6:50pm: That’s it from us, we’re wrapping up all the action now. Get your weekly Tribune next Friday for a play-by-play of how the day went, and reaction from all parties.

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6:28pm: Final state of parties: Labour 32, Green 19

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6:25pm: Green leader Benali Hamdache is taking to the stage. “This has been a really polarising election, and it’s incumbent on us to come together and it’s true that this borough is a progressive island that we can be inspired by”, he tells the crowd. He further warns of the Reform surge and says it’s sad that good colleagues have lost their seats due to the failings of national government.

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6:22pm: Council Leader Una O’Halloran is taking to the stage, to the chorus from Labour supporters chanting “four more years, four more years”.
“This has been a great campaign”, says Cllr O’Halloran, asking for everyone who didn’t get elected to be given a round of applause.

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6:20pm: The final ward, Bunhill, has been called. Labour has held all three seats. Cllr Valerie Bossman-Quarshie is in tears. ICI candidate Phil Graham, only got just over 200 votes. He had originally been elected as a Labour councillor in 2022.

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6:05pm: It’s an unexpected result in Finsbury Park where Labour have lost two seats to the Greens. Amu Gib’s team are visibly disappointed – they only managed to get just over 500 votes. The Greens meanwhile have picked up around 1,200 each despite only being paper candidates. This is coming as quite a shock to them – they didn’t expect to be rocking up to the councillor induction tomorrow.

Greens are now apologising to one of the candidates who have been unexpectedly been elected. “You’re going to be great, we’ll support you”, they are saying.

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5:55pm: Clerkenwell is another split ward. Labour’s Ruth Hayes keeps her seat, but will now be joined by two Greens. Giulio Ferrini and Yara Falkenburg will join her in the Town Hall. Cllr Hayes tells the Tribune: “I’m excited to stay in Clerkenwell. We have lost some great people, but we’ve also got a lot of great people elected”.

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5:45pm: That’s the majority secured for Labour. Paul Convery said that it had been a successful day, despite Labour’s shortcomings nationally. He said he came into the morning thinking Labour could be “wiped out”, but that ultimately, full control is a success. He said the greens had fallen short in Islington from what they were predicting.

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5:40pm: State of parties: Labour 27, Green 15

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5:36pm: We’re only got a few wards to go now. Hillrise has just been announced. Labour hold all three seats, but the Greens again are only a couple hundred votes behind. Labour have now won control of the council.

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5:24pm: The only current green ward is Highbury, and they’ve retained their majority and three seats. Cllr Benali Hamdache keeps his seat, and two newcomers are coming to join him. Caroline Russell has stepped down, but she’s here at the tennis centre with a huge smile on her face. When she was first elected more than a decade ago, she was the only Green in a sea of red. Now there will be at least 15 Greens in the Town Hall.

Caroline Russell (below), who has served in Highbury for 12 years but is standing down, said she was “so, so happy” that Highbury had stayed Green.

She said: “not only is it the three in Highbury, they’ve now got colleagues all over the council, which will make such a difference. I was on my own for 8 years and it was really tough. We can’t wait to see how amazing the new team do!”

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5:15pm: The council leader’s ward up next – Caledonian. This was a safe ward for Labour, and they’ve held all three seats, and won by several hundred votes.

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5:04pm: We’re rattling through the results here in Islington. Barnsbury up next. Labour hold, it was one of the wards in the Greens vision but it wasn’t that close in the end.

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5:02pm: State of parties so far: Green 12, Labour 18

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4:58: Labour hold all three seats in Laycock. Running as an independent, Ilkay Cinko-Oner managed just over 400 votes. She’s headed straight out of the tennis centre looking rather angry.

Joy Patricia Hinson, who missed out by 12 votes, said “we hardly even campaigned in this ward and we only missed it by 12 votes. It shows people are fed up of labour and putting their faith in the greens.”

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4:48: It’s emotional on stage as the results for Tufnell Park are read out. The Green candidates have all managed well over 2,000 votes each. This was the Greens main target, so they’re pleased they’ve converted having been so close back in 2022. Sheridan Kates, Sophia Anderson and Devon Osborne get their seats in the Town Hall.

Sophia Andersson-Gylden said: “I’m an eternal pessimist so I tried not to get my hopes up. Benali told me us we basically had it in the bag.“We’ve been building up for this over the last year and a half. We’re so emotional, there’s lots of tears in the group.”

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4:40: Canonbury next. Another split ward, and it’s all incredibly close. Green get a foothold with one councillor. They’re in shock – “we did no f***ing work here apart from give out a few posters”, says one senior Green. Housing chief John Woolf loses his seat. This is tough for Islington’s top team. They might keep the council, but it’ll be a host of new faces in the major roles.

Hayden Banks for the Greens gets in.“It’s a complete shock”, says Cllr banks.

 

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4:27: Our first split ward. Greens take two seats from Labour in Arsenal. Labour whip Finn Craig hangs on. Cllr Bashir Ibrahim is gone. Jo Dowbor from the Greens misses out.

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4:10: Junction up next. Labour hold all three seats. The ICIs have done badly here – this was a target.

Cllr Sheila Chapman, who is currently on the exec committee, said:

“People voted for Labour because they know that we will deliver. We’ve been out on the doorstep day in, day out. not just for the election, but throughout the year. Listening to people in Archway, putting their priorities first.”

Ruth O’Dowd, from the ICIs, blamed the poor performance on “sabotage” from certain members of the original group alongside a huge green surge. “It’s frustrating when we’ve been campaigning for a year and they haven’t been out once”, she said of the Green performance.

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4:00: The Greens have taken another ward – Tollington. By a long shot. More than 400 votes. Labour’s Finance chief Flora Williamson is among the casualties. So is Mick Gilgunn and former mayor Anjna Khurana. There are a lot of tears amongst Labour colleagues in the tennis centre this afternoon.

New councillor Alex Nettle, said he was “excited and delighted” that the Greens stormed the ward. He said that people in Islington had become “disillusioned” with the Labour Party, and that the result was a testament to the work the Greens had been doing, listening to the voices of local people when they doorknocked.

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3:55pm: Greens take Mildmay from Labour. All three seats. They wipe out two members of the executive team. Deputy leader Santiago Bell Bradford and Crime chief Angelo Weekes.

There are tears amongst Labour colleagues. Mr Weekes didn’t even come on the stage

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3:41pm: Holloway results are in. Mayor Jason Jackson is reelected – he’s not here though because he’s had to shoot off to Buckingham Palace. Meanwhile, Joe Peck is the first new councillor. He’s got lots to smile about, as he recently also got engaged.

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3:28pm: Next is St Mary’s and St James’. Labour hold. Former Lib Dem leader Terry Stacey, who was a candidate here, is shaking his head. Greens have done well here despite not campaigning at all – they have got more votes than the Lib Dem’s, who focussed all efforts here.

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3:20pm: We’re kicking off the results announcements with St Peter’s and Canalside. It’s a Labour hold – no surprises here.

Cllr Klute told the Tribune: “It’s been a bad day for Labour nationally but we think voters in Islington will put their trust in the party to carry on doing what they have been for the next four years”

Martin Klute, current planning chief, is close to tears.

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3:00pm: Some ICIs are rather angry. “The Greens have shafted us”, or other rather harsher words, have been repeated a few times.

There has been some ill-will after the Greens did not strike a deal to refrain from standing candidates in ICI target wards.  The Greens have expressed their sympathy with sitting independent councillors who will lose their seats, but ultimately added: “politics is tough”.

“It just shows that it doesn’t matter how much groundwork you put it, people are going to vote based on what they see nationally”, said one ICI candidate.

Isabel Loubser 

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2:45pm: There are still no results here in Islington. The split ballots mean that almost every ward is having to be re-adjudicated.

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1.45pm:

Most of the parties are split up across the room, lingering around individual seats where they think they could have a chance, eyeing up the stacks of ballot papers.

Not the Reform Party, though, who have congregated in the middle of the floor. Asked what a successful day might look like for them in Islington, “full council control, obviously” came the response, followed by a chuckle from their candidates.

After the jokes were done, they told the Tribune that even to get one seat, or an increased share of the vote, would be a good day for the party who want to “disrupt” the status quo of leftie Islington.

Another sticking point for the party, they say, is a negative portrayal in the media, from the Trib to the BBC. They asked to be presented nicely in our coverage, before one of them joked: “and put that we’re all foreigners”.

It’s been a successful day so far nationally for the Reform Party, who have won over 500 council seats across the country. Islington was never going to be a high priority for the party.

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1:30pm: We’re getting to the verification. One Labour member said he had never seen anything like this number of split ballots in his 21years of elections.

It’s going to be tight, especially in places like Clerkenwell, Canonbury and St Mary’s and St James’.

Isabel Loubser

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1:05pm: There are hushed conversations going on between certain councillors in the north of the borough and Islington Council’s current Labour leader Una O’Halloran.

It seems that some members who currently sit on the executive team worry that they could be at risk of losing their seats in wards that weren’t even main Green targets. The huge turnout has added to the anxiety.

Again, campaigners on all sides have been telling the Tribune that they expect a large number of split ballots, which could extend the counting process.

Isabel Loubser

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12:55pm: Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn has arrived. He has been supporting a select number of independent candidates in areas such as Finsbury Park and Hillrise.

The Islington Community Independents are not hopeful of gaining any seats. They worry that a large part of their support has been haemorrhaged to the Greens, even in areas where Zack Polanski’s party weren’t campaigning.

Voters are looking at the national surge of popularity of the Greens, and voting on that basis, meaning that support for a separate left-wing party without a united machine behind it has dimmed.

There’s been a lot of infighting within the group, meaning that they found it difficult to run a streamlined campaign and really decide where they wanted to focus efforts. There was a high-profile campaign in Finsbury Park for imprisoned Palestine Action activist Amu Gib, but this meant that resources were diverted away from places like Laycock and Bunhill where the ICIs had sitting councillors.

Isabel Loubser 

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12.40pm: The ward with the lowest turnout across the borough, Bunhill, could spell trouble for Labour, as the party predict the vote will be divided there.

One nervous councillor told the Tribune that she feared a surge in votes for the Reform Party and Independents were taking working-class votes in the area away from Labour in Bunhill. There’s a sense of frustration that the national politics of Starmer’s government may be influencing their traditional working-class supporter base in the area.

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12.20pm: There’s a mixed hum of nerves, excitement and caution coming up from the floor as candidates process the turnouts and the stewards begin counting.

It’s excitement, though, for leader of the Islington Greens Benali Hamdache, as victory for Zoë Garbett in the Mayoral contest in neighbouring Hackney means he will now be put forward as her replacement as a member of the Greater London Authority.

Cllr Hamdache told the Tribune that he was delighted for his colleague’s victory, and proud to be able to now bring a slice of Islington politics to the GLA. He said that he would still “absolutely” be committed to his duties as a councillor in Islington, and was excited to make politics a full-time commitment. He cited the departing Cllr Caroline Russell as a perfect example of how to balance both roles.

Speaking more widely on the Greens’ chances across the borough, Cllr Hamdache said he was feeling “great” and optimistic, and said that whatever happened, he was expecting unprecedented, record-breaking results for the party.

More to follow, as the counts come in.

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12:10PM: These are really high turnout figures, many wards experienced 10 per cent more voters than back in 2022.

You can see that where the Greens have been campaigning -— in Highbury, Tollington, Arsenal and Tufnell Park — they are especially high, and Labour candidates know that this is a sign of a “Green surge”.

One said that it had been difficult to get voters to focus on local politics, and that many were using yesterday as an occasion to protest against “life in general” (translation: life under a Starmer government).

Other Labour campaigners have been telling our reporters that there are no surprises — they were expecting to lose some seats to the Greens, and that is what they still think is likely to happen.

There is a lot of talk that the count could last for several hours due to split ballot and re-counts. Both parties are saying that they think it is likely that we will see a number of split wards, and Labour councillors have already warned that this will be bad because it makes it difficult to present a united front.

In any case, this may be the year where the one-party state is dismantled, or at least slightly eroded. One Labour councillor said however that having a larger Green opposition “wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference”, and that little is decided at full council meetings anyway.

Isabel Loubser 

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11:50AM: Some more turnout figures. They are higher than usual. We will bring you some reaction shortly.

• Finsbury Park: 42.34 %
• Highbury: 49.58 %
• Hillrise: 44.46 %
• Holloway: 43.84 %
• Junction 42.44 %
• Laycock 40.52 %
• Mildmay 43.84 %
• St Mary’s and St James’ 45.97 %
• St Peter’s and Canalside 39.58 %
• Tollington 48.51 %
• Tufnell Park 49.87 %

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11:45AM: We’re starting to get some turnout figures as verification concludes:

• Arsenal: 46.06 %
• Barnsbury: 47.25 %
• Bunhill: 37.73 %
• Caledonian: 41.96 %
• Canonbury: 41.61 %
• Clerkenwell: 43.92 %

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11:35AM: There are some dour-faced Lib Dems walking around the count floor. They had hoped to take St Mary’s and St James’ and break back into the Town Hall after more than a decade in the wilderness.

Terry Stacy, former leader of Islington Council, was amongst those hoping to nab a seat there, but it looks like they are still far from regaining the trust of the voters in the south of the borough.

They said that there had been unforseen support for the Greens, splitting the opposition vote which might pave the way for Labour to retain the ward.

The Labour councillors there have been amongst the more nervy over the past six weeks, as they felt they would be amongst the first casualties of any Labour losses.

In 2022, Saiqa Pandor only won her seat by 111 votes against the Liberal Democrat’s Kate Pothalingham, who is running again this year.

Isabel Loubser 

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11.25AM: Verification is still ongoing across Islington’s 17 wards, before the official counts can start.

Members of the Islington Community Independents (ICI) told the Tribune that they are not feeling all that confident in some of the seats they have been targeting in their campaigns.

Early predictions from their candidates suggest they might not take any seats from Labour in the Junction Ward, where they say they have been canvassing rigorously.

One to watch for later today is the Finsbury Park ward, where ICI candidate Amu Gib is standing whilst a prisoner in HMP Bronzefield. A win for them would mark the first time in decades that a prisoner was elected in British politics.

Keep following the live blog for more reactions and results.

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10:45AM: Labour canvassers were out celebrating last night after a final race to the finish. If you look closely, you can see Islington South and Finsbury MP Emily Thornberry with her team, as well as Cllr Praful Nargund.

Mr Nargund unsuccessfully ran as the Labour candidate against Jeremy Corbyn two years ago. He is still a councillor for Barnsbury (for another few hours), a fact you would be forgiven for forgetting as he has been rather MIA from the Town Hall, as well as the pages of the Tribune.

We’re not sure how many steps Mr Nargund racked up this election, but other campaigners today are pointing to their pedometers as evidence that they have put in the hard graft. They’ve been telling our reporters that there’s nothing more they could have done.

After a night of tough losses for Labour nationally, in Islington candidates are already urging us to consider any result in to context of what’s going on in the government. Slim losses here are likely to be seen as a victory, and worthy of another pint or two.

Isabel Loubser

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10:15AM: Welcome to our election live blog for the Islington Council election. Voters went to the ballot box yesterday to decide the fate of the Town Hall over the next four years.

We have just arrived at the Islington Tennis Centre in Market Road, where verification is getting underway. The actual counting of votes isn’t expected to kick off until midday, and results should start being announced several hours later.

Greens are looking to make significant gains in areas like Tufnell Park, Arsenal, and Clerkenwell, so we’ll be keeping at eye on those.

Labour currently hold 44 seats in the Town Hall, and are therefore defending a huge majority alongside accusations of a one-party state.

Candidates have arrived with their agents, and are closely monitoring the ballots. To keep you entertained, his a photo of independent candidate for Bunhill Phil Graham arriving to the count on his iconic vintage scooter.

This has become a defining part of his look, and he’ll hope that he’ll get to keep riding around the south of the borough if he retains his seat. He was last elected as a Labour councillor, but defected from the party two years ago in protest against the government’s stance on a whole range of issues including Gaza.

Isabel Loubser