Basil Jet wrote:

So if the Tories have any sense, they will offer the people of Caterham
and Ewell and a few other Tory areas just outside the boundary a
referendum to become part of London, to make sure that the London Mayor
stays Tory.

Epsom & Ewell (I can't really imagine them trying to split the borough) is
not a guaranteed Conservative banker in local government though. The borough
council is run by a Residents' Association since at least the early 1930s
and the same group also regularly take nearly all the E&E seats on Surrey
County Council, whilst the Conservatives are weak in E&E, despite now
putting up a proper slate at local elections. If they decided to contest GLA
elections (as their weaker Havering counterparts have) they could add little
to the Conservative result.

And the figures for successive London Mayoral elections, and more especially
London Assembly elections, are such that no one or probably even two or
three areas could be added that could guarantee to tip the balance. I can't
seriously envisage an addition referendum giving *all* the areas a
collective in or out approach - rather each individual area would be voting
on the assumption that it could be the only one to be added.

Finally whilst a Conservative government in Westminster might call the
referendums, the ground campaign would have to be fought by local
Conservative parties who would probably not be keen to see their areas added
to London, especially a London that could throw up another Zone 1
Livingstone figure. Look at the recent Mayoral referendums in the big
cities - again the Conservatives nationally were enthusiastic but the local
parties weren't all as keen, perhaps because they have a more realistic idea
about how many potential Borises there are in their cities.

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