Labour Set to Lose Haringey After 54 Years – But What Comes Next Could Be Worse

Labour is predicted to lose overall control of Haringey council – ‘just desserts’ for a party that’s run the borough into the ground over the last 54 years. It was the Local Government Ombudsman’s ‘most rotten’ borough for upheld complaints for the second consecutive year in 2025 and is regularly voted one of the worst performing councils in Britain. Labour has run up a debt of more than £1.6 billion (more than Afghanistan’s sovereign debt), while putting thousands of tenants at potential risk following a finding by the Regulator of Social Housing of “serious detriment” to tenants.

But it could become a whole lot worse. Zack Polanski’s Greens are now polling level with Labour, disrupting the vote share and causing many Haringey wards to become split marginals in the 2026 local elections. As the Greens settle on around 16% share of the nationwide vote, thanks to taking advantage of the susceptibility of a minority to extreme climate alarmism, deranged gender woo and an obsession with Israel, it looks likely they will take many of Labour’s once impregnable wards. But the risk is that these radical Lefty preoccupations will reap a devastating whirlwind if a minority Labour Party administration ends up at the mercy of the Green whip demanding the administration implement more and more bonkers progressivism. Haringey already suffers from Labour’s ill-advised and ruinous VAT on private schools policy, and will soon be clobbered by the ‘mansion tax’. Adding a militant column of Greens to the mix would twist the dial of destruction to 11. Worse still, the neighbouring borough of Hackney is likely to fall to the Green horde, initiating a game of ‘who can pursue the more insane policies’ in North London.

The Israel-Hamas confrontation has driven a rocket sized wedge within Haringey progressive politics. At a recent hustings in a Haringey synagogue, cries of “shame” were heard when Green candidate Jo Koper said: “The Green Party has voted to recognise Israel as an apartheid state.” A local Jewish resident said she had been left “terrified” by the prospect of a Green victory, given antisemitism amongst Green party candidates. She may have been referring to Tony Greenstein, who was recently suspended by the Greens, citing a “documented history of antisemitism”. He was formerly a member of the Labour Party, albeit expelled. The Labour leader of Haringey Council, Perry Ahmet, when questioned about her X posts on the Israel-Hamas conflict, replied: “It’s my personal account and I will post what I like.” The Conservative candidate, Nathan Steinberg, was quite clear, saying he would “go after the current Government and make sure it prevents all these marches”, meaning the anti-Israel hate marches.

The danger is that if Labour is defeated by the Greens in enough wards, it will usher in ‘luxury automated communism’, where criminals run free, your child’s education is an ideological struggle session and shoplifters are greeted with free crack cocaine when they emerge from Tesco with bagfuls of stolen merchandise. To make matters worse, the Greens are proposing to teach children about the ‘triggers of terrorism’ and, following Polanski’s comments on the Bold Politics podcast, perhaps the authoritarian loons will demand schools exclude the children of ‘Right-wingers’. Haringey’s local issues won’t be front and centre of the council’s focus — forget about fixing potholes or regular bin collections. It will be boycotts of Israeli goods, soaring council tax and how we can admit as many Palestinian refugees as possible into our “Borough of Sanctuary”.

On May 7th, Haringey faces a dire choice between a clapped-out Labour and the diabolical Greens. The only hope is that the split in the Left-wing vote allows the Conservatives to come through the middle. That would be glorious.

Stop Press: Westminster City Council could return to the Tories in May, four years after the former stronghold was lost to Labour.