The Labour Party remained two seats short of a majority on the London Assembly as the dust settled on a historic set of elections for London.
Sadiq Khan became the first London mayor to secure a third term, and Gareth Roberts became the first Liberal Democrat to win a constituency seat but there was little movement in the London Assembly.
The 25 seats making up the London Assembly, primarily a scrutiny body charged with holding Khan to account, were all voted for on Thursday alongside the mayor.
Labour started Saturday with 11 seats and despite winning West Central from the Conservatives, ended the day where they started.
There were 14 constituencies up for grabs, and Labour won 10 of them, with the Tories holding onto three of their five from 2021 alongside Roberts who took the South West.
However, the proportional representation-based members list saw Labour lose one of their two additional members, as they secured 38.4% of the overall vote, virtually the same as 2021.
The Conservatives, buoyed by damage-limiting wins for Neil Garratt in Croydon and Sutton and Keith Prince in Havering and Redbridge, made back one of their two constituency losses in the additional list.
That left the party, which remained the second biggest in the Assembly, on eight seats.
However, as their vote share dropped to 26.2% from 30.7%, they ultimately were one seat worse off, with the Assembly’s only winners turning out to be Reform.
Despite their mayoral candidate Howard Cox failing to secure the 5% needed to get his deposit back, the party jumped to 5.9% of the list vote, enough to earn them an Assembly seat for the first time.
The Green Party, who slipped to fourth in the mayoral race behind the Liberal Democrats, showed that that was a minor blip in a successful set of local elections, as they held their three list seats with 11.6% of the vote.
And despite Roberts’ win, the Lib Dems’ mayoral candidate Rob Blackie failed to make the list as they lost one of their two additional seats after securing just 8.7%, a marginal increase on 2021.
The next London Assembly elections are slated to be in 2028 alongside the next London mayoral election.
Full results are below:
Labour – 11 (-)
Conservatives – 8 (-1)
Green Party – 3 (-)
Liberal Democrats – 2 (-)
Reform UK – 1 (+1)
Featured image credit: Matt Buck via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 2.0 licence
