About the elections

On 6 May 2021, Londoners voted for:

  • the Mayor of London
    Voters made a first choice and could also make a second choice – often referred to as a first and second preference.
  • a Constituency Assembly Member
    The person the voter wanted to represent their local area on the 25 Member London Assembly. There are 14 Constituencies in all, each with one seat on the Assembly. Constituencies are made up of between two and four London boroughs.
  • a party to take up one of 11 London-wide seats on the Assembly (London-wide Assembly Members, also known as ‘London Members’)
    Each party submitted in advance of the election a list of candidates to take up any seats it won.

There were three separate ballot papers and three different voting systems.

The Mayor of London and London-wide Assembly Member results drew on the total numbers of votes cast across the whole of London in the two respective elections. Constituency Assembly Members were elected based only on the votes cast in the Constituency.

All the votes were counted – electronically – at Constituency level. Seven Constituency counts were held on the 7th May, and the remaining seven on the 8th May. Once a Constituency count had finished, the relevant Constituency Returning Officer declared the winner of the Constituency Assembly Member contest. The Returning Officer also gave ‘public notice’ of the number of votes cast in that Constituency for the candidates in the Mayor of London contest (first and second choice votes); and each party standing in the London-wide Assembly Member contest.

Once the counting had finished in all 14 Constituencies, the 14 sets of the Mayor of London totals were added together and the results and winner were announced by the Greater London Returning Officer, Mary Harpley, at City Hall, on the evening of the 8th May.

Similarly, the 14 sets of London-wide totals for the Mayor of London and the London-wide Assembly Member contests were brought together, the rules applied. The results and the 11 winning London-wide candidates were again announced by the Greater London Returning Officer on the evening of the 8th May.

About this factsheet and where to find out more

This factsheet sets out and explains the high-level results of the 6 May 2021 elections for the Mayor of London & London Assembly.

The results page of this website provides an overview of the outcome of the elections. You can also download the result and local total sheets for each Constituency, showing:

  • the declared result of the Constituency Assembly Member contest (i.e. which candidate won) and the number of votes each candidate received;
  • the number of votes each party received in the London-wide Assembly Member election;
  • the number of first and second choice votes each candidate received in the Mayor of London election;
  • the number of rejected ballot papers in each of the three elections, broken down into categories;
  • turnout in each of the three elections;
  • and, the overall results sheets for the London-wide Assembly Member election and for the Mayor of London election.

There are also detailed breakdowns available to download, including:

  • a matrix showing, for each Mayor of London candidate, the second choice votes received correlated to the candidate the voter gave their first choice to;
  • votes cast for each candidate and party in each of London’s 33 local authorities and, within each local authority, by ward;
  • the electorate and turnout at local authority and ward level.

Other things you can find out about on this website include:

  • the three different voting systems used in the elections;
  • the candidates, including full lists of the candidates that stood in the Mayor of London & London Assembly elections;
  • the process candidates had to go through to stand

Mayor of London results

Twenty candidates stood in the Mayor of London election. The Mayor was elected using the supplementary vote system. The number of first and second choice votes each candidate received was:

Name of Candidate Name of Registered Political Party (if any) First Choice Votes Second Choice Votes
BAILEY, Shaun Conservative Party Candidate 893,051 263,812
BALAYEV,
Kam
Renew 7,774 15,691
BERRY, Sian Green Party 197,976 486,798
BINFACE, Count Count Binface for Mayor of London 24,775 68,121
BROWN, Valerie The Burning Pink Party 5,305 11,477
CORBYN, Piers Let London Live 20,604 34,355
FOSH, Max Independent 6,309 21,409
FOX, Laurence Paul The Reclaim Party 47,634 116,730
GAMMONS, Peter John UKIP 14,393 72,425
HEWISON, Richard John Howard Rejoin EU 28,012 65,643
HUDSON, Vanessa Helen Animal Welfare Party - People, Animals, Environment 16,826 63,619
KELLEHER, Steve Social Democratic Party 8,764 28,836
KHAN, Sadiq Aman Labour Party 1,013,721 400,478
KURTEN, David Heritage Party 11,025 23,043
LONDON, Farah Independent 11,869 46,182
OBUNGE, Nims Independent 9,682 20,639
OMILANA, Niko Independent 49,628 75,199
PORRITT, Luisa Manon Liberal Democrats 111,716 264,912
REID, Mandu Kate Vote Women's Equality Party on orange 21,182 83,334
ROSE, Brian Benedict London Real Party 31,111 40,674
Total good votes   2,531,357 2,203,377

Had a candidate received more than 50 per cent of the total good first choice votes, they would have been elected without considering second choice votes. No candidate did so. The candidate with the highest number of first choice votes, Sadiq Khan, gained 40 per cent of the total first choice votes for all candidates (1,013,721 as a percentage of 2,531,357).

Therefore, the winner was decided by adding together the first choice votes received by the top two candidates, Sadiq Khan and Shaun Bailey, and the second choice votes that those candidates had received where the voter gave their first choice to one of the other eighteen candidates.

Sadiq Khan received 192,313 of these second choice votes. Shaun Bailey received 84,550 of these second choice votes. The table below shows how these two figures relate to the total number of second choice votes.

  Sadiq Khan Shaun Bailey
Total second choice votes 400,478 263,812
Subtract second choice votes where the voter also gave her/his first choice to that candidate -124,635 -102,707
Subtract second choice votes where the voter gave her/his first choice to the other of the top two candidates (ie. voted for both the top two candidates) -83,530 -76,555
Remaining valid second choice votes 192,313 84,550

The calculation to determine the winning candidate was:

  Sadiq Khan Shaun Bailey
First choice votes 1,013,721 893,051
Plus second choice votes (after the election rules have been applied) +192,313 +84,550
Total first and second choice votes 1,206,034 977,601

Sadiq Khan’s first and second choice vote total was the higher of the two candidates and he was therefore elected the new Mayor of London.

Candidates who received more than five per cent of all first-choice votes had their deposits returned:

Candidate Party % First choice votes
Sadiq Khan Labour Party 40%
Shaun Bailey Conservative Party Candidate 35%
Sian Berry Green Party 8%

Constituency Assembly Member results

The 14 Constituency Assembly Members were elected through 14 separate contests, each decided based on first past the post, with the candidate with the highest number of votes elected.

Labour Party candidates won nine seats; Conservative Party candidates won five seats:

Constituency Winning candidate Party/Description
Barnet and Camden CLARKE Anne Marie Bates Labour and Co-operative Party
Bexley and Bromley FORTUNE Peter Timothy Conservative and Unionist Party
Brent and Harrow HIRANI Krupesh Labour and Co-operative Party
City and East
(City of London, Barking & Dagenham, Newham, Tower Hamlets)
DESAI Unmesh Labour and Co-operative Party
Croydon and Sutton GARRATT Neil Robert Conservative Party Candidate
Ealing and Hillingdon SAHOTA Onkar Singh Labour and Co-operative Party
Enfield and Haringey MCCARTNEY Joanne Labour and Co-operative Party
Greenwich and Lewisham DUVALL Len Labour and Co-operative Party
Havering and Redbridge PRINCE Keith Anthony Conservative Party Candidate
Lambeth and Southwark AHMAD Marina Masuma Labour and Co-operative Party
Merton and Wandsworth COOPER Léonie Alison Labour and Co-operative Party
North East
(Hackney, Islington, Waltham Forest)
MOEMA Sem Labour and Co-operative Party
South West
(Hounslow, Kingston upon Thames, Richmond upon Thames)
ROGERS Nicholas James Conservative Party Candidate
West Central
(Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea, Westminster)
DEVENISH Tony Conservative Party Candidate

Any candidate that gained more than five per cent of the Constituency vote had the £1,000 they had deposited with the Constituency Returning Officer returned.

London-wide Assembly Member results

Both political parties and individual (independent) candidates can stand in London-wide Assembly Member elections. In 2021, however, there were no independent candidates.

The 11 London-wide Assembly Member seats were allocated by the ‘additional member’ system.

Each party presents a ‘party list’ before the election, of up to 25 candidates. The party ranked the candidates when submitting their list, for example if the party won two seats, the first and second candidates on their list would take up the party’s two London-wide seats on the Assembly.

Name of Registered Political Party or Independent Total Votes %
Animal Welfare Party - People, Animals, Environment 44,667 2%
Christian Peoples Alliance 28,878 1%
Communist Party of Britain 8,787 0%
Conservatives 795,081 31%
Green Party 305,452 12%
Heritage Party - Free Speech and Liberty 13,534 1%
Labour Party 986,609 38%
Let London Live 15,755 1%
Liberal Democrats 189,522 7%
Londependence 5,746 0%
London Real Party 18,395 1%
National Liberal Party - Self-determination for all! 2,860 0%
ReformUK - London Deserves Better 25,009 1%
Rejoin EU 49,389 2%
Social Democratic Party 7,782 0%
Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition 9,004 0%
UKIP 27,114 1%
Vote Women's Equality Party on orange 55,684 2%
Total number of good votes 2,589,268  

To allocate the seats, first the votes from across London in the London-wide Assembly Member election were added together. Parties that failed to secure more than five per cent of the total vote were eliminated. For the four parties highlighted above, 11 rounds of calculations were performed to determine the winner of each of the 11 seats. The calculation – called the Modified d’Hondt Formula – uses the number of London-wide Assembly votes for each party (the numerator in the formula), but also considers the number of Constituency Assembly Member seats each won (the denominator). In the second and subsequent rounds of calculations, the number of London-wide Assembly Member seats won by the party up to that point is added to the number of Constituency Assembly Member seats it won.

Total London-wide Assembly Member votes for the party
_______________________________________________

Constituency Assembly Member seats won + London-wide Assembly Member seats won + 1

The party with the highest figure once the calculation has been performed wins that seat – as shown below:

  Conservatives Green Party Labour Party Liberal Democrats
Votes 795,081 305,452 986,609 189,522
Constituency Seats Won 5 0 9 0
London-Wide Seats 4 3 2 2
Seat 1 Green Party 132,514 305,452 98,661 189,522
Seat 2 Liberal Democrats 132,514 152,726 98,661 189,522
Seat 3 Green Party 132,514 152,726 98,661 94,761
Seat 4 Conservatives 132,514 101,817 98,661 94,761
Seat 5 Conservatives 113,583 101,817 98,661 94,761
Seat 6 Green Party 99,385 101,817 98,661 94,761
Seat 7 Conservatives 99,385 76,363 98,661 94,761
Seat 8 Labour Party 88,342 76,363 98,661 94,761
Seat 9 Liberal Democrats 88,342 76,363 89,692 94,761
Seat 10 Labour Party 88,342 76,363 89,692 63,174
Seat 11 Conservatives 88,342 76,363 82,217 63,174
Total Assembly Seats 9 3 11 2

The Winning Candidates are:

Seat Winning Party Winner
Seat 1 Green Party BERRY Sian
Seat 2 Liberal Democrats PIDGEON Caroline Valerie
Seat 3 Green Party RUSSELL Caroline
Seat 4 Conservatives BAILEY Shaun
Seat 5 Conservatives BOFF Andrew
Seat 6 Green Party POLANSKI Zack
Seat 7 Conservatives HALL Susan Mary
Seat 8 Labour Party BAKER Elly
Seat 9 Liberal Democrats BOKHARI Hina
Seat 10 Labour Party SHEIKH Sakina Zahra
Seat 11 Conservatives BEST Emma Dawn

Any party that gained more than 2.5 per cent of the total London-wide Assembly Member votes cast had the £5,000 it had deposited with the Greater London Returning Officer returned. There were four such parties – Conservatives, Green Party, Labour Party and Liberal Democrats.

The results of the Constituency and London-wide Assembly Member elections mean the distribution of seats on the 25 Member London Assembly for the 2021 to 2024 term is:

Party Seats
Labour Party 11
Conservatives 9
Green Party 3
Liberal Democrats 2