In the London Assembly elections on 2 May, Labour won, for the first time ever, both the West Central constituency seat and the party list vote for West Central.
James Small-Edwards won the AM (assembly member) seat with 46,831 votes, receiving 4,253 more votes than Conservative Tony Devenish, who had been the West Central AM since 2016. In percentage, this gave James 37.7% while Tony Devenish reached 34.2%. Among the other candidates, the LibDem candidate received 11.7% and the Green candidate 10%.
At the same time, Labour also won the party list vote for West Central: 45,102 votes against Tories’ 39,049, a majority of 6,053 votes. In percentage, Labour won with 36.2% while the Conservatives managed to get 31.3%. The remaining 32.5% were spread among 13 parties, whereof only two (LibDem and Greens) managed to get more than 5%.
Both these wins are firsts. Since the creation of the London Assembly in 2000, West Central was always won by the Tories, and before 2016 they often won more than 50% of the votes.
James will be a brilliant AM and advocate for our area, bringing much-needed positive change to residents. In his acceptance speech, James emphasised that continuing support for the cost of living crisis will be one of his key aims on the London Assembly, alongside more affordable and social housing and action to combat climate change.
James is also a Labour councillor for Bayswater on the Westminster City council since 2022, and he represents Bayswater in the Kensington and Bayswater parliamentary constituency that was created in October 2023, when the two Westminster wards Bayswater and Lancaster Gate were merged with the Kensington constituency. As such, he is heavily involved in our efforts to make Joe Powell our next MP.