Last week, Oxford residents went out to vote for 24 out of the 48 seats in the Oxford City Council, as well as one by-election. The Oxford Blue contacted the new councillors to hear what they had to say about their wins. Labour won 11 out of 25 seats on the council while the Liberal Democrats won 5 seats. The Greens and the Independent Oxford Alliance both won 4 seats out of 24 while an Independent won one seat. While Labour made gains nationally in this year’s council elections, they lost 4 seats to the Independent Oxford Alliance, two seats to the Greens and one seat to an independent. Labour now has only 20 seats in the council meaning that Labour will not regain its previous majority, which it had already lost when nine councillors resigned from the Labour group due to the party’s handling of the conflict in Gaza.
Following up from our previous election coverage, here are the election results from the wards with the highest student populations.
Holywell
Green Candidate Dianne Regisford was elected with 452 votes (46%) while Labour Candidate Colin Cook came in second place with 372 votes (38%). Regisford replaces the previously elected Labour councillor,who became an Independent in 2023, Imogen Thomas. In the 2022 elections for the other 24 seats on the Oxford Council, the Labour candidate won 50% of the vote and Dianne Regisford won only 36% of the vote. Speaking to the Oxford Blue while her team were dancing in Broad Street, she asked “do you see how I feel?” about her victory.. She noted the difficulties of campaigning in a ward with a “very transient population” and the fact that she was a third-time candidate but said that she had a “good feeling about this year”. Regisford argued that her campaign was “intergenerational” and that she was elected on a social and cultural agenda to represent those who are “seen and heard less”.
Carfax and Jericho
The incumbent Labour councillor, Lizzy Diggins, was re-elected with 689 votes (57%) compared to the Green candidate Emma Garnett who came in second place with 323 votes (27%). In the 2022 council elections the Labour candidate won 56% of the vote while the Greens won only 25%. Diggins stated she was “honoured and delighted that Carfax and Jericho have chosen to put their trust in me again to represent them on the City Council” She also said that she would encourage anyone to contact her and was looking forward to continuing to work on a “fairer, greener city”.
Walton Manor
The incumbent Labour councillor, James Fry, was re-elected with 837 votes (58%) compared to the Liberal Democrat candidate Liz Wade who came in second place with 246 votes (17%). In the 2022 elections for the other 24 seats on the Oxford Council, the Labour candidate won 51% of the vote while the Liberal Democrats won 29% of the vote. James Fry told the Blue that he was “delighted to be re-elected with a very large majority” but noted that he was worried that the declining total number of votes cast was a “sign of a lack of interest in local democracy”. Outside Walton Manor, Fry noted that Labour lost seats “in the East of the city” to a “motley assortment of Independents” who campaigned on LTNs and Gaza” issues which he argued the “City Council has absolutely no power at all”. Fry said that the City Council is “responsible for services such as housing, waste collection and leisure” and wondered what the “new councillors will do” as these issues “demand action rather than protests” .
St Clement’s
Green candidate Alex Powell was the winner of a three-way contest and was elected with 524 votes (33%). The Independent Oxford Alliance candidate, Sal Naqvi, came second with 507 votes (32%) and the Labour candidate, Jesse Erlam, won 475 votes (30%). In 2022, the Labour candidate won 46% of the vote while an Independent candidate won 21% of the vote.
St Mary’s
The incumbent Green councillor, Chris Jarvis was re-elected with 890 votes (47%) while the Labour candidate Matthew Gregory Leonard Leigh received 518 votes (27%). In the 2022 elections for the other 24 seats on the Oxford Council, the Green candidate won 45% of the vote while the Labour candidate only won 29%.
Nationally, the local elections results suggest that Labour is in a strong position to win the next general election. However, the results in the Oxford City Council election show that while Labour is still fairly strong in Oxford, they may be less strong in some areas where voters are more inclined to vote for more left-wing parties (like the Greens) or independents who campaigned against Labour’s stance on the Conflict in Gaza. While this decline is unlikely to affect Labour’s chances of winning nationally, Labour MPs in ‘safe seats’ similar to Oxford wards like Holywell may feel threatened by Greens or Independent challengers.
In the General election, following boundary changes Oxford has been split into two Constituencies, Oxford West and Abingdon, currently represented by Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran and Oxford East represented by Labour’s Anneliese Dodds.
All incoming elected councillors will likely have to make difficult financial decisions as councils nationally manage cuts in local government funding. A wave of councils have effectively declared bankruptcy (and many more are at risk of going under). Oxford City Council, though argues that it is not “currently at risk of bankruptcy” largely because of the ‘Oxford Model’ where Oxford City Council gets revenues from businesses it owns.