Previewing the two Haringey by-elections of Wednesday 4th October 2023
“All the right votes, but not necessarily in the right order”
Two by-elections on Wednesday 4th October 2023:
South Tottenham; and
White Hart Lane
Haringey council, London; caused respectively by the resignations of Labour councillors Charles Adje and Yvonne Say.
This week the main event of Andrew’s Previews is the parliamentary by-election in Rutherglen and Hamilton West tomorrow. However, three of the five by-elections taking place this week are in London, with two of them being Wednesday polls in the borough of Haringey.
The mention of the words “White Hart Lane” will inevitably bring to mind Tottenham Hotspur FC, whose stadium was called White Hart Lane until its redevelopment in 2017–19. However, the road of that name is quite long and Spurs’ ground is at the eastern end of it. Today we’re going to be concentrating on the White Hart Lane electoral ward, which covers the central section of the eponymous road a mile or more to the west of Spurs’ stadium. He we can find the football team who actually play on White Hart Lane: that’s the non-league side Haringey Borough, who play three tiers below the EFL in the Isthmian League Premier Division.
The main feature of White Hart Lane ward is the Tower Gardens Estate, built by the London County council in the early part of the 20th century as a very early municipal cottage estate: think Hampstead Garden Suburb, but rather more downmarket with lots of socially-rented houses. One of the estate’s original functions was to rehouse Jewish workers from poor-quality housing in Tower Hamlets, but the 2021 census counted a Jewish population here of only 0.4%. Instead this is now a centre of London’s Turkish community: White Hart Lane ward ranks 6th in England and Wales for population in born in European countries outside the EU (which here basically means Turkey), and is in the top 20 wards in England and Wales for adherents of “other” religions, most of which will be Alevis.
We do, however, have a large Jewish population in South Tottenham ward, which is the south-east corner of Haringey next the to the River Lea (or Lee); this ward covers part of the large Orthodox Jewish community which is mostly located over the borough boundary in Hackney. In 2021 South Tottenham was in the top 20 wards in England and Wales for Judiasm (21.5%), and also in the top 20 for residents born in the Americas or the Caribbean. It ranks 5th in England and Wales for people who are employed part-time (20.6%).
On the northern boundary of South Tottenham ward lies Tottenham Hale station, a major station on the West Anglia main line and the Victoria line of the Underground; express trains to Stansted Airport call here to give airport passengers better connections to the West End. It was here that Mark Duggan, a local black man, was shot dead by police on 4th August 2011 leading to major rioting in Tottenham and across England over the following week. The retail park opposite Tottenham Hale station, which lies within this ward, suffered from looting.
The South Tottenham by-election could not be held on the usual Thursday date this week due to a clash with the Jewish religious festival of Hoshana Rabbah. Taking place on the 21st day of Tishri, which falls in AD 2023 from sunset on Thursday to nightfall on Friday, Hoshana Rabbah — the “Great Supplication” — marks the end of the seven days of Sukkot and is celebrated by a special service in synagogues. It’s seen as such an important festival that the Hebrew calendar has special rules to prevent Hoshana Rabbah from falling on the Sabbath day. Once the South Tottenham by-election was brought forward to avoid a clash with this festival, the White Hart Lane by-election had to be moved too so that the Haringey returning officer wasn’t trying to run polls on consecutive days.
The MP for South Tottenham ward and for most of White Hart Lane ward is David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, who has represented Tottenham since winning a by-election in 2000 a few months after he started his career in elected office on the London Assembly. Following ward boundary changes in 2022. parts of White Hart Lane ward are now in the Hornsey and Wood Green constituency represented by Labour MP Catherine West, who is also a Labour frontbencher on the shadow Foreign Office team. However, for the next general election White Hart Lane ward will transfer to Southgate and Wood Green, which is the successor to the current seat of Enfield Southgate. On current boundaries Enfield Southgate is a Labour-held marginal seat, but the addition of Wood Green should make it safely Labour — although perhaps not for the present Southgate MP Bambos Charalambous, who is currently suspended from the Labour party pending an investigation. Quite what the party are investigating isn’t clear at the time of writing.
The reasons for today’s two by-elections aren’t that clear either. The White Hart Lane by-election is to replace another major local Labour figure, Charles Adje, who was first elected to Haringey council in 1998 and was Leader of the Council from 2004 to 2006. South Tottenham residents will be voting to replace Yvonne Say, whose service goes back to 2018; she was re-elected at the top of the poll in 2022. Adje and Say resigned from the council at the same time in August, for undisclosed reasons.
Labour are defending large majorities from the 2022 Haringey council election in both wards: 64–16 over the Green Party in South Tottenham, and 57–20 over an independent candidate in White Hart Lane. The Labour majority on Haringey council is not at stake: the latest composition has 47 Labour councillors plus these two vacancies, against 7 Lib Dems and an ex-Labour independent.
Both by-elections have an all-male candidate list. Defending the South Tottenham by-election for Labour is Mark Grosskopf, who was an unsuccessful candidate for Haringey council last year when he contested Highgate ward. The Greens have selected Jonathan McKinley, who appears to be a fresh face. Also standing are Shloime Royde for the Conservatives and David Schmitz for the Liberal Democrats.
In White Hart Lane the defending Labour candidate is Liam Carroll. The independent candidate from last time has not returned, so we have a four-way contest involving the same parties as in South Tottenham: James Barton stands for the Conservatives, David Vigoureux for the Lib Dems and Friedrich-Paul Ernst for the Greens.
South Tottenham
Parliamentary constituency: Tottenham
Parliamentary constituency (from next general election): Tottenham
London Assembly constituency: Enfield and Haringey
ONS Travel to Work Area: London
Postcode districts: N15, N17
Mark Grosskopf (Lab)
Jonathan McKinley (Grn)
Shloime Royde (C)
David Schmitz (LD)
May 2022 result Lab 1784/1769/1737 Grn 446 C 421/402/393 LD 156/148/123
Previous results in detail
White Hart Lane
Parliamentary constituency: Tottenham (most), Hornsey and Wood Green (part)
Parliamentary constituency (from next general election): Southgate and Wood Green
London Assembly constituency: Enfield and Haringey
ONS Travel to Work Area: London
Postcode districts: N13, N17, N22
James Carton (C)
Liam Carroll (Lab)
Friedrich-Paul Ernst (Grn)
David Vigoureux (LD)
May 2022 Lab 1779/1723/1712 Ind 630 C 374/333/329 LD 318/225/214
Previous results in detail
