Greens Perform Strongly Across Ealing Constituencies

Labour holds all three seats with reduced vote share

Ealing's newly elected MPs - James Murray (Ealing North), Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) and Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton)

July 5, 2024

As widely anticipated Labour comfortably won all three seats in the Ealing area although the party’s attempts to manage expectations seem to have been justified with its vote share falling across the board.

The party’s three candidates performed less well than in 2019 and party insiders are blaming a fall in turnout and more options on the ballot paper for voters with some Labour supporters choosing to make a protest vote secure in the knowledge that it would not affect the choice of MP.

In Ealing North Labour’s James Murray won with a majority of over 12,000 with 47.8% of votes cast below what the polling companies were predicting and his 56.5% share in 2019.

The Conservatives, with their candidate Maria Khan, performed better than low expectations and Natalia Kubica delivered third place for the Greens ahead of Leon Harris for Reform. Some polls had tipped Reform to take second place in the seat.

Sam Habeeb of the Workers Party took fifth place ahead of the Liberal Democrats who generally had disappointing returns in the local area.

Turnout in the Ealing North constituency was 58%, nine percentage points down from 2019.

Deirdre Costigan in Ealing Southall got precisely 23,000 votes which was 49.1% of those cast. This was well below the 60% achieved by Virendra Sharma in 2019 although more in line with Labour’s historic vote share in the constituency.

Ms Costigan said after the result announcement, "It is a huge honour to have been elected to represent the people of Ealing Southall.

"I will use my voice in Parliament to stand up for all of my constituents and to always give a voice to the voiceless.

"Thank you Ealing Southall. I promise to work tirelessly for you."

Neil Reynolds for the Greens did well finishing in third place although even this outcome might have been slightly disappointing with one of the pollsters suggesting the party could take second place.

Georgie Calle did slightly better than the very poor result predicted by the polls with 7,207 votes representing 15.4% of those cast.

There was a strong performance from the Worker’s Party Darshan Asad who took 9.1% of the votes confounding the pollsters’ predictions and finishing ahead of the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK. The 5.5% vote share for the latter would have been disappointing given that one polling company had the party’s candidate Steve Chilcott taking second place.

Turnout in Ealing Southall was 60%, 8.4 percentage points down on 2019.

Rupa Huq, Labour’s candidate for Ealing Central and Acton has won a fourth term as the area’s MP.

She received 46.8% of the vote to gain a majority of 13,995. This represents a swing away from the party of 4.2% but its majority has been increased due to a bigger fall in the vote share of the other main contenders. Dr Huq first won the seat from the Conservatives in 2015 by less than 300 votes but this fourth win confirms the seat as a safe one for Labour.

She said afterwards on social media, “Thank you Ealing Central and Acton (now including the @LBHF wards of Wormholt and College Park and Old Oak) for placing your faith and trust in me for a fourth consecutive term.”

“Locally and nationally voters have backed #change and @UKLabour to turn the page on Tory chaos.”

47,769 electors turned out to vote representing 60.9% of those eligible a 9.4% fall on 2019.

The result declaration for Ealing Central and Acton. Picture: Ealing Council

During a dismal night for the Conservatives, their candidate, James Windsor-Clive might take some solace for thwarting the Liberal Democrats ambitions to become the main challenger to Labour in the seat. The big gainer was the Green’s Kate Crossland who received 11.4% of the vote, narrowly failing to push the Liberal Democrats into fourth place.