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Election countdown: splintered voting could see Davis win

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Less than one month until election day, our Political Editor, WALTER CRONXITE, looks at the latest polls and by-elections to assess – or guess – how the Croydon electorate will vote for executive Mayor on May 7

While the government Commissioners worry about Croydon’s voters not voting Labour or Conservative, the Greens are emerging as the leading third-party challenger in the Mayoral election.

The Commissioners, appointed last summer by the Labour government because Tory Mayor Jason Perry had lost control of the council’s finances, used their first report to Whitehall to express a view over the outcome of the local elections, which are being held on May 7.

Voting shares across the country, for decades conventionally split between the two biggest parties, have been splintering between three, four and even five parties in recent by-elections, council elections held last year and in national polling since.

This, the Commissioners, headed by Ged Curran, wrote in their report, risks “the potential for May’s local elections to result in a more fragmented and complex make-up of the council”.

Commissioner: Ged Curran

This ought to be seen as entirely inappropriate and a very poor lapse of judgement by the Commissioners, whose job it is to ensure that the council’s senior officials are undertaking their work properly in reducing the Town Hall’s £1.4billion debt, and not to lecture the public about how they exercise their democratic rights on polling day.

It is, after all, that same voting public who have been saddled with one of the highest rates of Council Tax in London, and who are shouldering the burden of the Commissioners’ £1,000-plus day rates. They are entitled to express an opinion at the polling stations in May on how they would like things to be managed over the coming years.

It is difficult enough as it is for candidates from outside the usual duopoly to break through and win even a modicum of power in Croydon, even without such high-handed opinions offered by government appointees. In 2022, Croydon Council elected one LibDem and two Green councillors – the first time in 20 years that parties other than the Reds or Blues had managed to win seats at the Town Hall.

The local elections in less than one month’s time seem likely to deliver up more change among the borough’s 70 council seats, with our prediction from a fortnight ago, based on the latest national polling then, suggesting that 12 councillor seats could go to fringe parties this time round, including for the first time some to Nigel Farage’s Reform Ltd.

Since 2022, the election of councillors in Croydon has been rendered an electoral sideshow: it is the executive Mayor who holds power, with the councillors in the Town Hall Chamber now just a support act.

And our latest bit of number-crunching suggests that despite the unpopularity of the Prime Minister and the reputation of her party colleagues in Croydon previously, Labour’s Rowenna Davis seems likely to be declared Croydon’s new Mayor on May 8.

Davis could win with the votes of barely 1-in-4 electors in Croydon, thanks to that shift in support for third parties such as the Greens, Reform and the Liberal Democrats.

All change: recent national polling predicts that the red-blue duopoly is in for a tough time at the local elections, whatever Croydon’s Commissioners might say

There have been many indicators that grifter Farage’s political momentum may have already peaked. Even offering voters financial bribes (and handing the dummy cheque for energy bills to his old pals) having failed to work.

The Greens won a by-election for Kent County Council this week, from Reform Ltd, who only took control of that authority 12 months ago. It is worth noting that the Cliftonville by-election in Thanet was caused by the jailing of the Reform councillor, found guilty of controlling or coercive behaviour towards his wife. So much for Farage’s party’s vetting process…

Here in Croydon, the Conservatives remain weak in the north of the borough while Labour’s strong tide in the General Election in Croydon South in 2024 appears to have ebbed away. The national poll standings for the Conservatives and Labour have fallen by half since 2022. It seems likely that the Red-Blues between them will do well to get half the votes in the Croydon Mayoral election.

That takes into consideration that the drop in support for Labour in London is less acute than what is happening nationally. Croydon is – or at least, has been – one of the strongest Red-Blue duopolies in the country.

Green boost: Zack Polanski has helped Croydon Greens’ candidate Peter Underwood (left)

But the Greens could crack this in the Mayoral election, despite the antithesis for the position that is held by Peter Underwood, their candidate.

The transformation in the Greens’ standing under the leadership of Zack Polanski – such that they are now winning council by-elections in Kent – could see them leap from a pretty dismal fifth place in 2022 to being the biggest challengers to the established parties of power.

Trump’s war on Iran and other conflicts in the Middle East have damaged the Reform vote. In south London, the LibDems are focused on defending Sutton and winning in Merton, so have little time (or money) for campaigns in Croydon.

In national polls, the Greens have edged 2.5% closer to Labour since late March (the timing of our previous election prediction). Greens are seen by many as the way to express concerns about the Middle East conflict – the authoritarian Labour government was rounding up anti-genocide demonstrators in central London again today.

Yet Labour in Croydon has some reasons for optimism.

The absence from the ballot paper of Andrew Pelling, fourth in 2022 as an anti-Labour independent mayoral candidate, lets loose almost 7,000 Pelling votes that could transfer to Labour this time. Pelling, who will be standing in his 19th Croydon election on May 7, and for his fourth different party, hopes his voters will support Liberal Democrat Major Howard (Pelling is a LibDem council candidate in Shirley North).

Bad business: libraries, cinemas and shops have all closed under Jason Perry’s disastrous mayoralty

All that the Conservatives have for their campaign is, again, the disastrous management of the council by Labour’s Tony Newman and his “Gang of four”. Unfortunately for the Tories, after 33% Council Tax hikes and another £500million of Exceptional Financial Support required from central government, the public has seen that Jason Perry’s mayoralty over the past four years has been equally disastrous. And the Mayor has managed to do that all on his own…

Labour in Croydon underperformed their Greater London Labour vote change by 6.7% in 2022. The Davis campaign feels that they are going to regain all of that lost ground. It’s a bounce back from the Newman effect as voters forgive or, more likely, forget Labour’s past troubles. Much has changed since those dark days of 2020.

The 2026 election comes down to whether the Faragists take more votes from the Tories than the Greens take from Labour.

But with leading Labour councillors being stood down by the party’s regional officials in secretive moves that have bypassed grassroots members in Croydon, and censorship of Davis’s election manifesto, over the next month, opponents will be able to claim with some force that faceless party officials will be calling the shots in Croydon, not Davis.

Davis felt that discretion was the better part of valour when it came to removing reference in her manifesto to the Gaza genocide and the use of the council’s pension fund investments.

Censored: Labour’s Rowenna Davis

The story has been picked up by the Daily Express, accusing the Davis campaign of pandering to “far-Left extremes”. Hardly. But, this wild allegation may help Blue Labour Davis from losing many more left-wing voters to the Greens.

With the postal votes dispatched to voters in just over a week, the current standing of the Mayoral election, based on London polling and local factors appears, to be:

Rowenna Davis, Labour 25%
Jason Perry, Conservatives 23%
Peter Underwood, Greens 22%
Ben Flook, Reform Ltd 18%
Richard Howard, LibDems 11%
Others 1%

Labour remains the favourites with the bookies, but 11-1 for the Greens looks generous odds. As with today’s Grand National, much will depend on how the contenders handle the final furlongs…

Read more: Labour forces Davis to erase ‘genocide’ from her manifesto
Read more: Commissioners: council lacks focus and robust delivery plans
Read more: Take a step back in time for the start of the election campaign
Read more: Perry agrees to pay £½m to reclaim flats at Red Clover Gardens
Read more: Four black women among six councillors rejected by Labour

For more information on where to vote on May 7 and who is standing for election, use our widget here:


Find election information at
WhoCanIVoteFor.co.uk

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