Staff Writer Ewan White examines the significance of the Labour Party’s unprecedented victory in the constituency home to King’s Strand campus at the recent general election.
Both King’s College London’s (KCL) Strand Campus and Maughan Library form part of the parliamentary constituency of the Cities of London and Westminster, as do the obviously much less important Buckingham Palace and St Paul’s Cathedral. However, in recent months, it has not just been the landmarks bringing Central London attention.
A Tory seat since its birth, the winds of change had already begun to swirl around the skyscrapers. A Tory majority of 11,076 in 2010 slipped to 3,148 in 2017 with Labour in second. By 2019, the Tory vote share was as low as 39.9 percent. This time the Liberal Democrats placed second, 3,954 votes from victory. A Brexit backing Tory Party was now vulnerable in this 72 percent remain constituency. Indeed Brexit’s fallout saw former Two Cities MP, Mark Field, step down in 2019 over Boris Johnson’s aggressive approach to leaving the EU. Nickie Aiken, a ‘One Nation’ Conservative, and former leader of Westminster Council, replaced him as MP. The very council that notably turned red in 2022 for the first time ever. However, Aiken announced in February 2024 that she was stepping down due to her husband’s new job in the UAE. So who would take her place?
The Polls
As early as 2022, the constituency was deemed to be a ‘nail biting contest’ by WestminsterExtra. However, as the election neared, confidence of a Labour victory grew. Yet, there remained questions over their majority and who would come second. Survation projected Labour winning only 31 percent of the vote. Only 2 percentage points over the 2nd place Tories. On the other hand, WeThink predicted Labour on 41 percent, with a 20 point majority, but, over the Liberal Democrats. UKPollingReport also saw a Labour victory over the Lib Dems by 6 points, whilst for the FT, this was 10 points. All other available polls predicted the Conservatives, and not the Lib Dems, in second place. Despite this, what was clear was that this formerly true blue seat was likely to turn red. Electoral Calculus went so far as to predict a 91 percent chance of Labour victory.
The Candidates and Main Contenders
Rachel Blake – Labour
The Cambridge and LSE grad joined the Labour Party in 2003. Blake first worked in the NHS before working for the Corporation of London and as a policy advisor to Gordon Brown on planning policy and economic development. Since 2014, she has been a councillor for the Bow East ward on Tower Hamlets Council. She was its deputy leader between 2018 and 2022. She beat out sexual harassment lawyer Deeba Syed and Westminster councillor Liza Begum to become Labour’s candidate in July 2022.
Tim Barnes – Conservative
A UCL graduate, Barnes worked starting and advising businesses. He is the CEO of the UK’s largest charity promoting and starting entrepreneurship. In 2014 he was awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise promotion for life and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Politically, he previously worked on Ken Clarke’s 2001 and 2005 Conservative Leadership bids and was chair of the moderate Tory Reform Group. He was the Conservative candidate in Holborn and St Pancras (Sir Keir Starmer’s seat) in 2017, and a former cabinet councillor on Westminster City Council between 2018 and 2022, when he lost his seat. In March 2024, Barnes beat a long list of candidates with over 200 votes to win the Conservative candidacy. Several other longlisted candidates attracted controversy due to their relationship with the chairman of the constituency Conservative association.
Edward Lucas – Liberal Democrat
The son of philosopher John Lucas, Lucas graduated from the LSE before working at the BBC, The Independent, and as an editor for The Economist. Lucas speaks several languages including Czech, German, Lithuanian, Polish, Russian and French, having worked as foreign correspondent in Berlin, Prague, Moscow, the Baltic States and Vienna. He has also published 5 books, the most famous of which being: The New Cold War: Putin’s Russia and the Threat to Russia and the West, which was published in 2008. He is now senior vice president at the Center for European Policy Analysis. Lucas’ areas of expertise include energy, cyber security, espionage, Russian foreign and security policy and Eastern Europe. In addition, he writes a weekly column in the Times. He was selected as the Liberal Democrat candidate in September 2021.
The Outsiders
Ranjiv Sinha – Green Party
A recent graduate of UCL and Stanford, Sinnha has lived in the constituency all his life and is the director of Hindus for Human Rights UK. He was also running concurrently to be a councillor for the Abbey Road ward on Westminster Council.
Reform UK – Tarun Ghulati
An Indian businessman who moved to the UK in 2003, Gulhati is the Deputy Chairman of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He previously stood as an Independent candidate in the 2024 London Mayoral election.
Hoz Shoffei – Workers Party of Britain
Previously a financial trader, Shoffei once worked in Somerset House on a political project he founded in 2012. He is currently the director of Voiceflow.io, an AI business for call centres.
An academic and journalist, he is the director of the China Media Centre, London, which he founded in January 2005. It now forms part of the University of Westminster, where he is a professor.
John Generic – Independent
Generic ran to campaign for direct democracy.
Tim Hallett – Independent
Representing the Modern Evolutionary Democracy Party, which campaigns for democratic reform.
Matthew Carr – Independent
An Australian who is a former reporter for Bloomberg.
The Campaign
Each candidate began their campaign as soon as they were selected as the candidate. For Edward Lucas, Liberal Democrat candidate, this was September 2021, beginning over 30 months of door knocking. Lucas’ early campaign saw several talks with high profile speakers, including foreign affairs specialist Fiona Hill and financier and political activist Bill Browder. Likewise, the Labour candidate, Rachel Blake, held talks following her selection as candidate. Several of these events discussed renting and housing; the issue that brought her into politics.
From the 15 March 2023 until the 26 April 2024, Lucas produced regular written campaign updates on his Instagram, outlining his activities. Both Labour and the Conservatives produced similar updates. Rachel Blake put out weekly campaign updates between the 29 September 2023 and the 13 April 2024. Selected significantly later than the other candidates, Tim Barnes put out ‘Diary of a Candidate’ videos on his Instagram from his selection onwards. Closer to the election, he produced longer format ‘TimTalks’ videos where he would discuss key election issues.
The key issues of the campaign remained broadly similar across the parties. The mismanagement of e-bikes, a better housing market, local policing of crime, and campaigning for investment for St Mary’s Hospital all drew common cause. Despite all three candidates having been remainers during the Brexit referendum, only the Liberal Democrats included closer ties with Europe within their key priorities. Edward Lucas claimed that Labour “don’t care about Europe the way voters here care about Europe”. However, although not forming one of her key pledges, forming ‘stronger relationships with European leaders’ was down as one of the things she would do as MP that Rachel Blake included on her website. All three main party candidates, as well as the Green Party candidate, participated in issue based interviews with The Fitzrovia News, whilst CityAM neglected the Greens when interviewing the three main candidates in a more personal manner.
Unlike during the London mayoral campaign, the Conservatives did not take aim at ULEZ. Rather, cleaner air was one of Tim Barnes’ six campaign priorities. Barnes instead highlighted the problem of diesel trains, polluting London buses and the over-regulation of clean car purchases.
The issue of polling and each party’s respective position in the race was a hotly contested topic. Labour highlighted tactical voting recommendations showing them as the best option to beat the Conservatives and emphasised that ‘only Labour… can beat the Conservatives’. Blake further sought to reach out to former Conservative and Liberal Democrat voters. Likewise, Blake also gained the endorsement of the 2010 Liberal Democrat candidate for the Two Cities, Naomi Smith. To entice disaffected Tories, Rachel Blake produced a campaign video with former Conservative minister Nick Boles who endorsed Labour nationally.
Also trying to mobilise ex-Tories were the Liberal Democrats who claimed that squeezing the Tories would help them beat Labour. This involved leaflets that highlighted their close second place in 2019, but also literature highlighting a rather different picture, (and not just the cartoons on their leaflets). One leaflet deliberately showed them 18 points behind Labour in the polls, but still in 2nd place, captioned: “It’s Lib Dem or Labour in our area”. They sought to distinguish themselves from the other two main parties. Lucas compared Labour or Conservative as a choice to “coke or pepsi”. Lucas emphasised that unlike his “main rivals“, he was not a “professional politician“, but a journalist who had been “arrested, beaten, interrogated and deported”, and who could not be bossed about. He underscored that he would not be “one Labour MP among hundreds”. Instead he would be a “strong new, independent voice”.
The Conservatives chose a similar approach with the tagline ‘your strong local choice’. Barnes portrayed himself as the most local of the candidates. He embraced the local issue of saving Belgravia’s last post office. He took aim at Rachel Blake, labelling her ‘Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour candidate from Tower Hamlets’. As for the Liberal Democrats, Barnes highlighted the fact that Edward Lucas lives in Chelsea. Barnes highlighted that he lived in private rented accommodation, in a flat, on his own, like most others in the constituency. He argued that because neither the Labour nor Liberal Democrat candidates did the same, he could “relate much more” to voters.
However, as noted earlier, both Blake and Lucas had begun campaigning since 2022 and 2021 respectively. In the case of Lucas in particular, this allowed him to engage deeply with local issues. He even managed to deliver change as a candidate. Whether getting BT to move a Marylebone phone box used by sex traffickers, getting social housing for a family wrongly denied it after having waited 20 years, or forcing a council U-turn on a crackdown on Covent Garden street performers, Lucas managed to do more than just get the vote out.
What Lucas could not get out, on the other hand, were the Liberal big beasts to support his campaign. This was unlike both the Conservatives and Labour, who both mobilised senior figures to the constituency. Most prominent of these was the former Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak. Also visiting for a fundraiser was former home secretary James Cleverly, whilst former health secretary Victoria Atkins visited St Mary’s hospital. Also visiting the ‘high risk repair hospital’ was the new Labour Health Secretary Wes Streeting. The now Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, visited Soho. She discussed plans for neighbourhood policing and to combat violence against women and girls. Other senior Labour figures who visited included current ministers Annelise Dodds and Jonathan Reynolds. Estimated to rank 54th on Labour’s list of target seats, it’s no surprise the ‘Two Cities’ saw many important visitors.
From early June onwards, various hustings were held. The first at the Golden Lane Estate with all three major parties, the Greens and the SDP present, focusing on international affairs. In contrast, the second hustings at the Lillington Gardens Community Centre, with only the main parties, focused on local issues. Hustings with the West Central London’s Citizens Assembly and at Harris Westminster 6th Form then followed. The 19 and 20 June saw back to back hustings: a Jewish community hustings was held; the residents’ associations of Soho, Marylebone and Fitzrovia then quizzed the main parties. Hyde Park Crescent played host next on the 24 June. However, for a constituency with the most rough sleepers in the UK, especially relevant was The Big Issue’s homelessness hustings on 27 June. Hosted by its editor, it was attended by all the three main parties, Reform UK and two independent candidates.
The Results
The results of the election came in at around 5am on the 5th July 2024 can be found below:
Rachel Blake, Labour, 15,302 votes, 39.0%. Change versus 2019, +10.1 %
Tim Barnes, Conservative, 12,592 votes, 32.1%. Change versus 2019 -8.2%
Edward Lucas, Liberal Democrat, 4,335 votes, 11.1%. Change versus 2019 -17.1%
Rajiv Sinha, Green, 2,844 votes, 7.3%. Change versus 2019 +5.4%
Tarun Ghulati, Reform UK, 2,752 votes, 7.0%. Change versus 2019 +6.8%
Hoz Shafiei, Workers Party of Britain, 727 votes, 1.9%. Change versus 2019 n/a
Liz Burford, Rejoin EU, 352 votes, 0.9%. Change versus 2019 n/a
Hugo De Burgh, Social Democratic Party, 110 votes, 0.3%. Change versus 2019 n/a
John Generic, Independent, 110 votes, 0.3%. Change versus 2019 n/a
Tim Hallett, Independent, 55 votes, 0.1%. Change versus 2019 n/a
Matthew Carr, Independent, 34 votes, 0.1%. Change versus 2019 n/a
Rejected votes, 202
The two most striking aspects of the results were the low turnout and the collapse of support for the Liberal Democrats. Despite the active campaigning and many events through the constituency, turnout fell well short of the predicted 66.6 percent. Likewise, voters seemed to pay little heed to Edward Lucas’ activism, with sources telling the BBC’s local democracy service that Liberal Democrat support had ‘collapsed’. Voters chose Labour instead. The loss of the seat for the Tories left them without any MPs in Central London for the first time in history, and, Labour’s victory gave them their first ever MP for the seat.
Reactions to the result were cordial. Edward Lucas congratulated Rachel Blake, whilst saying it was “a great great night for Lib Dems across the country!” Tim Barnes said he was not surprised by the result, and said that the constituency would be a “two horse race” next time. He argued it was “immaterial” whether Rishi Sunak resigned and that his party should avoid lurching to the right. He argued that Reform UK’s poor performance showed voters had turned their back on “populist politics”. Less content with Reform’s performance was the Greens’ Ranjiv Sinha, who found it disappointing to only surpass Reform UK by 92 votes. Sinha also came last in the Abbey Road Ward by-election, which was won by the Conservatives. Victorious Labour candidate Rachel Blake told WestminsterExtra that housing and homelessness were her immediate priorities.
Rachel Blake used her victory speech to declare that the result showed that it was “time to move on”. More of it can be found below:
“Yesterday, people across the country had their say and we should never, ever take this for granted… A decision has been made and now it is time to move forward.
“I know many of you have voted Labour for the first time ever, voting Labour to remove the Conservatives from office, I know this. We’ve endured 14 years of Conservative-led government.
“They have presided over years of chaos and failing to implement even their own promises… Homelessness is rising. Waiting lists are rising. Bills are going up and for too long, our country has been held back.”
BA European Politics Student
