Conservative group leader Alessandro Georgiou talks to James Cracknell about his hopes of taking power at Enfield Civic Centre next year

Enfield Labour has been running the council for 15 years, but a poll last November indicated it was on course to lose power to the Tories.

The Jubilee by-election saw Labour’s vote share drop 14 percentage points, while the Conservatives were up by nine. The result led elections expert Lewis Baston, in his analysis for OnLondon, to conclude: “If Enfield Tories can replicate that performance on a larger scale in May 2026 they will have cause for celebration – it would be enough for them to win a majority.”

A year out from the next local election, I met Enfield Conservative group leader Alessandro Georgiou for a chat to discuss the prospect of the party taking power at Enfield Civic Centre. So how does he rate their chances? “I don’t want to be complacent. I think we have a good chance. I know that Labour are worried and we’ve got them on the ropes – they can no longer hide behind a Conservative government.”

In May 2022, Enfield Conservatives bucked the party’s national downward trend to win eight seats off Labour. The result meant that, going into 2026, the Tories only need win seven more seats to gain power. But could the rise of right-wing party Reform UK scupper their chances?

“Well, number one, we created Reform,” Cllr Georgiou admits, “because we [the Tories] didn’t do what we said we were going to do, which is cut taxes and immigration.

“Number two, how do you deal with Reform? Enfield is not a Reform-y place. And people recognise that it’s a straight fight between us and Labour here.

“I’d say to the Reform Party, very publicly, if you think you can gain anything in Enfield, you really need your head examined. If any party stops us from beating Labour in this borough, that is unforgivable, because they have destroyed it.”

Journey into politics

Cllr Georgiou has a lot in common with council leader Ergin Erbil. Like his Labour counterpart, the Conservative group leader was born at Chase Farm Hospital, grew up in Edmonton, and is now a father of two young children. There was struggle in Cllr Georgiou’s upbringing, too, as he says his family “lived in a one-bedroom flat in Edmonton Green until I was about seven or eight” before later moving to Arnos Grove, while his younger sister was born three months prematurely at North Middlesex Hospital and developed quadriplegic cerebral palsy. His mother has been her full-time carer ever since.

Like Cllr Erbil, Cllr Georgiou also has an immigrant family background – his grandparents moved to the UK from Greece (on his father’s side) and Italy (on his mother’s side). His journey into politics began shortly after leaving Broomfield School, at Essex University, where he studied international relations. Cllr Georgiou stood for election in Southgate Green in 2014, aged just 21, while in the third year of his degree – and unexpectedly won.

So why did he decide to get into politics? “At one of my school career days, they said there’s two ways to change things – you can be wealthy and donate a lot of money to charities or push certain agendas, or you can get involved in politics.

“So I joined the Conservative Party when I was about 16. Then I ran in 2014 because I just didn’t like the direction the borough was going in. I was still at university, so that was probably not a wise choice at the time!”

Cllr Georgiou had to balance his studies with councillor duties, sometimes driving back late at night after meetings in order to be ready for lectures the next day. But he never had any doubt about being a Conservative. “It’s a fundamental belief of mine, I just want lower taxes […] although I didn’t know what sort of Conservative I was until much later.

“I think any politician that doesn’t change their views over time is an idiot. If you hear something that you think, actually, yeah, I might have been wrong, then you have to change. And I have changed all over the place [but] I think I’m settled now.”

So what kind of Tory is he? “At university, I was more of a libertarian. But now I’m definitely a Thatcherite, because if you look at the history of her terms in office, her first term wasn’t that radical, very pragmatic, [then she] won her landslide [in 1983], and that’s when taxes really started to come down.

“For me, there’s no such thing as left and right any more in Britain – it’s issues based.”

Asked for his favourite of the five Conservative prime ministers to occupy Number 10 in the time he’s been a Tory councillor, Cllr Georgiou says: “Fiscally, David Cameron. In terms of personality, Boris. He was bombastic, he captured the mood.”

Does that mean he supported the Cameron austerity programme which devastated local authority finances across the country?

“You know, there were cuts to local government, but not to the extent that wasteful councils like to portray […] it is not an excuse for politicians today to hide behind. Because, funny enough, you know, the world didn’t end during the Cameron government. Councils still operated as they should.”

The cuts had a cumulative impact, though – Enfield Council receives £48m less annually from the government, in real terms. Does Cllr Georgiou agree the cuts went too far?

“In some ways yes, and in some ways no. I think the government should have had better negotiations with local authorities beforehand, but a lot of councils – not always, but generally Conservative-managed councils – managed to survive with good services.”

Cllr Georgiou is also a Brexit supporter, but admits it hasn’t worked out as he’d hoped and mostly blames “rampant” post-Brexit immigration numbers for the Tories losing power at Westminster last year.

“The point of Brexit is to take the benefits where you find them,” he says. “We did some of it when in office, but not enough.”

Priorities for Enfield

Cllr Georgiou has led Enfield Conservatives since 2022 but also, since 2024, has sat on the London Assembly – after winning via the party’s top-up list. Much like his initial foray into politics, it wasn’t expected.

“It was a bit of a surprise, yeah. Susan Hall, our mayoral candidate, is a good friend of mine. She said ‘why don’t you give it a crack?’ They put me fifth on the list, and the Tories had four incumbents […] so I was completely shocked to win.”

Becoming a London Assembly member as well as being Enfield’s Tory group leader forced Cllr Georgiou to give up his job in The City and become a full-time politician, splitting his time between the two roles.

At the assembly, Cllr Georgiou has called for City Hall to scale back on diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) policies and slammed “wokery” – imitating the Trump administration in the US. Is that something he’d look at in Enfield?

“If we do have [council] officers around, just hunting to make sure things fit into this social justice warrior category, they’ll be offered a chance to be repurposed.”

Suggesting the best way to help ethnic minorities is to lower taxes and boost the economic prospects of poorer areas, he adds: “Look at Lower Edmonton, where it’s predominantly minority communities, and a quarter of wages are under £15,000 a year. That’s an abomination.”

What else would change in Enfield under a Conservative-run council? Will there be a clear list of priorities ready for next year? “It will be a very simple manifesto,” vows Cllr Georgiou. “Because we’re in such mess as a council, it’s about looking at everything holistically.”

One policy that won’t come as a surprise is removing two low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) controversially introduced in Palmers Green and Bowes Park during the pandemic. But will residents get a chance to say whether they’d rather keep them, now it’s been five years?

“We’ll still rip them out,” Cllr Georgiou insists. “We’ll keep the school streets, but the LTNs are coming out. I think, literally, if I became leader of the council, I’d go and take them out myself.”

How fast would that happen? “Officers have conceded we can turn the cameras off on day one. And then all you’ve got to do is remove the planters, but we’d have to follow the statutory consultation process first.”

Cllr Georgiou claims, despite his passionate opposition to LTNs, to be “an environmentalist” who drives an electric car and has solar panels. The key point for him is not bringing in environmental policies “at the expense of crucifying the taxpayer”, but does he agree people need to drive less?

“It depends on where you live,” he says. “If I lived in central London, I probably wouldn’t have a car, right? But if you look at Hadley Wood, if you don’t have a car you’re not getting anywhere.”

He adds: “I am very pro public transport, but that should not come at the expense of people that need cars.”
Enfield Conservatives also vehemently opposed the segregated cycle lanes installed using the ‘Mini Holland’ cash awarded to the council – ironically, by then-mayor Boris Johnson – in 2014. So will they be removed under a Tory administration?

“We can’t afford to,” he suggests, before clarifying: “We would remove the floating bus stops, because they’re extremely dangerous for the elderly, disabled, in particular the blind.”

A Transport for London (TfL) report recently found Enfield was the worst borough for active travel, reinforcing Cllr Georgiou’s point. “All this taxpayer money spent, and what has it achieved?” he asks.

The Tories would also, to no-one’s surprise, attempt to stop Tottenham Hotspur building its women’s football academy on Whitewebbs Park. But it won’t be easy. “I’d love to reverse it,” he says. “But then, legally, we’re going to be up against a billion-pound organisation. So I would explore how we do it.”

A Conservative council would also, Cllr Georgiou says, bring back weekly bin collections and attempt to stop library buildings being sold off to developers, with seven due to shut this year. They’d even, eventually, like to cut council tax.

How will it all be possible? “The first six months, it’s going to be absolute misery,” he says. “Because we’re going to have to deal with the finances. We’ve got to deal with the £1.5bn debt. [But] I think I can save hundreds of millions from debt-laden projects, without a penny from frontline services.”

The housing crisis

Protecting the Green Belt is another cause the Tories have championed locally even if, by 2026, the Enfield Local Plan will likely be adopted, including its proposed 9,651 Green Belt homes. “I do not want a single square inch of verdant Green Belt land built on,” says Cllr Georgiou. “I think that is clear.”

But without such land, and as the Tories also oppose new tower blocks as well, how will they meet local housing targets?

“If you look at certain parts of the borough, basically brownfield sites that could easily be redeveloped into family housing, we’ve done the numbers and it is something we’re going to come forward with.”

Instead of tower blocks, Cllr Georgiou says he’d advocate for the type of “mansion housing” common in inner London. Does that mean he would support TfL’s plans for the car parks at Cockfosters if they were mansion blocks instead of tower blocks?

“Look, Cockfosters Station is very unique in the sense it is one of very few park-and-rides left in London. It’s packed and it’s used by commuters, local shoppers, disabled, elderly, pregnant women.”

What about Meridian Water, the £6billion council-led housing scheme that’s delivered just 268 homes to date?

“I no longer want Enfield Council to be the master developer. It will be the private sector that will hold it, but I will have very tough standards.”

The council has also been criticised for sending homeless families to live in places like Hartlepool, 250 miles away, while also now buying property in Liverpool.

“Ultimately, if someone is homeless and the choice is between putting them up in hotels, and we’ve got £21m overspend on temporary accommodation [TA], you have to tackle that. We’ve got thousands of children living in TA. It’s a travesty we’ve got kids living in B&Bs.”

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