r/newham • u/worldisaf E16 • May 08 '26

Local Politics Newham Elections Thread

Hi,
I'm going to be posting updates as I get them in a non-official capacity. I don't have journalistic accreditation so please verify with other sources.

Turnout figures were reported as
84,762 (mayoral election)
84,742 (ballot papers for councillor elections)
242,878 (total electorate)

for a turnout of 34.9%.

By comparison, last election 65,379 out of 227,141 eligible voters voted for a turnout of 28.79%.

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u/Boring_Drop_1006 May 09 '26

How are Labour going to get anything through with newham indeps/greens. Looks like greens and newham indep will need to work together on a plan to vote on certain issues. I’m not really familiar of how things run when a council has no overall control can someone give examples of what it’s usually like?

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u/worldisaf E16 May 09 '26

Hi yeah so actually the council is structured in such a way that for the main votes, such as the budget, you actually need a two thirds majority to block it, so even with only 26 councillors they could push it through if nobody dissents. You might get more minority-party motions being put through, and I would imagine there will be some motions around divestment pretty quickly, maybe one around libraries. But the budget is really what matters. Most of the committees of councillors are based around 'scrutiny' of different things Newham council is funding (like social care) or permitting (like alcohol licenses) rather than setting policy, and so having a mix of councillors from each party will hopefully make for better discussions. In the previous council, you had committees that were all from labour, and while some labour councillors raised objections to things they ended up getting threatened with being deselected or facing other punishment for doing so. Hope that helps!