The 2026 Croydon Mayoral contest began in earnest today when Labour finally got round to naming their chosen candidate
EXCLUSIVE by WALTER CRONXITE, Political Editor
The chosen one: Rowenna Davis polled 82% of Labour members’ votes
To the surprise of absolutely nobody – except perhaps Manju Shahul-Hameed – Rowenna Davis has today been named as Labour’s candidate to stand in the Croydon Mayor election next May.
The long-delayed selection process run by London Labour for party members in the borough to choose who from among their number would be their candidate in the 2026 elections experienced further delays this week. Online voting closed on Monday, but there was then a 48-hour further wait to allow postal votes to arrive.
The Labour regional organisers (we use the phrase in the loosest possible sense) seemed to have completely overlooked the potential for digital exclusion of those without smartphones, emails or connections to the interweb, and so had to retro-fit postal voting to their process at the last minute.
Eventually, just after lunchtime today, the puff of white smoke went up. In Labour’s now traditional manner when using the dodgy Anonyvoter system to count the votes, all voting numbers were withheld.
But Inside Croydon understands that Davis won 82% of the votes from a 46% turnout.
“We are happy to announce that the Labour candidate for Mayor of Croydon will be Rowenna Davis. Thank you to everyone who participated in the ballot,” an email from a nameless Labour apparatchik announced.
The fun and games could really begin tonight, when Davis is expected at a meeting of full council, positioned on the opposite side of the Town Hall Chamber from Conservative Mayor Jason Perry.
The last time there was a full council meeting, in February, Perry’s sidekick, Jason Cummings, lost his shit and shouted across the Chamber at Davis when she reminded him that he had voted for the budgets of discredited Labour council leader Tony Newman on three occasions.
In a statement issued by London Labour, Davis said today: “I am delighted to be standing as Labour’s candidate for Mayor of Croydon and so grateful to Labour Party members for their support.
“Croydon needs change. I love my home, but we’re being let down. Our borough is the ‘fly-tipping capital of England’, our streets and neighbourhoods feel neglected, and too many people feel unsafe, while our town centre is a depressing shadow of the delight it used to be. That changes with me – I’ll put people first.
“I’m proud to have won the trust of members with such a clear mandate for change, and now I want to earn the trust of the public.
“Together, we’ll make Croydon a place to be proud of.”
Davis has been a councillor for Waddon ward since 2022.
Her only opponent in the selection contest was Manju Shahul-Hameed, a councillor for Broad Green, and a part of the council cabinet that crashed the borough’s finances so spectacularly in 2020.
Although she has only been a councillor in Croydon for three years, Davis is an experienced political operator, having been a councillor in Southwark and 10 years ago, she was a (losing) parliamentary candidate in Southampton. She is the author of Tangled Up In Blue, described as “an examination of the rise of the Blue Labour movement”.
Late last year, Perry was duly given the option to seek a second term by the talent-free grouping that is Croydon’s Tories, and has been effectively campaigning ever since. The LibDems will be standing Rick Howard, their 2022 candidate, and the Greens have also opted for the same candidate as three years ago in Peter Underwood.
Croydon’s local elections, voting for 70 councillors across 28 wards as well as an executive Mayor, are due to be held on Thursday, May 7, 2026.
Read more: Labour blocks members from questioning mayoral candidates
Read more: #TheLabourFiles: MP Reed, Evans and the Croydon connection
Read more: You can depend on Croydon Labour: they always let you down
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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
I heard the team were absolutely relentless calling up members to vote, as well as being all over social media, there hasn’t been a campaign like this before locally. I think she has to be favourite to be the next Mayor, particularly if Reform field a candidate, which I assume they will. In the traditional Labour heartlands Reform will hurt Labour, in areas like Croydon it will be the Tory vote that is hit.
I read her policies on her website, some actually filled me with a bit of optimism, under Perry there is no hope.
Yep they were relentless alright! But I’m pleased and relieved. Rowenna will be a formidable opponent to the Tories and despite the party being unpopular locally and nationally, she doesn’t have to face an independent (well briefly I guess) candidate that took a huge chunk of disaffected support away from Val Shawcross who would have been so much better than Perry turned out to be.
As for the Tories, Perry standing on his record of what exactly? All they have to run on is some disingenuous tales of 6 years ago… it’s like their “Winter of Discontent” which seems less relevant by the day.
A Government that is polling just over 20% after gaining a landslide election victory with under 34% of the vote demonstrates that Labour is not very popular and not enough time has elasped to forget how truly catastrophic the Newman/Negrini administration was. You have to be a cloud cuckoo party apparatachik to believe that there will be a Labour Mayor in the medium term again and lets be frank this contest was about getting another entry on the CV to put to party members when a safe seat arises for one of these candidates to apply for.
You’re right, but only up to a point. Davis probably could have got selected for a parliamentary seat ahead of last year’s General Election. But she never sought selection (unlike Manju, but that’s another story).
She was waiting for this to come along, and seems very determined that this is the job she wants.
Although why anyone would want to clear up the mess left by Perry and Fisher, Newman and then Perry is anyone’s guess.
That’s a good point, I never really thought of that, she could have easily been MP for Croydon East if she had put herself forward. Being Mayor and trying to turn around Croydon is certainly more of a challenge than the role of an MP, if that’s her reasoning then I kind of respect it a lot.
The headline “82% of Labour members back Davis as 2026 Mayor candidate” in fact means 82% of the 46% who voted.
That means only 38% of eligible voters wanted Rowenna, 8% didn’t.
What happened to the majority of Croydon Labour members, the missing 54%? Were they disenfranchised? Maybe they couldn’t make a decision, decided that neither option was attractive or just didn’t care
Got a life I expect. With no disrespect to Manju Shahul-Hameed her association with Tony Newman would make her such a toxic liability for this particular position that she was a total no hoper and everyone knows it.
I was equally pursued by both candidates but Rowenna Davis’s mouthpieces (I was out when the lady in person called me personally and left a voicemail) relentlessly hammered away at the risks of selecting anyone even tangentially “associated with Newman” to the point where I felt dirty just for randomly standing behind him in the queue for the Allders car park ticket machine once ….
I obediently ticked the Annonyvoter box but whilst feeling that I’d had a more convincing set of “choices” and greater agency the last time a close up magician asked me to pick “any card” randomly out of a pack of 52. After all, at least on that occasion there were many choices presented even if all of them were by sleight of hand exactly the same…
Labour is a failed democratic socialist idea and history will be repeated unless a new party like Reform can capture the public’s imagination. If not, Croydon are so desperate for a half decent leader they will probably shamelessly vote the same party that bankrupted them. This is the Jason Perry effect.
Reform will never do well in London because Londoners are too smart to fall for their nonsense.
And remember, the whole point of the elected Mayor is to have a single individual responsible… all the party does is act as the vehicle.
The Tories keep banging on about her being a protegee of the leader who broke the Council, ignoring the fact that the opportunity to jettison all these ‘Newmanites’ was 4 years ago. She’s got enough distance to genuinely say she’s the ‘clean break’ candidate.
In the words of Blackadder’s Baldrick, does anyone have a ‘cunning plan’ they will state in public prior to an election, to pay down Croydon Borough’s c. £1.4 billion debt with the interest payments that withdraws money from running Council services?
Before anyone asks, I don’t.
Some do. If they have a business analyst background and a track record of causing positive change.
Some things can be shouted about others need to be effected at the time