Joshua Guillen: Enfield may see a Conservative revival

Joshua Guillen is a Conservative candidate in the Jubilee Ward for the Enfield Council elections in May.

The local elections in May are widely expected to be damaging for the Conservatives, with both the centre-left and the right – in the form of the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK – set to be the ultimate beneficiaries in areas historically well-rehearsed at returning blue councils. Yet despite this, here in bright red Enfield, there is life in the old Tory dog yet thanks to the complacency of our local Labour council.

While it would be foolhardy to assume that Labour are guaranteed to lose control of a borough they have governed since 2010, they will inevitably benefit from a handsomely-funded ground game – some forecasts have predicted them to be defeated for the first time in over a decade and a half.

To understand why, take the example of Jubilee Ward, where I am a Conservative candidate. Habitually red, it was, until recently, considered to be safe enough for the former Leader of Enfield Council, Nesil Caliskan, to be a councillor. Yet, upon vacating her seat for the House of Commons, the subsequent by-election in October 2024 saw us get our highest ward share since 2006, which represented a swing of just over ten per cent. Other than the local picture, which was characterised by decaying public services and an ever-increasing debt-burden, to compete with Labour so soon after they had won a landslide in Westminster was a shock.

Yet it is precisely because of the council’s record of delivery, or more accurately, lack thereof, that has boosted our competitiveness in the Ward – and has made the May elections a referendum on the viability of Enfield Labour. Consider first that the London Borough of Enfield is currently indebted to the tune of £1.23 billion, and was forecast to hit £1.5 billion by the end of this financial year. Such financial distress corrodes public services, weakens the council’s fiscal resilience and creates a race to the bottom for services deemed to be discretionary or of limited importance.

While there have been many suspect decisions in this genre, the gutting of weekly household bin collections remains top of the Labour chargesheet. Nominally inexpensive and a genuine public good, their decision to remove weekly waste removals has hastened fly-tipping and made streets less pleasant. Despite barbs to the contrary, we take no pleasure in pointing this out across our campaign; we want to live in a London Borough that is clean and rubbish-free. We have made the case that having pride in place is a prerequisite to a tolerant and prosperous neighbourhood. That is why we have committed to bringing them back. Yet the reality is inescapable: Labour has made Enfield less clean, and the days of spendthrift decision-making must end.

The point I am getting at here is not necessarily one about hyper-local service provision – however crucial that is – but instead one about fairness. Enfield was recently ranked as the sixth most deprived Local Authority in England, with 37.7 per cent of the population living in a deprived household, and the Jubilee Ward itself placed among the most deprived 20 per cent in the country. So, when I hear on the doors that residents feel let down by consecutive Labour administrations, the Conservative principles upon which we campaign become more apparent. Hence, when Enfield Labour refuse to substantively address the Borough’s spiralling fly tipping crisis, it is important we call it out for what it is: a cynical assumption that people will not vote differently, no matter how bad things become. To my mind, and to those of my campaign colleagues, such an indifference implies that proper waste services are the preserve of the wealthy – and that dirty streets in the N9 postcode aren’t actually all that bad.

The same attitude persists with the top-down imposition of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) – or, as Labour insists on calling them, “Quieter Neighbourhoods” (they promise they’re different). Purportedly designed to create “safer, greener and more inclusive streets”, these definitely-not-LTNs merely serve to push congestion into avenues, by-roads and highways predominantly occupied by poorer neighbourhoods. In essence, gridlocked traffic is now the new normal.

But my contention – and this is something I have heard on the doorstep – is that is goes beyond that: it is a foul injustice. Cars are crucial to an outer London borough like ours, and are often a prerequisite for people earning a living. Even to those who may not afford to drive, busier roads lead to slower buses, in turn depriving people of an ability to earn and gain a sense of independence. Both us and TfL know LTNs lead to disruption. That Labour cannot compute this – local grandstanding aside – and refuse to acknowledge this reality, goes some way in demonstrating why they are in for one hell of a fight this May.

The fact is, Jubilee Ward, alongside other parts of Enfield, are competitive for the first time in my adult life, showing that the Conservative principles of fairness, autonomy and sound money are still in vogue. After all, stranger things have happened – and Enfield may just be the blueprint for a Tory revival.