The forthcoming elections on 2nd May 2024, for the Mayor and London Assembly have echoes of the 2004 Greater London Assembly elections, argues Murad Qureshi, who stood as a candidate for Labour at the time.

While both these elections will be focused principally on London affairs, they are also overshadowed by wars in the Middle East. The Iraq War unleashed in 2003 had a definite impact on the 2004 GLA elections. Now the assault on Gaza, which is likely to continue for some time, will also affect the 2024 London elections.  

The 2004 London elections came a year after the invasion of Iraq on the false premise that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Much of British public opinion had turned against the war and there were massive demonstrations throughout the world.  The 2004 GLA elections were held in the middle of all this and the Iraq war was clearly a major issue on the doorstep of many households across the whole of Greater London.

Many doors were slammed in the face of Labour canvassers in places like Brent, where Labour had lost a parliamentary by-election to the Lib Dems already. In September 2003, Lib Dem Sarah Teather overturned a Labour 13,000 majority on a 29% swing. The Lib Dems benefited from a strong anti-war message that was being articulated nationally by their then leader Charles Kennedy, who had spoken at the 2 million-strong London demonstration earlier that year.

In 2004, Labour lost two Labour Assembly members. Ken Livingstone retained his position as Mayor of London because his opposition to the illegal Iraq war was quite clear. Of the two Labour members lost, one was from the top-up list and the other from the Brent & Harrow constituency. Labour went from nine members down to seven.

The Lib Dems increased to five members, predominantly due to their national position on the Iraq War rather than their policies on London affairs, like Heathrow expansion. In subsequent London Assembly elections they have gone down to two AMs and even down to one on one occasion! 

Having myself been elected at the 2004 election on a very small margin indeed from the top-up list of votes across the whole of London, l know from personal experience how harrowing this election will be for our Assembly candidates. Labour got less than 25 per cent of the vote while the Lib Dems got nearly 20 per cent.  For Ken Livingstone, the returning Mayor of London it meant getting into bed with the Greens to get his budgets and strategies passed through the London Assembly for the whole term, and hence less reliance on the Labour Group.

So as the campaigning moves into full flow for this May’s Mayoral and Assembly elections, Labour’s incumbent, Sadiq Khan, has made his position on an immediate ceasefire clear from the outset. For Assembly members, there could be parallels with the 2004 elections. There are of course some differences: there isn’t a Lib Dem leader like Kennedy making the case against war. But they do have Layla Moran MP giving her own Palestinian family perspective on the continuing revenge massacre taking place in Gaza. 

As the terrible assault on Gaza continues indefinitely into the future, while demands for a ceasefire now are being made globally, we can expect the issue to have a strong bearing on Labour’s performance in the forthcoming London elections, particularly for our Assembly members.   

Murad Qureshi was a member of the London Assembly from 2004 to 2016 and from 2020 to 2021.

Image: Sadiq Khan. Source: https://flickr.com/photos/chabadlubavitch/50704331368/in/photolist-UdWBz5-UuzwhD-Qypzy1-Vvz99B-UVptWb-23Kp6e3-24gz6cw-Zjkdrd-23KpeDu-2hPz6dP-QMZtqZ-VwhrWi-259mcg8-WxVTq6-NuExYa-23NrFs5-PB4kTB-PJQQxE-NB27zY-ZnaJgp-ZnaJDi-2hLDqry-ZnaJzk-ZnaJsX-ZnaJhM-ZnaJev-UGUh46-bnNvb3-UDZ8hN-NZQBWQ-VWqfTX-cLk2rs-QD3rZw-2g8MVqK-N6bMgC-N5SU6V-NApUq3-N6bs1o-2hLHeLr-ZnaJo8-2kfyXcN-2ebRAc5-2iocbeu-WKLMdo-2gzhCx6-2fY7SgD-NHup2D-21vssDN-GDLUtM-GDFdGH. Author: Chabad Lubavitch, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.