Hackney residents say rising food, energy, rent and business costs matter more than party politics. In May’s local elections, the Greens won the borough’s mayoral race with 47.2% of the vote and took council control, securing 42 of 57 seats.
Mapps Cafe owner Hussein Hussein said his rent had recently risen by £6,500 and electricity, gas and water bills were going up. At Ridley Road market, greengrocer Les said food had become expensive and that he did not vote.
Jenevieve Treadwell, a policy fellow at the London School of Economics, said Labour’s biggest challenge in inner London came from the Greens. She identified Conservatives across outer London, the Liberal Democrats in the southwest and Reform in the east as other pressures, and said years of negative commentary about London could wear down its residents.
