Last week, voters across the country delivered their verdict on who should run their councils. In London, Labour suffered significant losses, losing half of the councils it had controlled, despite the city traditionally being a stronghold for the party. Hounslow Labour managed to hold on by a narrow margin, with a Labour councillor describing it to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) as 'surviving a potential apocalypse'. The party lost 20 seats to a resurgent Conservative Party, the Greens, and Reform UK, and its leader, Cllr Shantanu Rajawat, nearly lost his seat, holding on by just tens of votes.
Why Did Labour Take Such a Battering in Hounslow?
Neighbouring Labour groups in Ealing held a slimmer majority but retained more councillors despite losses. Labour held on more comfortably in boroughs like Hammersmith and Fulham, Redbridge, and Greenwich. So why did Hounslow Labour suffer so severely?
The National Issue
A week on, Hounslow Labour appeared to look outward, towing the line that 'parties in government tend to suffer in local elections'. A Hounslow Labour spokesperson stated on Friday: 'Despite a challenging set of results across the country, the residents of Hounslow chose to put their faith in hardworking local Labour candidates to deliver the change we need. We must continue to earn that faith. We will not let them down. Labour's narrow majority is all that stands in the way of a Reform-Tory coalition of chaos, which would put our public services at risk and threaten the values of community, decency, and respect – the values that make our borough the place we are proud to call home.'
Some councillors have gone further in their outward look. The Cabinet Member for Culture, Leisure, and Public Spaces, Cllr Salman Shaheen, took to social media to call for Sir Keir Starmer to resign. In a statement shared on Facebook, he said: 'Keir Starmer says he takes full responsibility, and he should. But this isn't about what's happened over the last two days. The only question that matters as cold winds are rising and the dark is closing in: is Starmer the man to hold it back? Or have the decisions he's made opened the door? The answer has been obvious for some time. And he needs to go for the good of the country.'
Hounslow's Local Scandals
Hounslow Labour entered the election on the back of a series of scandals involving councillors. The former councillor for Hounslow Heath, Farhaan Rehman, was caught parking a Lamborghini in a disabled bay and failing to declare his interests – yet was still allowed by Labour to stand. Former Feltham councillor Hina Mir hired an illegal worker as a nanny and also faced questions over her car parked in a disabled bay. Council Leader Cllr Rajawat was under pressure to explain why he misled people over whether there had been any grooming gangs investigations in the borough. He defended his response in a council meeting, saying he didn't want to unnecessarily cause panic when there was no confirmation grooming gangs were operating locally.
Then there were the series of defections from sitting councillors, which reportedly affected the perception of the group as a whole. According to now ex-Labour councillors who wish to remain anonymous and opposition councillors, it wasn't all national politics. Cllr Jack Emsley, a sitting Conservative councillor, told the LDRS that he was 'worried' when he found little reference to Sir Keir on the doorstep during the campaign, instead hearing about the borough. 'The thing people were really angry about was the perception of sleaze at the top of the council. The number of people who mentioned Lamborghini on the doorstep was very high, not just in Chiswick, but across the borough.'
Many Councillors Were Related
Before the election on May 7, almost a third of Labour councillors in Hounslow were related to one another. While it is not unusual for local authorities to have family members elected together, Cllr Emsley says it came up when canvassing: 'The whole family thing came up time and time again too, particularly in the west of the borough.' A former Labour councillor told the LDRS that the party suffered a loss of activists and people willing to campaign, particularly compared to 2022. This feeling is shared by sitting Hounslow Labour councillors who noticed the difference, though they attribute it to national politics.
Hounslow Labour now has a majority of just one, and the recently re-elected leader, Cllr Rajawat, faces a tougher task governing with such a tight majority. If his previous administration showed anything, it is that unhappy councillors are more than willing to defect to opposition parties or sit as independents. Now, party discipline will matter more than ever at every budget and every Cabinet meeting; all it will take is one disgruntled councillor to derail the Labour administration's plans. It is set to be a very different four years at Hounslow Council.
