The Newham Independents, a local political party, made a landslide gain in a by-election held last Thursday in the ward of Plaistow South. The Plaistow area has fallen within Labour-run councils’ domains since 1919, initially as part of the County Borough of West Ham and since 1965 as part of the London Borough of Newham*. Could this change in the borough elections of 2026?
Labour’s defeat in Plaistow South was just the latest bit of damage inflicted on its Newham fortress. The party won every seat on the council in three successive elections between 2010 and 2018 and has provided the borough’s directly elected mayor since the post’s creation in 2002.
But the 2022 elections were preceded by internal Labour strife in the council chamber, leading to the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) administering the re-selection of mayoral incumbent Rokhsana Fiaz, who had won for a first time in 2018. The election results showed some slippage from the 2018 high point. Although Labour won another massive majority, winning 64 seats, the Greens took two, both of them in the new Stratford Olympic Park ward, and support for Fiaz fell from 53,214 votes (73.4 per cent) in 2018 to 35,696 (56.2 per cent).
Since then, a sense of crisis has gripped the borough, with a financial difficulties leading to an above-normal nine per cent rise in Council Tax, emergency funding from central government and looming “tough decisions” about spending in the light of a £40.6 million overspend, largely the result of demand for temporary housing.
Newham’s housing services received a damning C4 rating from the Regulator of Social Housing indicating “very serious failings” requiring “fundamental change”. There have been frequent changes of chief executive, with three permanent and three interim appointments in post since 2018. The borough has fallen a long way since it was held up as a role model by a sympathetic central government when it was led by the its first Mayor, Sir Robin Wales.
In May 2025 the government issued a “best value” notice to Newham expressing concern about its governance and culture. Paul Martin, the latest chief executive, who was appointed in July, warned councillors that the government imposing commissioners to take charge of Newham over the head of the local executive was a “plausible outcome”.
A row rumbled about the terms of departure of Martin’s predecessor, Abi Gbago, who left with a £230,000 payoff and a non-disclosure agreement. In July 2025, Mayor Fiaz announced that she would be standing down. The Labour NEC panel selected her successor as Labour candidate. Newham may not have a tradition of organised political opposition to Labour, but it has a lively and critical local media including Newham Voices and Open Newham, which receive a steady stream of Town Hall news and gossip.
Labour’s response to the Israeli attack on Gaza after October 2023 added to the party’s problems in Newham. The borough’s population is 35 per cent Muslim and many of the rest are young and have left-wing and pro-Palestine values. In the general election, the Newham Independents polled a significant 20 per cent in West Ham & Beckton and a Gaza Independent polled 18 per cent in East Ham, as Labour’s vote fell by 26 percentage points compared with 2019.
But Newham Labour started losing by-elections even before Gaza became the major issue in UK domestic politics it is now. A Boleyn ward seat was lost to Mehmood Mirza, now leader of the Newham Independents, in July 2023. The independents won again the following November, in Plaistow North. And now comes Plaistow South. In addition, Labour has lost four Newham councillors through defections or suspensions. There are now nine Newham councillors not taking the Labour whip, which the largest since the council term of 1974-78.
The Plaistow South by-election was caused by the death of Labour councillor Neil Wilson, who had represented this ward and its predecessor, Hudsons, since 1994. Wilson’s long service made him “father of the council”. He played a mentoring role for successive intakes of new councillors, which will be much-missed. He was cabinet member for health and adult social care under Mayor Fiaz, and for equalities under her predecessor, Mayor Wales. His Cabinet colleague Sarah Ruiz paid tribute to him:
“Neil was a very dear friend and colleague. His beliefs shaped him and his values, and his life of public service – as a teacher, and as a councillor. Neil was loved and respected by Member colleagues across the chamber, and by all the Council officers he worked with, for his experience, dedication and commitment to the borough and people he loved – and his sense of joy and fun.”
Plaistow South is more or less in the geographical centre of the borough of Newham. The ward is well-defined on the map. Its boundary to the south is the A13 Newham Way. The line follows New Barn Street and Barking Road to the west and north, and then Boundary Road to the west. Boundary Road defines the border between the former boroughs of West Ham and East Ham.
It is divided by the elevated Greenway, which follows the course of Joseph Bazalgette’s Northern Outfall Sewer, one of London’s great Victorian public works. The ward includes Newham Hospital. It contains no stations, but a very high 25 per cent of its working population travels to work on the Underground, mostly from Upton Park or via a bus connection to Canning Town.
Like most of Newham, Plaistow South is a multi-ethnic, predominantly working-class area, but its demographics are a bit distinctive. For an inner London ward, a high proportion of people (76 per cent) live in houses rather than flats, and 41 per cent (above the 33 per cent Newham average) own, rather than rent, their homes.
Fewer people are educated to degree level (35 per cent) than is usual for Newham (40 per cent) or for London (47 per cent). It has a larger white population (35 per cent) than Newham as a whole (31 per cent) and not as many people of Asian heritage (35 per cent rather than 42 per cent). It has a smaller proportion of Muslims (32 per cent) than either of the other two wards previously gained by the Newham Independents (Boleyn has 46 per cent, Plaistow North 43 per cent).
Plaistow South was won by Labour by a large majority over the Conservatives in the 2022 elections, but it was clear from the outset that, although six candidates came forward the by-election, the contest was between Labour’s Asheem Singh and Md Nazrul Islam** for the Newham Independents, both of whom ran proper campaigns with leafleting and canvassing while the other parties were less active.
Islam (pictured) gained the seat with 913 votes (44.7 per cent) – more than twice as many as Singh’s 436 votes (21.3 per cent). Labour’s vote share was down 34 percentage points, its worst London result since the general election except for Redbridge Mayfield in March.
In third place was Lazar Monu for Reform UK, whose 16.1 per cent (329 votes) was a creditable showing. The other three contenders – Nic Motte for the Greens (152 votes), Rois Miah for the Conservatives (123) and Sheree Miller for the Liberal Democrats (90) – all lost vote share. It was the fourth-worst Conservative by-election performance in London since the general election by this measure. Turnout was poor, at 23.1 per cent.
The by-election issues, according to Islam speaking to Newham Voices directly after his win, were housing plus the Council Tax rise, emission-related charges for parking permits (the “parking tax”, as he dubbed it) and charges for bulky waste. In the background were Gaza, the national government and the general state of Newham governance, but most of Islam’s priorities could have come from a pro-motorist, low-tax Conservative.
The perception that groups like the Newham Independents are left-wing relies heavily on their stand on Palestine. Look more closely, and a more complex picture emerges. The local party is a catch-all. It has not had to make the sort of choices that being in government involves.
Labour’s candidate for Mayor of Newham next May is Forhad Hussain, who was a councillor for Plaistow North in 2010-18 and served in Wales’s cabinet. He will face determined competition from the Newham Independents, surely in the form of party leader Mehmood Mirza. The Plaistow South by-election is a sign that Labour’s mighty fortress is perilously besieged from without, and at risk of collapse from within.
Newham is one to watch in the May 2026 elections. Despite its century-long history of Labour municipal control, it is one of the party’s more likely losses.
*Labour won only 30 seats out of 60 in the 1968 elections, but retained an overall majority thanks to indirectly elected Aldermen.
**Md or MD is a common abbreviation among Bangladeshi Muslims for Mohammed when used as a personal name.
Follow Lewis Baston on Bluesky and read all his writing for On London here. Photo from Newham Independents x/Twitter feed.
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