Hackney Central by-election: Greens hold seat in close race with Labour

The Green party has held the Hackney Central ward seat in a by-election triggered by one of the party’s councillors resigning shortly after the May elections.

The party’s candidate Noah Birksted-Breen won by a margin of 52 votes, with Labour’s Sheila Suso-Runge finishing in second place.

Along with the results of the Dalston ward by-election held simultaneously on Thursday 25 June, this brings the Green group of councillors at the Town Hall to 42, dashing Labour’s hopes of reclaiming the seats it lost in May amid a rout for the party.

Accepting victory, Cllr Birksted-Breen thanked supporters and election staff for “another amazing, well-run election”.

He said: “I’ve just loved getting to know the residents of Hackney Central. They’re all faces that will be on my mind now and I’ll be thinking of them, and I just can’t wait to go back and start working for them.”

The Green candidate is a creative and researcher who teaches international relations at Queen Mary, University of London. Cllr Birksted-Breen has also mentored refugees and runs the independent theatre company, Sputnik.

He won the seat with 676 votes on a turnout of 15.16 per cent. Labour’s candidate Ms Suso-Runge garnered 624 votes, increasing her party’s vote share by 12.4 points. She previously represented Hackney Central for four years from 2022 until May 2026, when she finished in sixth place and lost her seat.

The Liberal Democrat candidate, Ken Gabbott-Rolph, finished in third place with 83 votes (5.6 per cent).

Reform UK candidate Vahid Almasi came fourth with 59 votes (4 per cent), while the Conservatives’ Serhan Bay came in last with 49 votes (3.3 per cent). The total number of votes cast was 1,491.

The Hackney Central by-election was called shortly after the May elections due to a vacancy created by the resignation of Green party candidate James Tilden.

Tilden was one of three Green candidates elected to represent Hackney Central at the May elections, where he won 1,681 votes. He was barred from taking office because his employment as a teacher at a Hackney primary school meant he was ineligible under the Local Government Act 1972.

The Green party previously told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) it was not aware of the eligibility issue until after Mr Tilden was nominated, by which time it was too late to withdraw his candidacy.

The results came alongside another by-election held on Thursday, which was also won by the Greens. The May polls had created another councillor vacancy in Dalston ward because Zoë Garbett was constitutionally unable to assume her seat upon being re-elected since she was also elected as Mayor of Hackney earlier that day.

Speaking to the LDRS, Cllr Anntoinette Bramble, Leader of the Labour opposition, said: “We came close to winning in Hackney Central ward which shows that there is a significant number of people in Hackney Central who would like to see a Labour councillor elected.

“It was a well fought campaign and the vote in both wards indicates that people are moving back to Labour and its values – as is being seen in other parts of London.”