Anntoinette Bramble elected Labour group leader following bruising local election defeat

Cllr Anntoinette Bramble. Photograph: Labour party

Cllr Anntoinette Bramble has been elected leader of the Hackney Labour group, taking the helm of the official opposition at a Town Hall now controlled by the Green party for the first time in the council’s history.

Bramble has represented her London Fields ward for more than 15 years and previously served as deputy mayor and cabinet member for education.

Homerton ward councillor Anna Lynch was elected her deputy.

Bramble’s appointment follows Labour’s significant losses at the local elections on 7 May, which saw the party lose control of the council and a string of long-serving councillors lose their seats — along with former executive mayor Caroline Woodley, whose defeat was one of the most striking results of the night.

In a statement issued after her election, Cllr Bramble said she was “committed to rebuilding trust with people in Hackney” and promised to hold the new Green administration to account.

“The Green party made a lot of big promises in their election campaign and our job now is to ensure they actually deliver for residents,” she said.

She paid tribute to outgoing colleagues and acknowledged the scale of the setback, saying the group needed to “learn the lessons” of its defeat.

Attention now turns to the by-elections in Hackney Central and Dalston on Thursday 25 June — Labour’s first electoral test since losing the borough, and an early indicator of whether the new leadership can begin to claw back ground in wards the party would once have considered safe.