Six Green councillors quit after election, leaving councils facing by-election costs

[Twiglets1]

A sixth newly elected London Green Party councillor has quit, leaving taxpayers to foot a £120,000 bill.

Green representatives in Camden, Haringey, Ealing, Lambeth and Hackney councils have immediately stood down meaning by-elections will have to be held.

Each poll is expected to cost the cash-strapped town halls between £20,000 and £25,000 each to run.

Joanna Eaves, who was elected in Clapham Park at the local elections on May 7, has become the latest to resign. She cited health reasons.

It follows Saiqa Ali, who was also elected as one of 29 Green councillors in Lambeth, stepping down following her arrest in the lead up to the polls over allegations she had made a series of antisemitic social media posts.

Simon Anthony, who won in North Acton, Ealing, quit on Monday. He was the only Green candidate to win in the ward, with the other two seats being taken by Labour.

James Tilden was elected to represent Hackney Central ward, but failed to realise his job as a primary school teacher meant he was ineligible to be a councillor because he works for the local authority.

Muhammed Naser, who was elected in the Regent's Park ward of Camden council, has also had to stand down for the same reason.

Jayon Henriques was elected to represent Northumberland Park ward in Haringey but it has since been revealed he was also ineligible to be a councillor. The party has not revealed why he cannot serve in the town hall.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/green-party-councillors-quit-election-costs-b1282285.html

What the hell is going on with politics in the UK? It's all ridiculous.

@Twiglets1 It’s attracting not very intelligent people. It’s student politics and not a grown up version. Greens are a joke and not impressive.

I agree it’s dreadful.

Here’s the list of all the Reform counsellors who’ve quit or been suspended or jumped ship. 22 in two weeks!!

leftfootforward.org/2026/05/the-reform-uk-councillors-who-have-lost-their-seats-quit-defected-or-been-suspended-since-the-local-elections/

The Greens were already investigating 30 candidates for anti Semitic views. These aren’t the Greens of a few years ago!

It's unbelievable isn't it @LizzieSiddal @MeetMeOnTheCorner

They don't seem serious parties at all.

How come the Green party doesn't have processes in place to ensure LA employees are not selected? Hardly shouts basic competence.
Reform are just as bad. Neither are fit to govern.

I assume they thought they would be paper candidates only and wouldn’t win.

Which is why the elections should have remained cancelled for a year as per labour's plan, until Farage got involved and riled the country in to thinking they were cancelled full stop. People were shoehorned in with no clue what they had to do!

Also - where this happens (so soon after an election)the party should be fined to mitigate the costs of the re-run.

I wonder how many of these new councillors will be around in 6 months time. I doubt many of them have actually ever attended a council meeting and seen how tedious they can be. Especially when you’ve been talking about bin collections for an hour, or discussing whether or not Mrs Smith’s extension should be 3m or 3.2m wide.

Edited to say, apologies I didn’t mean to quote that post.

Lib Dem Peer Mark Pack is keeping a tally

Reform
https://www.markpack.org.uk/176783/how-many-councillors-has-reform-uk-lost-since-the-may-2026-elections/

Greens
https://www.markpack.org.uk/176832/how-many-councillors-have-the-greens-lost-since-the-may-2026-elections/

OFFS.

I mean there's always going to be health stuff, etc. But this level of attrition is nonsense. Very expensive nonsense. That councils could well do without.

What happened, did someone tell them there is more to the job than shouting abuse at anyone who doesnt agree with them?

Reform as well.

https://www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk/governance/396-governance-news/60880-reform-councillor-resigns-after-failing-to-declare-council-employment

Durham have four councillors no longer in post. Suspended, resigned, not eligible or changed allegiance.

So much for the Durham Council leader (Reform) claiming he was going to save ‘billions’ 😂

Maybe they should be fined the cost of the by election?

Couldn't agree more. What a farce. I would say this no matter what party was involved. I don't care if you think you're a paper candidate only with no chance of winning. You shouldn't agree to be a candidate unless you would be willing and able to take up the role if elected.

Interesting.

I hadn’t heard that 2 Green Mayors have resigned too including Zoe Garbutt in Hackney that there was a lot of fuss around!

Forget about which party has the most councillors standing down, that's not important. What matters is why they stood down, and whether it was preventable.

In the case of the primary teachers, it's staggering incompetence on the part of the candidates, their parties, and the council themselves that no one at any point determined that who the candidates worked for would cause conflict of interest. That is something that party processes and council "registering as a candidate" processes could both pick up if they were designed properly.

Love this. It really is pathetic that the failure of the main parties to instil confidence has opened up opportunities for these professional opposition types that don’t actually want to do the job. Just moan about anyone who does.

They had to resign as councillor once elected as Mayor.

Agree it was entirely predictable that the candidates would have to stand down in the case of the teachers who work for the LA. And entirely predictable where Green/Reform candidates have antisemitic/ Islamaphobic/racist shit on their social media.

Where is the vetting process? Seems to have been non-existent.

Postponing democratic elections on the grounds of cost is a slippery slope we shouldn’t want to start sliding down.

This (these specific Green councillors) is not Farage’s fault, it is the fault of the Green Party only and they should be made to cover the cost. Now for the Reform Councillors who’ve stepped down - Farage and Reform should be held accountable.

Ah right, I misunderstood that.

She hasn't resigned from the Mayor's post.

She resigned as a councillor because you can't be a councillor and an elected Mayor.

Right

We told that the next election will be greens versus reform

They can't even get their councillors to stay in post! Better with independents who really understand the area. I think those people are very underrated. Probably doing all the work.