Lambeth Council in London has long been a Labour stronghold, however, that all looks likely to change come the local elections on 7 May. The Greens look set to take several seats, with independents and Lib Dems also set to make significant gains. As a result, it appears a hung council lies ahead which is likely to go a long way to limit harmful policies pushed by Labour.
We reported on Lambeth’s commitment to the ‘Vote Palestine ’26’ pledge, organised by the Palestinian Youth Movement. Lambeth has a proud, growing socialist base in their local community, with members working cooperatively against oppression and for social justice.
We spoke to Laura Graham who is standing as an independent candidate for her local community in the ward of St Martin’s. Laura works actively with other independents and local Greens as she sets out to bring Labour to task and fight for social justice in Lambeth.
Laura Graham: ‘They feel conned, they’ve been completely let down’
We asked Laura Graham why she decided to take action and stand for her local community. Speaking of her initial excitement and subsequent disappointment with Your Party, Graham told us:
So, I’ve never been part of a party before. And I’ve never been apathetic, I’ve always been political in some ways, but I’ve never been that driven. And certainly locally, my physical home has always been here, but it’s always been quite toxic locally.
This new party [Your Party] was something that really was going to turn things around. And locally, my proto branch is a mixture of socialists and communists and the rest of it. And we just bubble along, get on with things, and it really is lovely. And then the CEC decision for expulsions of anything with socialist in its name. Yeah. It was heartbreaking.
It was just like, what have you done? And my understanding is, from the online discussions and things across the country, is that there is an appetite for Corbyn’s Labour Party, but without the undermining that the Labour Party did to him, and that’s what they are creating, and I don’t think that is what I signed up for.
Undeterred and even more determined, Graham refused to leave her community unrepresented and vulnerable to bad actors, choosing to stand as an independent:
I had such a massive mountain to climb, my face is known and I’ve got lots of friends locally. I’ve lived here all my life. But the apathy amongst people who I don’t know, in regard to actually voting, has been so sad to see. They turned up for the general election, they did what they were asked, they got rid of the Tories and Labour came in even worse, and their life has declined.
So, they feel conned, they’ve been completely let down by Labour. And then we’ve got the cuts across Lambeth by this current Labour council. The problem we have here in Lambeth is that there’s been a monopoly of Labour councillors in the town hall, so they just do whatever it is that they want to do. There’s very little chance of opposition.
It’s meant sweeping cuts, selling off our shared assets, shutting down our schools. I mean, it’s ridiculous. There are two schools that are impacted in my ward that are due for being shut down. And the argument is that there aren’t enough children locally. My argument is, actually, I like the small class sizes for working-class kids.
And the thing is, they take away a school, they sell up the land to the developer and it’s never coming back as a school again. So, when we lose them, we lose them forever. Labour seems to have no problem with that, it feels like social cleansing to be fair.
Labour fielding local candidates with dodgy MP expense scandals
Adding insult to injury, Graham highlighted how one of the Labour candidates up for election is a former MP who was mired in expense scandals. Talking about Kitty Ussher’s £20k expenses which she claimed for home improvements, Graham further underscored why it is so important to keep Labour out:
Apparently, she’s filled to the mugs for it. She paid back a bit of what she owed. But she claimed £20,000 for renovations to a second home that she had for several years.
She also informed that two of the Labour candidates don’t even live in the area, are subsequently incredibly privileged and as such, completely out of touch to represent one of the most deprived wards in London.
Laura Graham: “a real community champion, with a community voice”
We asked Graham how it has been on the doors and about the conversations she has been having with her local community. In a beautiful show of solidarity and community-first politics, Graham and local Green Jeremy Isaacs are working cooperatively in support of each other in order to get the scourge of Labour out. Graham pointed out that Reform UK is standing in just two seats in Lambeth, making the incumbent Labour Party the key party to focus on.
This inspiring independent talked to us about her local campaign strategy coordinated in tandem with her local Green:
So, there are two seats here in St Martin’s Ward and the Greens really kindly decided to only stand one candidate because they wanted to support my campaign. And it’s been really good on the door as well because we’ve got two votes here.
On the doors, they were just like “oh I want to vote for green”, so I said, “can I have the other one because we’ve worked really well together”.
I’ve got to know Jeremy Isaacs as a Green candidate really well. We met actually before I decided to do this, we met through a few mutual friends, and he lives in another part of the ward so we could work really well together.
We now are actually concentrating on canvassing and knocking on doors.
Referring to the local Green Party campaign, in turn proving she acts in solidarity, Graham added:
They’re [Greens] not doing anything locally. So, the campaigning that’s happening for Jeremy is me having conversations on the door and inviting Jeremy to local events so that he’s getting his profile noticed. And he’s really championing me in those events as well. It’s wonderful.
He’s such a strong candidate here and he’s really keen to do it. He’s an NHS doctor and he said that he would go part-time in order to be a good councillor here.
Graham: ‘It’s just been lovely’
Referring to her own manifesto, Graham told us:
We’ve got a big leafleting campaign coming up. We’ve got a brand-new leaflet coming out, which we’re very excited about. It’s really reflective of my personal kind of politics around No Cuts Pledge and the Pledge for Palestine.
And I’ve got still more doorstepping to do. I really do want to get around to every single door. Unfortunately, I can’t clone myself, so I’m looking for a team of people that can help, really, to get into places where I’m not going to be able to get to. And we do regular stalls, so we’re having one this afternoon, which is usually our stall is outside the Tulse Hill Co-op.
It’s just been lovely we’ve had such a great response there that we’ve been doing them every Saturday and every Sunday.
We then asked Graham about the conversations she is having with local voters. Graham stated that the main opposition locally is Labour, and in turn, the apathy that they have created for those who feel abandoned and let down, informing:
What I’m hearing on the doors is that Starmer cannot be trusted and that they turned up and voted to get rid of the Tories. It wasn’t particularly that they loved Starmer, but that it was the right thing to do. So, they’ve done the right thing, which nobody can disagree with.
However, the first thing Starmer did when he came in was cut the winter fuel payments for pensioners and attacked disabled people. So disabled people became completely politically homeless, literally within a few months of Labour being in power. And that can never be forgiven for what they did there. It’s shocking.
They’ve diluted that, obviously, from pressure from the backbenchers. However, from the beginning of April, the most severely disabled people, who are so severely disabled that they cannot work, will have that benefit slashed by half.
On the doors we’re getting people, who traditionally voted Labour, not going to vote this year or were going to vote for the Greens. When I tell them about my manifesto, that I’m local, they’re really interested in that but it’s offering real change and difference as well that I’m not attached to a big established political party.
They’ve let people down for many years so that’s my unique center point, that I can be a real community champion with a community voice and what is really exciting to people is that the polling is showing that Labour, in St Martin, are going to have a really bad night on May 7th. The Greens are going to do really well, and the Lib Dems might be able to get two, which will then lead to a hung council which then means as an independent candidate, I will have real power.
Solidarity in Lambeth
Independent Laura Graham and the Green Party’s Jeremy Isaacs pictured together in St Martins:
Strengthening Laura’s credentials on her ability to work in solidarity for her local community, she told us about the other independents standing across Lambeth who have formed an assembly group called ‘Shake it Up’:
I’m not the only independent standing; I’m one of the seven independents. We’ve got ‘Shake It Up’, who are standing in other wards, and we’ve been working so closely together that the prospect of working with them as a gang is really exciting. We are mostly on the same page about stuff, we want to represent our local communities and we’re very community based.
The prospect of all of us getting seats is just really exciting, that can really show that independents can have a big impact. We have worked together already; they invited me to get involved with a protest down in Brixton Plaza.
Brixton Plaza has about 100 independent small businesses locally, and the Labour Council gave planning permission to the owners of the building to just get rid of it and make it into the Lidl and the traders there would give them four weeks’ notice to get out, no compensation, I think.
So, over the Easter weekend we pulled together a protest and Shake It Up got the services of a lawyer to be free to pay for the tenancy agreements to see whether they could be entitled to compensation and it was horrific that they found that everyone had different tenancy agreements, some of them not legally valid so they probably hadn’t been insured. They’d invested so much money into their little units, shutters on their units cost £3,000. There was no talk about any of that money coming back.
And the developers knew that they were going to do this development and they would still let people start stalls with deposits four weeks before the eviction notice. Some people have been there for eight years; others have been there for four weeks.
So, we met outside the plaza, we asked people to sign a petition. We then walked up to the town hall, and we got lots of people who were traders talking about how it had impacted them. And then we spoke outside the town hall. Then the next day, the petition was taken to court and the judge ruled in the favour of the traders. So, we got an injunction, and there is time now to negotiate compensation.
Lambeth — Politics for the masses, not just the privileged
Deplorably, Graham made us aware that the local Labour council are pushing a ‘Safer Streets’ initiative, which in reality is a front for local corporates to hire ‘vigilante’ security bodyguards. Specifically, they will target those shoplifting food and goods most predominantly. Once again, instead of addressing poverty, Labour intend to punish its symptoms.
In fact, the local Labour candidates are apparently promoting it in their leaflets as a ‘benefit’ to the community. Funnily enough, they don’t highlight how they will be paid by local developers. Developers who have long shown they care precious little about local communities and more about their profits.
Nonetheless, Lambeth clearly has great people fighting for its best interests. People who prove in their joint campaign that solidarity and social justice are their true priorities. A refreshing change to the unprincipled political ilk that come from our greedy establishment parties.
Therefore, we at the Canary recommend voters in St Martins to get behind Laura Graham and Jeremy Isaacs on 7 May.
We wish you both all the best!
Featured image provided via author
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