Coalition of Independents aim to end Labour’s vice-like grip on Lambeth Council

“It was all different when I first lived here in 1975” says Carol a local Clapham resident as she describes her frustration attempting to navigate the opaque, inscrutable layers of bureaucracy that today make up the Lambeth Borough Council in an attempt to seek help regarding anything from basic maintenance to help with mentally ill neighbours.

A sentiment that appeared common to all attendees of the “SHAKE IT UP” alliance meeting held in the ‘Bread and Roses’ on 25th February 2026.

Accessibility, accountability and the perceived corruption of the council were the most common complaints of residents.

While incompetence may be a more likely explanation, one resident expressed her frustration at consistently being charged for works done on properties that had nothing to do with her and the lengths she had to go to in order to avoid being taken to court over it. This included a trip to the records department in order to acquire maps to prove that she did not live there.

Lambeth is a “one party state” stated Roger Hammal veteran campaign organiser and activist who alongside longtime community worker Ruby Bukhari are attempting to put together this coalition of independent candidates.

The organisers hope to apply what they have learned from working on campaigns such as the Sander’s bid for the US presidency, Labour’s ‘Momentum’ and Mahmdani’s recent success in the New York Mayoral race to “Get Labour Out” this time around.

The biggest changes the Coalition are aiming to introduce are “Citizens Assemblies”. Large meetings of community members called through ‘sortition’ in a similar manner to juries in which they can express their concerns and propose solutions on a given issue as well as hear from experts on the topic.

The idea being that SIU councillors are directly at the behest of these assemblies when making decisions. This power would somewhat depend on the election of a plurality of SIU candidates but certainly the result of these assemblies would be difficult for any councillor to justify ignoring. How exactly they intend to organise and hold these meetings remains to be seen.

Hammal expressed his belief that removing Labour from power in the borough is achievable given the party’s huge decline in popularity since Starmer came into government and the low turnout rates for past borough elections.

In some wards in the 2022 elections labour councillors gained their seats having garnered less than 900 votes with Ibrahim Douglas retaining his Waterloo / South Bank seat with just 781.

On a national level support for Labour has cratered with 69% of Britons disapproving of the government’s performance as of September 2025 per YouGov. It is hard to imagine this figure has risen given the revelations in the most recent tranche of Epstein Files tying top party officials with the world’s most famous pedophile.

The alliance is still trying to gather candidates, encouraging members of the local community to run with their support. The role of a councillor is both time-consuming and unpaid meaning it can be out of reach to people who must simultaneously hold down a full time job.

The hope is that the citizens assembly would take some of this pressure off as it would provide clear direction to the council. They have had some success in this department with community leaders such as prison reform activist Andrew Morris set to run. However finding candidates to run in every ward appears to be proving difficult.

In order to prevent dilution of the anti-labour progressive vote they are engaging with the Green and Your party to not run candidates in the same ward.

The bloc has employed a strategy of very direct community participation. Locals knocking on doors, running stalls, making calls and holding public meetings with the view that this type of grass roots organising will see success as it did recently in New York.

Certainly it would appear their persistent postering has facilitated the majority of first time attendees at meetings and door knockers have reported largely positive responses from the public to date.

In at least two instances contenders from the labour party have been seen at SIU meetings observing how the group operates with the Brixton launch event having the incumbent mayor in attendance. This would indicate they are at least concerned at the potential for this movement to cause an upset come May. However, the group has a lot to do in a short period of time if they hope to achieve their targets.

[This article by By Oisín McAnenna]