News from Rotherhithe and Surrey Docks Labour Party

European Election 2009:

Labour wins in Southwark

Claude Moraes and Mary Honeyball re-elected as London MEPs

In the elections on 4 June 2009 (details below), Labour's London MEPs Claude Moraes and Mary Honeyball were re-elected. Labour came first in the count in Southwark.

Our thanks to everybody who voted for the Labour Party candidates.

In what was generally a bad result for Labour, both in the European Elections and in the County Council elections in some other parts of England, there are a few silver linings:

• In Southwark, the ruling LibDems did disastrously in the European elections, with just 23.1% of the vote, even worse than in the 2004 vote

• This time London has eight MEPs; in 2004 it had nine, and Labour would have won the ninth in 2009, so this result amounts to no change.

• The BBC estimates that in the 2009 local elections Labour won the equivalent of 23% of the national vote compared with 38% for the Tories. In 2004, the year before Labour's historic third general election win in a row, the BBC estimated the Labour share at 26% and the Tories 38%, so winning the next general election will be harder, but not impossible.

• Ballot papers were longer this year across the country. In the election for mayor of Hartlepool, Labour came third as the former monkey mascot won again. The Tory candidate was a pathetic 7^th, and the LibDem a humiliating 11^th.

Details from Southwark Council and London-wide

more from Rotherhithe and Surrey Docks Labour Party