As we reported on 20/4/25, the voters of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight will elect a Mayor in 2026. We Greens are critical of some features of this election, as already announced by the Westminster government.
But we have successfully raised our concerns at East Hampshire District, winning two important votes in the process.
On 24th April the two Green Party councillors (Ian James and James Hogan) won the council’s support for alternative ways to make this election fairer and more democratic.
i) The government has said that each candidate must pay £10,000 just to get their name on the ballot paper ! That’s a £5,000 deposit and a further £5,000 to get their message into a special booklet, to be distributed to all households. Stumping up £10,000 may not be a problem for parties which are funded by big business, fossil fuel billionaires or the trades unions. But smaller parties and capable independents could be put off by the cost. This financial burden would reduce the democracy of the election. Instead, the two Green Party councillors (Ian James – Liss, and James Hogan – Horndean Downs) proposed that the ‘entry fee’ should be lowered and that candidates should collect a minimum number of nominating signatures from voters. This would encourage greater participation and wider diversity of candidates, improving democracy. This motion won a majority of votes at East Hants Disrict Council.
ii) In previous mayoral elections in London and elsewhere, an alternative to the discredited ‘first past the post’ voting system had been used. We saw in the 2024 general election that ‘first past the post’ produces bizarre outcomes, with the number of MPs elected for a party wildly out of proportion to their number of votes. For the 2026 mayoral election the Westminster government wants to use ‘first past the post’. But this could easily result in the election of a mayor with only 20% of the vote – hardly democratic. So, the Green councillors have proposed using a fairer voting system, such as the ‘Supplementary Vote’, in which votes cast for a second-choice candidate are also counted.
Councillor James Hogan, who proposed the successful motions, explained: “These decisions will now be shared with the leader of the County Council, the local MPs and the relevant government minister, urging them to suppport the changes we recommend in order to make the election of a mayor more fair and more democratic.” He added: “I’m very proud that our two motions won support from the other parties – we firmly believe in co-operation in support of our principles”.
- Look out for our further coverage of this developing news story
- For more information contact Cllr Hogan at james.hogan@easthants.gov.uk.