Greens take Hackney and Lewisham in historic first as five London borough mayors elected
London has elected five borough mayors in this week’s local elections, handing the Greens their first two mayoralties in the capital and reshaping control in some of the city’s most closely watched authorities.
Zoe Garbett captured Hackney and Liam Shrivastava took Lewisham, while the Conservatives held Croydon with incumbent Jason Perry, Labour’s Forhad Hussain won in Newham, and Lutfur Rahman was re-elected in Tower Hamlets for the Aspire Party as the borough awaited full results on Saturday.
Garbett defeated Labour’s Caroline Woodley in Hackney with 35,720 votes to 26,865, a widely expected win that marks a landmark moment for the Greens.
“Today we start the fight back,” she said after the result, arguing that “people are struggling to make ends meet” and were “desperate for an alternative to this failing Labour government.” Green Party leader Zack Polanski hailed the breakthrough and described her victory as the end of “two-party politics.” The Greens’ advance extended to Lewisham, where Shrivastava won 35,265 votes to Labour candidate Amanda De Ryk’s 30,374.
It is the first time the south London borough has chosen a non-Labour mayor; in 2022 Labour won every council seat. Since then, three councillors defected to the Greens and another joined the party after being suspended by Labour. Shrivastava campaigned on plans to tackle inequality and invest locally.
Formerly a Labour member, he left the party in mid-2025, saying it had become “unrecognisable” from when he first joined. He takes office amid significant financial pressures on the council and following criticism from the Housing Ombudsman over housing failures late last year.
The Greens’ local manifesto has pledged to retrofit existing council homes and bring empty homes back into use. Garbett’s win in Hackney followed two previous bids for the mayoralty in 2022 and 2023, both lost to Labour. She also stood for London Mayor in 2024, when Labour’s Sadiq Khan was re-elected.
In the borough, she has vowed to protect Ridley Road and address the cost of living through food co-ops and networks. She has also played a role in drafting the Green Party’s drugs policy, which includes legalising all drugs in the UK. Only five London boroughs have directly elected mayors.
Unlike leaders in other councils, these mayors control executive decisions and appoint their own cabinets to deliver policy. They lead the borough regardless of council composition; in Newham, for example, the council result left no overall control, but Labour will still run the executive under its newly elected mayor, Forhad Hussain.
In Tower Hamlets, Rahman’s re-election consolidates Aspire’s hold on the borough as it awaits full council results. The results deliver the Greens unprecedented executive power in London local government, set the stage for new cabinets to be appointed in Hackney and Lewisham, and signal shifting political dynamics across parts of the capital.