Your Party candidate applications close Wednesday 25th March as Lambeth’s anti-Labour challengers race to get in place before 2026 election deadline

Your Party, the new political movement born out of Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s break with Labour, closes its national call for council candidates tomorrow, with member selections and approvals …

Mar 24, 2026 - 08:02 Updated: Mar 24, 2026 - 10:41

Your Party candidate applications close Wednesday 25th March as Lambeth’s anti-Labour challengers race to get in place before 2026 election deadline

Your Party, the new political movement born out of Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s break with Labour, closes its national call for council candidates tomorrow, with member selections and approvals to follow in a rapid sprint before the 9th April nomination deadline, as a growing field of progressive and independent challengers takes shape across Lambeth ahead of May’s elections.

As Brixton Buzz reported last week, Your Party’s Lambeth branch has already adopted Laura Graham to contest St Martin’s ward. The branch’s rocky start, though sensational at times, is unlikely to surprise anyone familiar with the very public growing pains between party founders Corbyn and Sultana as they attempt to build a new movement from scratch.

But the longer term game for Your Party will be to complete its formation ahead of the next general election in two or three years’ time. For now, getting a few candidates in place and building a local presence will suffice.

Graham, a YP member born and raised on the St Martin’s Estate with over 20 years’ experience in the addictions field, will stand as an independent candidate under the proposed ‘Lambeth Independent Socialists’ label, endorsed by but not formally representing the party.

Her platform spans fighting cuts and school closures, housing, community resilience and a pledge to end Lambeth pension fund investments in Israel.

Whether further YP-backed candidates emerge in Lambeth before Wednesday’s deadline remains to be seen, but they would join a crowded anti-Labour field that has been growing since autumn 2025.

*[Shake it Up team, Ruby Bukhari centre]*

Shake It Up, the coalition of community independents spearheaded by Ruby Bukhari and rooted in the Brixton Assemble organising meetings on homelessness and addiction, is fielding candidates across multiple wards.

Among them is Eduardo Salgado, a long-time Acre Lane resident and transport worker standing in Brixton North, who told Brixton Buzz: “I’ve watched housing, unemployment, and crime never get better under Labour.”

*[l-r Ciara Alleyne, Martin Abrams, Paul Valentine, Zack Polanski, Sonia Winifred, Scott Ainlsie]*

The Green Party under Zack Polanski’s leadership is riding a national surge, with Bombe modelling published in the Guardian forecasting that Labour could lose flagship boroughs including Lambeth to the Greens on May 7th. The party already holds four council seats in the borough after Martin Abrams, suspended by Labour for backing a Gaza ceasefire motion, then smeared as a “fake Jew” by colleagues, quit the party and joined the Greens, alongside Paul Valentine’s by-election win in Herne Hill and Loughborough Junction.

*[Tina Valcarcel is welcomed to the Lib Dems by Ed Davey and Donna Harris]*

The Liberal Democrats, bolstered by the defection of former Labour Mayor, are also targeting gains in a borough where Labour currently holds 57 of 63 seats.

Much of the speculation centres on Oval ward, where Labour leader Claire Holland is standing. Whether opposition parties will informally coordinate to maximise their chances of unseating her, or whether a fragmented anti-Labour vote will let Holland through, is the question being asked across the borough.

In many Lambeth wards, Labour councillors were elected in 2022 on fewer than 900 votes. With the anti-Labour vote now potentially split between Greens, Lib Dems, independents and pro-Palestine candidates, the stakes of cooperation, or the lack of it, could hardly be higher.