“I feel like politics in Hackney has become quite disconnected from residents”
Voters in Hackney will be going to the polls next May not only to elect new councillors, but also to elect the borough’s mayor. When the post was last elected – in a by-election in 2023, the Greens picked up 24.5 per cent of the vote and came second.
This time around, they’re campaigning to win it. Their candidate is Zoë Garbett, who is currently a councillor in Hackney and a member of the London Assembly. If she does get elected as the next mayor, she would be the first Green to become a directly elected mayor anywhere in the country.
In an interview at the Green Party’s autumn conference in Bournemouth, Garbett told Left Foot Forward that this is a very real prospect. “I think this a real moment for the people in Hackney who really are fed up with being told that things are going to change and they’re not changing, and feeling let down by their local representatives either directly through things like failing housing repairs services, or by feeling like they’re not being represented”, she said, before adding: “We’re having so many conversations on the doorstep with people who have heard about the Green Party, who know what we’re about locally and are excited to get behind something that’s different.”
The campaign the Greens are running is clearly ambitious. In September, they organised what has been billed as the biggest day of campaigning the party has ever run. Garbett told Left Foot Forward that on this day 375 people delivered surveys to more than 80 per cent of residences in the borough.
The campaign is one thing, though, and running the borough as its mayor is another. What would a Green Party run Hackney look like? “What I’m most excited about is really changing the relationship with residents,” Garbett said, before going on to say: “I have witnessed the erasure of community activism and community groups and stories of Hackney, I have witnessed people feeling really excluded from what happens in the town hall.”
She then added: “I feel like politics in Hackney has become quite disconnected from residents, so I’m really looking forward to people feeling like they are much more a part of what happens in Hackney. So we’re talking about opening up the town hall, meaning more people coming in, but also more transparent information going out so people can really trust what we’re doing, what’s happening in the borough.
“We also want to just improve those basic services, making sure housing repairs are being delivered properly, people are getting the services they need, and then being that loud voice to government which is a bit I think that has been a huge failure. So, things like austerity and the lack of money that keeps coming down to Hackney, that’s really really letting people down, so really long waiting lists for social care and services, loads of people in temporary accommodation. And I just think this Labour council has been grateful for the money it’s received rather than angry and loud about what more could happen.”
Garbett also said that a significant step she would want to take as mayor is to divest Hackney Council’s pension fund from “any companies complicit in the genocide in Gaza”.
One of the challenges Garbett may face if she does become the next mayor of Hackney is that it is unlikely that the council elections will give the Greens a majority in the town hall. As such, she may be seeking to wield the borough’s executive power without a supportive council and face significant opposition from other parties who make up the chamber.
Garbett is cognizant of this. She started by saying: “I think it’s really exciting the momentum the campaign’s gathering across the borough. With the Hackney Independents, and if we do really well and get [the mayoralty], I do think we’ll see a significant number of Green and Hackney Independent Councillors.”
However, she went on to add: “If in the scenario you’ve described around the majority, we’ve always shown collegiate politics. As Hackney Greens, we’ve worked collegiately in our scrutiny meetings, on motions and focussed on delivering the best for Hackney residents. So if Hackney residents have voted in Labour councillors, we will do our best to work with them to deliver a budget and deliver services that work for them.”
If Garbett is successful in her campaign, it would be an historic moment for the Greens. But the party is very clearly bullish about its prospects in next year’s mayoral races. Upon entering the conference venue this year, attendees are greeted with pull up banners featuring a number of the party’s candidates who are standing in them, and there’s a session in the conference agenda titled ‘2026: the year of the Green mayor’.
So next May, if you’re looking for significant election races to watch – keep at least one eye on the Hackney mayoralty.
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward
Image credit: Steve Eason – Creative Commons
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