We’re still weeks away from nominations – officially – opening for the election of London’s new mayor in May, which will be the first race of its kind held under the first-past-the-post system.
But with all the major parties having chosen their candidate and Labour’s Sadiq Khan heading for a record third term, the race for City Hall is heating up.
Notorious anti-lockdown, anti-World Health Organisation, climate change denier Piers Corbyn has confirmed his plans to run for City AMand vowed he would “demolish” all junctions, “oppose all closures” and get Google and Facebook “taken out of London”.
Rumors have been rife for months that his brother, former Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn, could be preparing his own election, having been ousted from his old party by Sir Keir Starmer.
The independent MP for Islington North told LBC last year: “I’m not ruling anything out and nothing at the moment. Let’s cross one bridge at a time, shall we?”
But speaking to the Standard last week, Corbyn senior said he thought it was “extremely unlikely” his younger brother would run for City Hall and instead focus on his constituency.
Reports have also emerged that George Galloway – former Labor MP, former Celebrity Big Brother contestant – currently on the Rochdale ballot for the Workers Party – is considering a bid.
Galloway told the Sunday Times last year he was considering running, adding: “My competition would be against Starmer. Khan is a miserable cypher for Starmer.”
And while the Rochdale result, widely seen as the most unpredictable by-election for quite some time, may or may not change things for him, the presence of candidates like Galloway or former actor-turned-activist Laurence Fox is having an impact.
The British election wouldn’t be the same without the delightfully mischievous candidates like Count Binface and the Monster Raving Loony Party.
Far be it from us to argue against the whimsical spectacle of a cabinet minister standing on a draughty sports hall stage to hear their constituency results alongside Lord Buckethead.
But mayoral elections are – or used to be – a different beast. Personality plays a bigger role than in general elections; just ask Ken Livingstone, or even zip-wire dangling Boris Johnson.
And crucially, with millions of us across the capital heading to the polls, in London mayoral candidates outside the mainstream get the chance to collect tens of thousands of votes in a way that simply doesn’t happen at constituency level.
Take Piers Corbyn, who stood in the Uxbridge by-election last summer and scored himself a paltry 101 votes. Compare that to his record in the last mayoral race, where he came in with 20,000 – and you begin to understand.
And it is an image Corbyn and his coterie are aware of. “(Last time, in) first and second preferences I got 55,000 votes, which is reasonable considering I had zero publicity and was blocked from everything,” he told me.
“But I think yes, I will get a lot more votes this time because there is a huge distrust of the major parties and the others, Reform and Reclaim are, well, pro-genocide in Palestine so people won’t vote for them either.” (Reform and Reclaim, I guess I don’t have to tell you, would dispute this characterization.)
“So I should get a very good number of votes – could I win? Well, anything can happen in this day and age.”
Quite. But aside from the prospect of a Piers win, under the new system — with no first and second ballot options — those thousands of votes become far more important.
Smaller London mayoral candidates with 10,000, 20,000 – even 50,000 votes – on fringe issues represent a large part of what could be the difference between a win or a loss for Khan or Tory rival Susan Hall. If I were London Labor or CCHQ, I’d be worried.
So whether it’s a political stunt, an ego-driven effort, or even an attempt at revenge, fringe candidates in this race will matter more than ever.