London is about to experience a tectonic shift in the balance of political power, come Thursday’s local elections. As a Camden resident and former Chair of Holborn and St Pancras Conservative Association, I have given plenty of thought to what is going on politically in my borough. No two boroughs are the same but there will be common threads across the capital.
Labour looks set to receive a hiding at the polls, which in Camden, by historic norms, is astonishing. Of fifty-five councillors on Camden Council, forty-five are currently Labour. Until now, almost all would have been considered to be occupying safe Labour seats; now it looks as if, in many cases, the Greens will steal them. To my mind, it’s not surprising Labour being rejected. Our pavements and green spaces are strewn with rubbish, our roads are choked by new traffic measures that simply serve to slow us all down and young men harm each other with knives. Meanwhile, the national Labour Party is an embarrassment to many who voted for them in the General Election. That Sir Keir Starmer is our local MP simply draws attention to the disappointment felt by those local folk – 18,884 of them – who voted for him in the 2024 General Election.
The Conservatives, meanwhile, have three Camden councillors currently, which are likely to have been reduced to one or two by Friday morning. As Chair of HSPCA, I maintained that the social housing estates across the constituency held our potential vote, as dyed-in-the-wool Labour voters began to realise what life is like living under Labour. I led many canvasses in Regent’s Park ward in particular, where I also stood for council in 2022, but harnessing the manpower to have the volume of conversations required to overturn the status quo was simply beyond us as a small association. However, I predict that ReformUK will make inroads there, because they seem able to harness voters’ frustration with Labour (and the Conservatives elsewhere) without a significant presence on the doorstep.
Of course, though, all signs are pointing to a bigger swing from Labour to the Greens. But here’s the worry: the argument for protecting the environment is being successfully championed by other parties – look the UK’s national net zero target and energy policies, for example – so the Greens are having to find other policies to appeal to the electorate. At least, that is the only reason I can find for their pro-Palistinian platform, which has little to do with ecology as far as I can discern. A leaflet sent by the Greens to Tower Hamlets residents promotes their ambition to twin that borough with a Palestinian town. Such a twinning arrangement has not been suggested on any Camden Greens leaflet I have seen, but a vote for the local Greens will bring this closer. Is that what former Labour voters in Camden want?
Very soon we will know exactly what voters in Camden and beyond want, and exactly what they will get until 2030 and the next chance to vote in local elections, aside from the GLA and London mayoral elections in 2028. One thing is sure: it will not be the status quo.
© Joanna Reeves 2026, all rights reserved.