of Green Party Assembly list candidate Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, also helped boost the Green vote as did the noticeable impact of pollution levels returning post-lockdown. The Liberal Democrats once again lost their deposit, partly because their initial candidate, Siobhan Benita, pulled out last year, to be replaced by former MEP Luisa Porritt, and the Brexit backlash effect did not materialise to the extent they hoped it would, and in any case with the Brexit transition period over that effect is now largely insignificant. Another reason was because of Rejoin EU acting as a spoiler for the Liberal Democrats, who are also firmly committed to Britain rejoining the EU sometime; their candidate Richard Hewison polled 1.1%, nearly double the percentage Ms Porritt lost her deposit by.

This Mayoral election also proved that Internet ramping does not necessarily win votes: YouTuber Niko Omilana, who last month polled at the 5% deposit retention threshold, in the end only polled 2%, primarily because he was mainly using the election to promote his content and had no stand-out policies, nor any ground campaign. This was however slightly ahead of actor Laurence Fox, who was endorsed by Reform UK and campaigned against "extreme political correctness"; he only polled 1.9%, which also proves how badly the small "right libertarian" vote was split in London although it was more than double the votes of UKIP and Heritage put together.

Joke candidate Count Binface, whose manifesto promises included renaming London Bridge Phoebe Waller Bridge and banning loud speakerphones, managed 1%, one of the best votes for a satirical political candidate, beating seven candidates including Jeremy Corbyn's brother Piers, who stood on an anti-lockdown platform. Brian Rose also did the same, to both their cost: the combined "anti-lockdown" vote would have at least clinched fifth place ahead of Mr Omilana (Mr Omilana polled 49,628 votes; the total of Mr Rose and Piers Corbyn's votes was 51,715). Lockdown hit London particularly hard due to so many non-essential businesses, as well as tourist attractions and entertainment venues, being closed for months, which is primarily why Messrs Rose and Corbyn managed to poll over 50,000 votes between them. Unsurprisingly, the wooden spoon went to Valerie Brown of the Burning Pink Party, formed by XR activists; the only notable coverage she received during the campaign was when she and her campaign manager were arrested for criminal damage to HSBC's London headquarters. The 5,305 votes she received were nevertheless slightly more than Ankit Love of One Love managed in 2016 (he is still the only candidate for Mayor of London to poll fewer than 5000 votes, with 4,941).

The London Assembly was once again reduced to 4 parties, with UKIP being decisively ejected and the Liberal Democrats picking up an extra list seat, although they increased their vote share by just 1% compared to the Greens' increase of 2.8%. There was only a 1.9% swing in list votes from Labour to the Conservatives but it proved to be enough for Labour's Murad Qureshi to lose his list seat, with the Conservatives' Emma Best gaining the last list seat. In only two single member constituencies, South West and Croydon & Sutton, did the Greens finish behind the Liberal Democrats, and for the first time ever the Greens finished second in a single member London Assembly constituency (two in fact: North East and Lambeth & Southwark), further confirmation that the Greens are displacing the Liberal Democrats even in London, with the exception of wealthy and well-educated southwestern suburbs stretching from Hampton Court Palace to the Sutton part of St Helier to Wimbledon. Expected Conservative gains of Barnet & Camden and Brent & Harrow from Labour on the back of popular incumbents retiring and favourable demographics did not materialise, nor did a Labour gain of the richest London Assembly constituency, West Central, from the Conservatives. In fact the largest pro-Conservative swing in a single member London constituency was in the supposedly marginal Havering & Redbridge, even though psephologically Havering and Redbridge are moving in opposite directions, with Redbridge becoming more solidly Labour and Havering becoming more solidly Conservative.

As for other parties contesting the London Assembly, the Women's Equality Party lost much of the momentum it gathered in 2016, although it still came fifth despite not fielding Sophie Walker as its lead list candidate this year. Their result also showed that gender politics has been given rather excessive coverage in the media and that in reality the majority of voters do not care for it either way. Amidst the Green surge the Animal Welfare Party did surprisingly well with 1.7% but this made no significant difference; even if all the AWP voters voted Green the Greens would not have won a 4th list seat. Reform UK's efforts failed spectacularly, as they finished behind UKIP who they sought to replace, and once again the divided anti-lockdown vote gave embarrassing results for the London Real and Let London Live Parties, whose combined vote total easily beat that of UKIP's and Reform UK's. The wooden spoon went to the alt-right National Liberal Party, whose 2,860 votes is the lowest ever vote total for any list in the history of the London Assembly.

In contrast to the rest of Britain, turnout for the London Assembly and Mayor of London elections actually decreased compared to 2016, with turnout dipping to 42.7% and 42.2% respectively despite a record number of candidates and party list, partly because many Londoners were still concerned about catching COVID-19; vaccination rates in Greater London are below average at present.