Greens seize Labour strongholds in south London election surge

On Friday, the political map of south London shifted in a way that would have seemed unthinkable just years earlier. The Green Party, long dismissed as a fringe force in British politics, swept into two of Labour's most secure territories—Lewisham and Lambeth—and claimed control. In Lewisham, where Labour had held the largest party status since 1971, the Greens won 40 seats and a majority outright. The reversal was stark: in the previous election just four years ago, Labour had won every single seat on the council. In Lambeth, the story was similar if slightly less decisive. The Greens gained 27 seats to become the largest party, though they fell short of an overall majority. Still, it marked the first time since 2006 that Labour had lost control of the borough.

These weren't isolated victories in the capital. Across England, the Greens gained more than 440 councillors—their best national performance ever. They won their first-ever elected mayors, claiming both Hackney and Lewisham. By the end of the night, they controlled three London councils in total: Lewisham, Hackney, and Waltham Forest in the northeast. The party made substantial gains elsewhere too. In Norwich, they took control of the city council from Labour. In Hastings, they seized power in a council that had previously been hung. Across Manchester, Oxford, Southampton, Exeter, Salford, and Islington, Green candidates picked up seats that had long belonged to the traditional parties.

Zack Polanski, the Green Party leader, stood before cameras on Friday and declared that the old order was finished. Two-party politics, he said, was "dead and buried." The emerging contest, he argued, was no longer between Labour and the Conservatives—it was between the Greens and Reform UK. It was a bold claim, and one that reflected the seismic shift the results appeared to represent. The Greens' gains, while substantial, were still outpaced by Reform's performance nationally. But in the councils and cities where Greens had concentrated their effort, they had achieved something that seemed impossible just months before: they had displaced Labour from strongholds held for generations.

What made these results particularly striking was not just the scale of the Green advance, but what it revealed about Labour's vulnerability in its traditional heartlands. Lewisham had been a Labour fortress for more than half a century. Lambeth had been Labour territory since the early 2000s. These were not marginal seats or swing areas—they were the bedrock of the party's power in the capital. Yet voters in both boroughs had decided, in large numbers, to try something different. The Greens had positioned themselves as the party of climate action and social justice, and in these affluent, educated, urban areas, that message had resonated.

The results also signaled a broader realignment in British politics. The two-party system that had dominated for decades—Labour versus Conservative—was fracturing. Reform UK had surged on the right, drawing protest votes and disaffected Conservatives. The Greens had surged on the left, drawing younger voters, environmentally conscious voters, and those dissatisfied with Labour's direction. In the councils that mattered most to the Greens, they had won decisively. What happens next will depend on whether they can consolidate these gains, hold these councils, and translate local success into national influence. For now, though, the political landscape of south London belongs to them.