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Broxbourne Local Elections – What Does It Mean for the Left?

Local election results are always watched between the gaps of their fingers for sitting governments, but Keir Starmer’s Labour Party faced unprecedentedly catastrophic results, losing voters across the political spectrum. Consequently, these results were ones that Starmer couldn’t survive, as pressure in the aftermath led to his resignation.

Looking into Broxbourne’s local results, what can we take from them, and what will things look like going forward? It’s important to note that local elections are not entirely reliable indicators of national voting intention. According to YouGov’s figures ,however, most tended to vote for the party they think most aligns with their values. Nationally, 70% of voters named the May elections as more important than any other local election in their lifetime. This was evident with a huge spike in national turnout, including Broxbourne rising from 25.93% in 2024 to 38.25% in 2026.

Below is a comparison of the 2024 and 2026 results in the 10 wards of the Broxbourne Council. Due to Left Behind’s broad focus on left-wing people in right-wing constituencies, the categories have been broken down into the right Bloc and left bloc.

Key:

Left-wing parties	Right-wing parties:
Labour (incl. Labour & Co-operative)	The Conservative Party
Green Party	Reform UK
Liberal Democrats	UK Independence Party (UKIP)
Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition (TUSC)

What does it mean for the left in Broxbourne?

Figure 1 is a picture of concern for the left in Broxbourne. The left-wing vote has decreased significantly (down 21.1% from 2024). Despite Reform UK making huge gains throughout the local elections, Labour voters were more than 2 times as likely to lose voters to a left-wing party as they were to Reform UK ). As Figure 2 shows, this national trend was evident in Broxbourne, with the Green vote overtaking Labour within the left Bloc (44.5 % to 42.3 %). The significant decrease in left-wing voters in Broxbourne is deeply troubling for a left that has always struggled in this area. Despite the left’s loss of ground, the left is still largely underrepresented within the region, with 26.9 % of left-wing votes resulting in just 1 elected member, Carol Bowman of the Labour Party (narrowly winning by 17 votes).

This presents a question about progressive electoral pacts and the possibility of maximising the left-wing vote in areas like Broxbourne.  This may include an agreement on standing down in certain elections or cross-party collaborations. This concept has been previously suggested at a national level, with progressive electoral pacts potentially providing huge gains for left-wing parties in Britain.  I would argue that it makes more sense to collaborate on a local level due to lesser levels of power, resulting in fewer issues for the left to disagree on (e.g. foreign affairs issues are less relevant for local councils).

The good news for the left is that there is some hope of reconciliation. Upon Andy Burnham’s appointment as Prime Minister, Zack Polanski and Ed Davey have both been elusive about the possibility of the left working together. If this potential sense of unity can trickle down to a local level, the left in places like Broxbourne can maximise the support they do have to get as much representation as possible. Next week, on Left Behind: Voices, Labour councillor for Waltham Cross, Carol Bowman, will be on to discuss the logistics of getting the left to work together in local elections.

22 July, 2026