London 8 May: Lutfur Rahman has been re-elected Mayor of Tower Hamlets with 35,679 votes in an exceptionally high turnout election.
The Labour Party was nearly relegated to third place with only 19,454 votes, in a major blow to Labour, with their Mayoral candidate receiving only 231 more votes than the Green candidate who received 19,223 votes.
Lutfur Rahman made history as the first person of colour to be elected as Executive Mayor in the UK in 2010. After being elected again in 2014 and 2022, today marks his fourth election as Executive Mayor.
His party, Aspire, also made history in the 2022 election as the first party other than the Conservatives, Labour or Lib Dems to win a London borough outright.
Jeremy Corbyn and Your Party endorsed Rahman and Aspire and joined the campaign launch, saying Lutfur Rahman has “shown what a transformative local council looks like”, and, writing in the Standard, he urged other councils to “choose to follow the example of Tower Hamlets”.
Rahman’s manifesto will see Tower Hamlets become the first council in the country to introduce free travel for students from low income families, after making history as the first council in the country to introduce universal free school meals for all primary and secondary pupils and to bring back the EMA.
The travel pass for the tube, overground and buses aims to ensure young people starting university or college are not held back from higher education by the cost of travel. The policy draws inspiration from similar initiatives internationally, including New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pledge to scrap bus fares. Under the proposal, the Council would fund travel passes students to use on Transport for London (TfL)’s networks. Currently, bus travel in London is only free up to the age of 16. This would be universal for all students whose families are below a determined income threshold, which would be determined following discussions with TfL, as would the duration of the travel pass.
*Lutfur Rahman, Executive Mayor of Tower Hamlets, said:*
“Thank you to the people of Tower Hamlets for placing your faith in me to continue delivering our groundbreaking cost of living support and transformative programme of affordable and social homebuilding.
“Thank you for choosing the politics of hope over fear and division. Our opponents resorted to increasingly desperate and divisive attacks in an attempt to stop us, inducing AI generated fake videos of me to spread misinformation. A former Tory MP even urged white residents and ‘non-Bengali speakers’ in Tower Hamlets to ‘vote as a bloc’ against me as the ‘favourite son among the Bangladeshi community’.
“In the face of a far right on the march, here in Tower Hamlets, we are proud to be one of the most diverse places in the UK and one of the most cohesive, which elected me as the first person of colour to become Executive Mayor in the UK.
“In 2022, Aspire became the first party outside Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to win a London borough outright. The people of Tower Hamlets wanted an alternative to Labour and Tory austerity, and they helped lead a shift that has now become a political earthquake felt across London and the UK.
“We made history and set an example to the rest of the country as the first council to introduce universal free school meals for all primary and secondary school children, and the first council to reverse national government cuts – from restoring the Education Maintenance Allowance scrapped by the Tories to bringing back Winter Fuel Payments cut by Labour.
“I am incredibly proud of what we have achieved together. I hope the new progressive administrations elected today will follow our lead, adopt similarly transformative policies, and work together to deliver real change for our communities.