The mayor of Tower Hamlets is the directly elected mayor of

Tower Hamlets London Borough Council Tower Hamlets London Borough Council is the local authority for the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in Greater London, England. The council is unusual in that its executive function is controlled by a directly elected mayor of Tower Hamlets, cur ...

in east

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, England. The first election for this position occurred on 21 October 2010, taking on the executive function of the borough council. The position is different from the previous largely ceremonial, annually appointed mayors of

Tower Hamlets The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a London borough covering much of the traditional East End. It was formed in 1965 from the merger of the former metropolitan boroughs of Stepney, Poplar, and Bethnal Green. 'Tower Hamlets' was originally ...

, who became known as the 'Chair of Council' after the first election and are now known as the 'Speaker of Council'. The second election was held on 22 May 2014, the same day as the Tower Hamlets Council election, other

United Kingdom local elections There are five types of elections in the United Kingdom: elections to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom (commonly called 'general elections' when all seats are contested), elections to devolved parliaments and assemblies, local electi ...

, and

European Parliament elections Elections to the European Parliament take place every five years by universal adult suffrage; with more than 400 million people eligible to vote, they are considered the second largest democratic elections in the world after India's. Unti ...

, but the election result was declared void by the election court. A by-election was held on 11 June 2015.

Referendum

2010

The proposal to change the status of the borough from one with a leader and cabinet to one with an executive mayor was initially opposed by all the main political parties and was an initiative only proposed and supported by the

Respect Party The Respect Party was a left-wing to far-left, socialist political party active in the United Kingdom between 2004 and 2016. At the height of its success in 2007, the party had one Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons and nineteen ...

Islamic Forum Europe The Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) is an Islamic organisation based in the United Kingdom with affiliates in Europe.referendum A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a ...

for this change. Council officers stated that almost half the signatures were invalid, with entire pages bearing the same handwriting. Despite the flaws in the petition, there were sufficient valid signatures for the council to accept it, and a referendum was held on 6 May 2010 simultaneously with the voting in the

United Kingdom general election This is a list of United Kingdom general elections (elections for the UK House of Commons) since the first in 1802. The members of the 1801–1802 Parliament had been elected to the former Parliament of Great Britain and Parliament of Ireland ...

. The referendum was passed after an intensive campaign. Writing in the '' Sunday Telegraph'' on 17 October,

Andrew Gilligan Andrew Paul Gilligan (born 22 November 1968) is a British policy adviser and former transport adviser to Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister between 2019-22. Until July 2019, he was senior correspondent of ''The Sunday Times'' and had also served ...

represented the forthcoming election as the first big test for the recently elected Labour leader

Ed Miliband Edward Samuel "Ed" Miliband (born 24 December 1969) is a British politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero since 2021. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster North since 2005. Miliban ...

, given the possibility of an independent candidate defeating the official Labour candidate in a strong Labour borough. Gilligan also said that it raised concerns over the political power of radical Islam in the UK, because of candidate Lutfur Rahman's connections with

Islamic Forum Europe The Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) is an Islamic organisation based in the United Kingdom with affiliates in Europe.Ken Livingstone, also campaigned in support of Rahman, in breach of Labour Party rules.

2021

Elections

2010

The first election took place on Thursday 21 October 2010, with a 25.6 per cent turn out. The new mayor officially took office on Monday 25 October 2010.

2014

In April 2015, this election was declared void by an

election court In United Kingdom election law, election court is a special court convened to hear a petition against the result of a local government or parliamentary election. The court is created to hear the individual case, and ceases to exist when it ha ...

2015 by-election

After the 2014 election was declared void, a new election was held on 11 June 2015. Councillor Rabina Khan initially announced that she would stand as the

Tower Hamlets First Tower Hamlets First was a British political party represented in Tower Hamlets London Borough Council, which was launched to contest the 2014 local elections in the Borough. During its existence, it was the second largest party on Tower Hamlets ...

candidate. However, as a result of findings in the election court case against Lutfur Rahman, Tower Hamlets First was removed from the register of political parties by the

Electoral Commission An election commission is a body charged with overseeing the implementation of electioneering process of any country. The formal names of election commissions vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and may be styled an electoral commission, a c ...

as the party was not operating a responsible financial scheme and the running of the party did not follow the documentation given in the party's registration. Khan subsequently stood as an independent candidate. Andy Erlam is a writer and film-maker who led the legal action against Rahman which resulted in the previous election being declared void. He had previously stood elsewhere as a Parliamentary candidate for Labour, then as the first candidate fielded by "Red Flag Anti-Corruption" in the

Council elections on 22 May 2014. Red Flag Anti-Corruption had also fielded two parliamentary candidates in the

2015 UK general election The 2015 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 7 May 2015 to elect 650 members to the House of Commons. It was the first and only general election held at the end of a Parliament under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. Local ...

, Jason Pavlou for

Bethnal Green and Bow Bethnal Green and Bow is a constituency in Greater London, represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Rushanara Ali of the Labour Party. Boundaries Since the 2014 boundary changes, the constituency has contained the ...

and

Rene Claudel Mugenzi Rene Claudel Mugenzi (born 13 April 1976) is a British author, community and social development practitioner, human rights activist, community organiser and politician. He stood as a Parliamentary candidate for Poplar and Limehouse in The U ...

for Poplar and Limehouse, both within Tower Hamlets. Liberal Democrat Elaine Bagshaw and UKIP candidate Nicholas McQueen both stood for their respective parties in Poplar and Limehouse at the 2015 general election.

2018

John Biggs defended the seat for Labour. Following a split in the former Tower Hamlets First group, Cllr Rabina Khan stood again, as the candidate for her new party, the

People's Alliance of Tower Hamlets The People's Alliance of Tower Hamlets (PATH) was a minor political party in Tower Hamlets, London, England composed of councillors who had formerly been members of Tower Hamlets First and then the Tower Hamlets Independent Group. The group was ...

(PATH) while Cllr Ohid Ahmed stood for Aspire, which emerged from the post-Tower Hamlets First Tower Hamlets Independent Group. The Conservative Party selected Dr Anwara Ali MBE, a local GP and, until 2010, local Labour councillor. The Liberal Democrats selected Elaine Bagshaw, their 2015 candidate. In August 2018, Khan wound up PATH and joined the Liberal Democrats.

2022

Biggs sought to defend his seat for Labour. In January 2022, Liberal Democrat councillor

Rabina Khan Rabina Khan ( bn, রবিনা খান; born 15 September 1972) is a Bangladeshi-born British writer, politician, former councillor for Shadwell and Cabinet Member for Housing in Tower Hamlets Council, community worker and author of '' Aye ...

was announced as the party's candidate for the mayoralty. Independent councillor Andrew Wood, who had resigned from the Conservative group in 2020, announced he would stand for election as both a councillor and mayor. Former mayor of the borough, Lutfur Rahman, announced his candidacy for the Aspire party in February 2022. Rahman's five-year ban from standing for election, having been found guilty by an election court of "corrupt and illegal practices", had elapsed. He was endorsed at his formal campaign launch in March by the former mayor of London Ken Livingstone and the peer Pola Uddin. Rahman won the election with a final vote share of 54.9%, unseating incumbent John Biggs and taking the mayoralty for the second time.

List of elected mayors

Notes

References

{{London Borough of Tower Hamlets *