The 2026 local elections in Tower Hamlets are shaping up to be a turning point for the local Labour Party. Once considered a stronghold, the borough now shows signs of slipping from Labour’s grasp. With rising voter dissatisfaction, demographic shifts, and growing support for rival parties, Labour faces an uphill battle to survive. In this article, I examine the key factors, with humour, that point to their crushing defeat.

Silly Season Arrives Early to Tower Hamlets

Back in 1941, Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges gifted the world Ficciones, a mind-bending collection of short stories that helped usher in the genre of magical realism, where the surreal cohabits with the mundane and no one bats an eyelid. Borges was responding to the grim rise of totalitarianism: that charming little system where facts are optional and reality is more of a creative writing exercise. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his 1940 story Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, in which an entirely fictional world quietly supplants the real one, sort of like gaslighting, but with more footnotes.

Fast-forward to July 2025 in Tower Hamlets, and it seems Borges’s legacy lives on, not in literature, but in local politics. The Labour Party, apparently taking a page from the magical realism playbook, unveiled their Mayoral candidate for the 2026 elections through what can only be described as political sleight of hand. Presto! Sirajul Islam appears!

Dues paying local Labour members, those endearing souls who still believed in democracy, were not given a vote. Instead, they were politely emailed the news of Sirajul Islam being imposed as their candidate. It is as if they’d signed up for a surprise subscription box, only it contained fewer ethical principles and more autocratic flair. The whole affair feels less like the workings of a “Democratic” Socialist Party and more like a Banana Republic with internet connectivity.

Tower Hamlets Has Talent!

The announcement was swiftly followed by a flurry of frantic social media activity. A smattering of Labour members took to posting carefully angled selfies of themselves canvassing like their lives and future councillor selections depended on it. Each photo was accompanied by talking points that seemed ripped straight from a magical realist novel: namely, that Sirajul Islam might actually win the 2026 Mayoral election. Bold claim. Bolder still, considering reality hasn’t been consulted.

To the casual observer, it looked less like a coordinated campaign and more like a dress rehearsal for Britain’s Got Labour Councillors, with hopefuls jostling for selection ahead of the festive deadline. Yes, nothing says Christmas cheer like a good old-fashioned internal party scramble.

One particularly enthusiastic aspiring Labour candidate even rang me up. With great sincerity and even greater delusion they insisted that Sirajul Islam would triumph because he had the full backing of his village council in Bishwanath, Sylhet, Bangladesh. I took a deep breath, gently attempted to steer the conversation away from magical realism and back toward regular realism, the kind with numbers and facts.

I pointed out, as politely as one can when suppressing disbelief, that Tower Hamlets has a population of 350,000 people. And that, tragically for the campaign, the vast majority of them do not hail from a small rural village 5,000 miles away, no matter how robust its local support may be. In short: charming as the Bishwanath village endorsement may be, it’s unlikely to sway the electorate at the Columbia Road Flower Market.

People Lie, but Numbers Never Lie

Putting aside the Labour Party’s current flirtation with magical realism, where electoral victory is conjured up through sheer willpower and the occasional WhatsApp broadcast, the hard numbers tell a far less whimsical tale. And, spoiler alert: it’s less Harry Potter, more Titanic.

The statistical tea leaves suggest that Tower Hamlets Labour is on course for a proper electoral thumping in 2026. Not just a bruising, but a full-blown collapse, potentially losing over half of their existing councillors. It’s the sort of projection that should come with a health warning and a stiff brew.

Allow me to back this prophecy with two simple measures of statistical reality, brace yourself, maths incoming.

First up: national polling. Back in the heady days of 2022, Labour was polling at a respectable 40% nationwide. And, lo and behold, that was reflected locally, Labour polled around 40% in Tower Hamlets. Unfortunately for them, the Aspire Party was polling even better at around 45%, which handed them both the Mayoralty and half the council seats. Ouch.

Fast-forward to today, and Labour’s national polling has dropped faster than a dodgy Wi-Fi signal, down to roughly 20%. That’s half of their 2022 support. If we apply the same logic locally and assume Aspire still sits pretty at 45%,then Labour in Tower Hamlets is staring down the electoral equivalent of a house fire with no extinguisher. Half the councillors? Gone. Vanished. Possibly replaced by people who don’t open campaign meetings by quoting Gabriel García Márquez.

So, unless Labour plans to campaign exclusively in Bishwanath and hope for a postal voting miracle, it might be time to exit the magical realism section and dust off a calculator.

The Jeremy Corbyn Effect

Another handy metric, besides reading tea leaves or consulting the ghost of Clement Attlee is the sudden rise of the new political kid on the block: the Jeremy Corbyn Party (https://www.yourparty.uk/). This movement has already amassed over 700,000 sign-ups, yes, seven hundred thousand people have voluntarily joined a political organisation without being offered a free tote bag or a Spotify discount. Some say it could even hit the million mark.

Now, using the dark art of statistical modelling, we can reasonably estimate that around 7,000 of these sign-ups are from Tower Hamlets. Distribute that across the borough’s 20 wards, and you get roughly 350 voters per ward who almost certainly ticked the Labour box in 2022 but will be enthusiastically not doing so in 2026.

That’s 350 fewer votes per ward for Labour, not due to scandal or sabotage, but because their former supporters have defected to Jeremy Corbyn.

Apply that borough-wide and you’ve got yet another grim forecast for Labour: a slow, statistically predictable march towards losing half their councillors. It’s like watching a very polite car crash in slow motion, where everyone’s holding clipboards and talking about “data-driven outcomes.”

Opportunity for Other Parties: The Dawn of a Multi-Party democracy in Tower Hamlets?

Now, the previous estimate assumes Jeremy Corbyn supporters are evenly sprinkled across Tower Hamlets like hundreds and thousands on a Victoria sponge. But let’s be honest, this isn’t Bake Off, and the distribution of left-wing enthusiasm is anything but even. In reality, the new Corbynistas are far more densely packed in the northern parts of the borough, thinning out the closer you get to the riverside wards, such as Wapping, Limehouse and the Isle of Dogs.

This lopsided political geography opens the door (green, obviously) for the Green Party. Having already planted their flag in the Bow area, and made leafy gains over in neighbouring Newham’s Stratford, they’ve now got their eyes in building further on the success in Bow and making inroads into Mile End. It’s all very “from little acorns grow councillors,” and if the wind blows in the right eco-friendly direction, they could be gearing up for a proper run in the next electoral cycle.

Meanwhile, down by the river, Labour’s vote is springing leaks faster than a Thames Water pipe. And who’s lurking nearby with a hopeful grin? Why, it’s the Conservative Party, quietly polishing their rosettes and checking the spreadsheets. With Labour collapsing in key wards and national polling showing the Tories only slightly behind (miraculously, despite themselves), the riverside wards could provide fertile ground. Local elections often serve as a handy outlet for a tactical protest vote, and the Tories do love a good protest, as long as it doesn’t involve glue and a Just Stop Oil banner.

So, while Labour’s bus might be veering off a cliff, both the Greens and Tories have the potential to rev their engines, one electric, one diesel and preparing to seize whatever votes fall off the back.

Labour HQ has already written off Tower Hamlets

As we stumble gracefully toward the 2026 local elections, the national Labour Party finds itself in the unfortunate position of having to defend its 2022 high-water mark. This is a bit like trying to relive your glory days as the President of a student society at University while now managing aisle five at a Sainsbury’s Local. Back then, the polls were looking peachy. Now? Not so much. Throw in a £4 million black hole in the party finances, and it’s safe to say the campaign budget will be held together with blu tack and crossed fingers.

With resources stretched thinner than Keir Starmer’s jokes at PMQs, Labour HQ is laser-focused on triage. Tower Hamlets, bless its chaotic little heart, is nowhere near the top of the priority pile. Instead, the party will be throwing everything it has at holding onto areas where there’s still hope, like the Newham Mayoralty, keeping a grip on neighbouring Islington, and clinging onto Redbridge like it’s the last lifeboat off the Titanic.

Tower Hamlets? That ship has already sailed and sunk.

As one blunt Labour HQ insider told me, somewhere between a sigh and a shrug, “Puru, they don’t give a flying f**k about Tower Hamlets. They know we’re going to lose, which is exactly why they imposed Sirajul, without a members vote.”

And there you have it. Internal democracy in action: a bit like voting for the office Christmas party at Marco Pierre White, only to be told you’re all going to McDonald’s because someone at head office had a voucher.

Far more worrying, in my view, is the enduring image of hundreds of BAME Labour members in one part of a city being denied democracy and autonomy, with little in the way of procedural protection, and the likely message this sends, whilst
a handful of their white neighbours enjoy full membership rights down the road.

Shami Chakrabarti Inquiry into Racism in the Labour Party, 30th June 2016.

RIP Tower Hamlets Labour Party….