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The capital is now the only place where the Conservatives are regaining ground
A strong policy offer for the so-called ‘HENRYs’ is not a nationally competitive pitch
London risks becoming politically alienated from the rest of Britain
I was in a field in Kent as the local election results came in. As an unapologetic adherent of the metropolitan elite, it’s not my natural environment. But over the weekend it became increasingly clear that I’m not the only Londoner who’s out of touch with the rest of the country.
The capital is now the only place where the Conservatives are regaining ground – winning back Westminster, becoming the largest party in Wandsworth and holding off a challenge from Reform in Bexley. Tories were jubilant – with Kemi Badenoch hailing ‘green shoots of Conservative recovery’ – but they shouldn’t be. Overall, their vote share and number of councillors fell. Success in London is a reflection of how different voters here are to their fellow Brits – not of Conservative popularity.
London is the country’s economic engine and its most productive region. That means both that its citizens have a natural understanding of the necessity of growth but correspondingly have not been at the sharpest end of decline (though that is changing). Badenoch has a strong policy offer for so-called ‘HENRYs’ – High Earners, Not Rich Yet – with abolishing business rates and stamp duty. But I have often had the impression that my wealthiest neighbours treated voting as a luxury, knowing it would hardly affect them whatever the outcome. Conservatives may now be operating in a similar way. As William Atkinson put it in The Spectator, ‘they’re the sort of people happy enough with 14 wasted years to think Tories still deserve a hearing, or consider Farage too declassé to go over to Reform’. It’s a comfortable place for people like me, but it’s not a nationally competitive pitch.
That five Green councillors lost to the Lib Dems in Richmond, one of the richest boroughs, perhaps indicates that even plutocrats are now taking the threat of that party seriously. Green victories, including seizing overall control of Lewisham and winning two borough mayoralties should worry Londoners. And not just because the party is led by Zack Polanski, who repeatedly claimed he could hypnotise women’s breasts bigger, exaggerated his CV in multiple areas and has questions to answer over his tax affairs. Much of London’s Jewish population is also unlikely to welcome the election of councillors for whom Gaza was a central campaign issue. One does question the Greens’ fixation on this single foreign policy issue, and what it has to do with the environment – or bin collections.
But the more immediate practical effect of having Green councils and more councils with no overall control will be to make the housing crisis worse. Green policy includes reinstating the 35% affordable housing requirement – which would make most development unviable to build – and rent controls. In a city where rent can account for 50% of income and where new housebuilding has collapsed by 72%, this is suicidal.
In the nine councils where no single party is in control, decisions will be much harder to make. Many boroughs will have to form coalitions between fierce ideological opponents and awkward personalities. In Wandsworth, for example, Conservatives hold 29 seats to Labour’s 28, with a single kingmaker who defected from the Tories citing ‘toxic internal politics’. Tony Travers of LSE’s Department of Government has warned of ‘a risk that anti-development voices become louder because it’s easy to win popular votes by opposing development, much less easy to win them by being pro big new buildings and loss of housing’. Indeed, in Enfield, the Greens have already formed a bizarre pact with the Conservatives to oppose Green Belt housing.
Reform UK’s surge across the country compared to a relatively weak performance in the capital is concerning too. London risks becoming its own island of strangers, politically alienated from the rest of Britain. That’s dangerous because MPs – and to a greater extent commentators, cultural figures and others who believe they shape the prevailing mood – spend most of their time here. That’s why so many were astonished by the result of the Brexit referendum. It might also explain why the promises of that result were so badly betrayed, leading to the fracturing of the old two-party system these elections confirmed.
Britain needs politicians who recognise that the capital is the immediate jewel of the nation’s soul. But any future Farage government will have no incentive to do so if he can’t win the votes of its people. He will instead be tempted to continue the abject ‘levelling up’ agenda which has plainly failed to produce growth.
The same applies to the future direction of the Labour Party – whatever that may be. If Manchester proves anything, it’s that the agglomeration effects from a large graduate population and rich cultural heritage can also benefit from strong local leadership. But if Andy Burnham or Angela Rayner succeeds Keir Starmer, it’s difficult to see how their politics of Northern grievance will help London. And that’s before the bond markets have their say about an even more left-wing government.
If there’s hope for more forceful and coherent leadership for London, it must come from the upcoming mayoral election in 2028. London’s progressive voting bloc is bigger than its right-wing one but more divided. This is an opportunity for the Conservatives, especially given the contest will be decided by supplementary vote. They just need to pick the right candidate. Not an aristocrat for whom politics is a hobby, much like his current pastime of sculpting elephants. Not a man who has to withdraw from the selection process following a groping allegation, to be replaced by a woman whose chief qualification was not being him.
Perhaps a fresh new face or perhaps a moderate member of the current shadow cabinet with serious government experience; one who may be persuaded not to stand again in an Essex constituency threatened by Reform? Choose cleverly.
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Columns are the author’s own opinion and do not necessarily reflect the views of CapX.