Labour and Conservative politicians both blamed voter apathy for low turnout after Conservative Keith Prince was re-elected to the Havering and Redbridge London Assembly for a third term.
Prince received 65,037 votes, a significant lead over Labour’s Guy Williams (49,561 votes) and Reform UK’s Alex Wilson (19,696 votes).
Turnout in the constituency was 42.94%, slightly above the London average of 40.5% and similar to the 42% from 2021.
Jas Athwal, the Labour leader of Redbridge Borough Council, said: “I think people have got so much to worry about at the moment, and apathy does set in – people do start saying ‘you’re all the same.’
“What we have to do is engage a lot more, and we will certainly reflect as we go forward, and we will knock on doors with a renewed vigour knowing that only 43% of the people turned out.”
Prince added: “I think it is about apathy; I think that people are just a bit tired with politics – and I think it’s a great shame.”
Prince replaced fellow Conservative Roger Evans in the seat in 2016 – the only other candidate to hold the position since it was created in 2000.
The news comes as Havering and Redbridge also returned a conservative candidate for the sixth consecutive London mayoral election, with Susan Hall receiving 82,859 votes to Sadiq Khan’s 50,780.
In his acceptance speech, Prince thanked his opponents and their teams for running a clean campaign, and invited all the candidates to join his team for a drink.
It was a different story for the Conservatives in Greater London, where Sadiq Khan won a significant victory over rival Susan Hall.
Asked about his party’s fate across Greater London this afternoon, Prince said: “This morning, if you’d have asked me, I was fairly confident, actually – but that’s politics.”
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