Green by-elections may cost up to £250,000

Nine by-elections are to be held this summer to replace candidates voted into office at the London local elections earlier this month, some of whom were found to be ineligible to take up their posts.

Of those, eight were from the Green Party, which has been criticised by opposition parties for poor vetting procedures. The ninth was won by Labour.

Reasons include candidates who were teachers not being allowed to take up their seats due to election rules and elected mayors standing down from their council seats as they are not permitted to hold two posts at once.

The estimated bill is likely to be about £250,000.

The two new Green Party elected mayors, Zoë Garbett in Hackney and Liam Shrivastava in Lewisham, where the Greens took control of former Labour-run boroughs, had to vacate the council seats they also won - as they are not allowed to hold both roles.

It is usual in cases where a candidate wins an elected mayoralty and a council seat for a by-election to be held afterwards for the council seat.

Two of the Green candidates who had to quit - James Tilden in Hackney Central ward and Muhammad Naser in Camden's Regent's Park ward - are teachers and therefore ineligible.

Joanna Eaves in Lambeth's Clapham Park ward and Simon Anthony, in Ealing's Acton North ward, are understood to have quit after the election due to ill health.

In Haringey the Green Party said it had known prior to the election that its candidate, Jayon Henriques, was not eligible to stand in Northumberland Park ward, but said it was only made aware of the disqualification after the deadline for nominations had closed.

One of the candidates who went on to win in Streatham St Leonard's ward in Lambeth, Saiqa Ali, had been suspended by the Green Party prior to the election over alleged antisemitic social media posts. She told the BBC earlier this month she rejected all forms of discrimination and racism. Lambeth Council's website shows that she has not taken up her seat, which is currently vacant.

A Labour councillor who won a seat in Haringey's Woodside ward, Hasret Bozdogan, has chosen to step down for "personal reasons that transpired after 7 May".

BBC London asked local voters about their view on re-running the by-elections.

Adebisi Jaiyesimi said she felt the Greens needed to consider how they could vet better, and although she was "not happy" about the use of taxpayer money, she considered that "seeing as there's transparency about it, then that's fine".

She said she hoped there were "lessons learned from this one so that they could do it better going forward".

Sean Miller shared a different view, describing it as taking place in "a very messy time in the whole world of politics" and that it would "just cost everyone money".

The Local Government Act 1972

A person is disqualified from standing as a councillor if they:

• are employed by the local authority
• are subject to bankruptcy orders
• have been convicted of a criminal offence within five years of being elected which resulted in a term of imprisonment of at least three months (suspended or not)
• are disqualified due to corrupt or illegal electoral practices
• are employed by the Greater London Authority in a politically restricted post
• are a teacher in a school maintained by the local authority.

The cost of holding by-elections varies according to the size of the electorate, the number of polling stations needed, the cost of sending out postal votes and polling cards and staffing.

Ealing Council told the BBC the expected cost of its by-election would be around £35,000.

Camden and Lambeth said it would cost around £30,000 per by-election.

Hackney, Haringey and Lewisham did not tell us how much the additional elections would cost local taxpayers.

Tyrone Scott, leader of the Green group of councillors in Hackney, described the need for the by-elections as "definitely not a perfect situation", but said it reflected a wider issue across other parties across the country.

"Every single party has had these situations come up, unfortunately, which I still don't think is fantastic."

He added that the rules are "quite complex", citing the example of teacher James Tilden in Hackney Central ward being ineligible.

"If it was an academy, a private or free school, or in a different borough, or if it was a district council, all of these would have meant it was absolutely fine.

"But as it was known as a maintained school with a direct relationship with the council, unfortunately it wasn't okay and we picked this up a day too late and immediately stopped campaigning here."

A Labour Party spokesperson said some Green candidates "were elected despite never being qualified to stand in the first place".

They added: "Taxpayers are now being forced to pick up the bill for the Greens' incompetence."

A Green Party spokesperson said the numbers standing down were a "very small proportion" of the 297 seats the party won across London.

Upcoming by-elections in London:

18 June

Lewisham

Hillingdon x 2 (these vacancies are due to candidate death)

25 June

Hackney x 2

Haringey x 2

Ealing

To be announced

Lambeth x 2

Camden.

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