Sadiq Khan showed little sign of being discomfited by the result of the Uxbridge by-election in July. In spite of Keir Starmer imploring him to reflect on his Ulez expansion he went ahead anyway, with a token offer in the form of slightly enhanced grants for motorists replacing elderly vehicles.
But perhaps Khan should have taken more notice of Starmer. A poll by JL Partners for the Sun this morning reveals that Khan’s lead over Conservative candidate Susan Hall has fallen to 3 per cent, with Khan now on 35 per cent of the vote and Hall 32 per cent.
Outer London won it for Johnson twice, and it is outer London which threatens to unseat Khan next year
It is a reminder that London isn’t just made up of Labour-voting metropolitan areas in the centre – Greater London includes large suburban areas where demographics and attitudes are very different. It was outer London that won it for Boris Johnson in 2008 and 2012, and outer London which threatens to unseat Sadiq Khan next year.
One thing which has been rather overlooked in the case of next year’s mayoral elections is that the rules have changed. For the first time, London’s mayor will be decided, like Westminster elections, by a first-past-the-post system. That matters because it will almost certainly favour the Conservative candidate as Lib Dem and Green voters tend to favour Labour as their second preference rather than the Tories. In 2021, for example, Sadiq Khan won by a margin of 10.4 per cent after second preference votes had been added. But in the first round – on first preference votes – his lead was only 4.7 per cent.
No-one really knows how the move to a first-past-the-post system will play out. It is possible that, fearing a Conservative triumph, Lib Dem and Green voters will switch directly to Labour. Then again, the left vote may be split by Jeremy Corbyn standing as an independent. He is currently polling five per cent of the vote.
The other factor to consider is the role of Reform UK. In the 2021 election, Conservative candidate Shaun Bailey was helped by the withdrawal of Reform UK’s candidate, Richard Tice – although there was still an alternative candidate of the right in the form of Laurence Fox. In the latest poll, the Reform UK candidate Howard Cox is polling 8 per cent, which is very likely to be greater than the margin between Khan and Hall.
When Susan Hall was selected as the Conservative candidate in July, I wrote here wondering whether it was the right decision to choose her, a dull but worthy local politician, over a higher-profile candidate. I may have been wrong about that.
With the Tory vote nationally still flagging badly, in spite of a small fillip since Rishi Sunak’s net zero speech last week, the party’s chances of unseating Sadiq Khan perhaps rest on the national party sitting back and letting Hall exploit dissent over Ulez and Khan’s poor record on crime. The party did little to support Shaun Bailey nationally in 2021, either – and he ended up doing a lot better than many expected. It may well turn out that London is the consolation prize that the Conservatives will have to accept next year as their 14 years in government comes to a close.
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