The capital’s election authorities have confirmed all the candidates for standing for election on May 2. And some that won’t be standing, too
The jokes just write themselves. The bloke who used to be sidekick to Inspector Morse’s sidekick would never have solved any murders if he couldn’t get his forms filled in properly on time…
This charming man: Laurence Fox, not a candidate for Mayor
But Laurence Fox, who when he stands up against “wokeness” from an international sportswear firm manages to do so wearing a pair of the same brand’s very expensive trainers, won’t be on the ballot paper for Mayor of London on May 2.
Fox’s major policy pledge in seeking to be elected as Mayor of London was to abolish the role of Mayor of London.
“Little old 1.9% guy”, as the leader of the Reclaim Party refers to himself, citing the percentage of the vote he claimed when he did manage to get his forms in on time in 2021, has, at least, saved himself (or his party) £20,000. And in so doing, Fox has revived memories of another political chancer, Winston McKenzie…
London Elects, which administers the Mayoral and London Assembly elections, said Fox and his party aides had submitted the papers shortly before the 4pm deadline on Wednesday which were subsequently found to contain errors.
Right whinger: Fox always blames someone else
A note from Dawn Conway, the deputy returning officer, explained to Reclaim officials that after the 330 names and details provided with Fox’s nomination had been checked, “The Islington and Lambeth nomination papers only had nine valid subscribers…”, each candidate has to find 10 supporters in each London borough.
“Three further subscribers for other boroughs could not be reconciled to voter register records. The mayoral nomination is therefore not valid.”
The deputy returning officer confirmed that Fox’s candidacy as a London-wide Assembly member was valid. Therefore his £20,000 Mayoral election entry fee was to be repaid while a £5,000 deposit for the Assembly election would be retained by the authority.
Fox claimed that the block on his Mayoral candidacy was “political corruption”.
He said that his team “checked, double-checked and triple-checked our nominations”.
And: “The team made sure that every box was ticked, every T crossed and every I dotted. We will appeal this decision.”
London Elects said: “The Reclaim party candidate’s representatives met with London Elects for the first time on Tuesday March 26, less than 24 hours before the close of the nominations deadline. At that time, the paperwork was incomplete.
‘Chump from the Dump’: Winston McKenzie, in his UKIP days. In 2016, his Mayor campaign ended before it started, and the £20,000 deposit was returned
“Mr Fox’s representatives were advised to ensure that completed forms were submitted well before the Wednesday 4pm statutory deadline. The paperwork was submitted very shortly before 4pm.
“Upon inspection, the nomination forms contained errors which – the deadline having passed – were too late for Mr Fox’s team to correct. The conclusion of London Elects was that the requirements of the nomination process were not completed by the deadline.
“The Greater London Returning Officer is bound by electoral law and has no ability to allow anything other than fully compliant nominations, submitted by the deadline, to stand.”
Fox later tweeted that he was sending in his lawyers to challenge the decision.
“We are confident that all nominations were correct and we have received no response from London Elects in response to our queries about supposed ‘errors’ in the nomination process,” Fox claimed.
It is worth noting that while Fox couldn’t manage to get his forms completed as required in time, a bloke with a bin on his head did. Count Binface is again among the London Mayor candidates.
It is not the first time that a high-profile(ish) candidate has bungled the nomination procedure.
Much the same happened to Croydon wag Winston McKenzie when he had told anyone who would listen that he was running for London Mayor in 2016. McKenzie, who has stood for election for more political parties even than Andrew Pelling, was on this occasion backed by the English Nationalists, and raised the money for his election bond through party donations and crowdfunding.
Now that the 2024 nominations have all been finalised, London Elects last night released three candidates’ lists.
In the candidates for Mayor, Niko Omilana was also disqualified because he failed to complete the forms as required.
London Mayor candidates
Amin, Femy – Address in Buckinghamshire electoral area – Animal Welfare Party – People, Animals, Environment
Binface, Count – Address in Wealden electoral area – Count Binface for Mayor of London
Blackie, Rob – Address in the London Borough of Lambeth – Liberal Democrat
Campbell, Natalie Denise – Address in the London Borough of Brent – Independent
Cox, Howard – Address in Tunbridge Wells electoral area – ReformUK – London Deserves Better
Gallagher, Amy – Address in the London Borough of Bromley – Social Democratic Party
Garbett, Zoë – Address in the London Borough of Hackney – The Green Party
Ghulati, Tarun – Address in the City of Westminster – Independent
Hall, Susan Mary – Address in the London Borough of Harrow – The Conservative Party Candidate
Khan, Sadiq – Address in the London Borough of Wandsworth – Labour Party
Michli, Andreas Christoffi – Address in the London Borough of Haringey – Independent
Rose, Brian Benedict – Address in the London Borough of Hackney – London Real Party – Transform London
Scanlon, Nick – Address in the Royal Borough of Greenwich – Britain First – No To Immigration
Just as with Jason “Each-way bet” Perry in Croydon in 2022, it seems that the Tories’ candidate for Mayor, Harrow hairdresser Susan Hall, is less than confident that she will be elected for the top job, since she is also on the candidate list for London-wide Assembly Members (who are elected based on their party’s overall share of the vote).
Hall has never been elected to the London Assembly based on anyone actually voting for her personally.
Rob Blackie, the LibDem Mayoral candidate, is another to have hedged his bets. Yet Blackie doesn’t even make it to the top slot on his party’s list of London-wide Assembly candidates. Come May 3, or 4, Blackie might just scrape on to the Assembly, in the place of Caroline Pidgeon, who has stood down.
Croydon councillor Ria Patel is on the Greens’ London-wide list, but is really only making up the numbers – at seventh on the Green list, Patel has no prospect of becoming an Assembly Member in 2024.
Home sweet home: Farah London has given her home address as Tower Hamlets, just as she did in 2021
Another figure familiar to some Croydon voters on the London-wide candidates list is Farah London (also known as Farah Farazad), who in 2022 stood as a Mayor candidate for the Taking The Piss Party. There were reasonable suspicions that Farazad/London was not qualified – through residence or a bona fide business – to stand for election in Croydon.
Farazad/London even made public threats that she would sue this website for reporting the matter – which, of course, was all hot air.
In 2021, when Farazad/London stood for election as London Mayor, her place of residence was given as Tower Hamlets. In 2024, on the London-wide Assembly candidates list, Farah London is listed as living in Tower Hamlets. This time, the former Conservative supporter and Taking The Piss Party candidate is standing as an independent.
Under starter’s orders: here’s your surprisingly modest-sized field for the Croydon and Sutton Stakes on May 2. No each-way bets here…
In the Croydon and Sutton London Assembly constituency ballot there is a modest number of candidates, just six, including all the usual (party) suspects, plus a Reform UK candidate from Bexley (the far-right nut-jobs obviously couldn’t find anyone supporting them in the whole of Croydon or Sutton), and a left-ist TUSC candidate who lives in Merton.
Prepare yourselves for a deluge of crassly designed, badly written, unwanted leaflets being stuffed through your letterboxes in the next four weeks…
Read more: Police investigate Mayor candidate for ‘election offence’
Read more: Mystery over what happened to McKenzie’s election donations
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
