Beyond the Greens: Why Lambeth’s Independents Are Pushing Community Assemblies from Idea to Sovereign Power

A consensus from conversations across the borough

23rd April 2026

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Shake It Up welcomes the Green Party’s stance on the support for Community Assemblies, but after speaking with the emerging alliance of independent candidates standing in Lambeth, a clear consensus emerges: welcoming the principle is not the same as delivering the practice.

Across dozens of conversations—from tenants on Lansdowne Green to bus drivers in Brixton North—the sentiment is unmistakable. Labour’s one-party control has produced a council that residents describe as “a machine making decisions from the top,” with “doors that slam shut.” The Green Party’s support for participatory structures is noted, but it is understood by these candidates as a platform plank, not a lived strategy.

The consensus among this radical, sovereign, working-class movement is that Community Assemblies must not become another consulted-about-but-ignored forum. They must be binding, community-led, and independent of party whips. In the words of Harry O’Donoghue (Clapham Park), who has seen them work in Ireland: assemblies are “the best local tool to hold your representatives to account.” But only if those representatives are willing to surrender power—something neither Labour nor, historically, larger Green parties have done at scale in Lambeth.

What these candidates offer instead is a break from the logic of representation-as-usual. Eduardo Salgado, a bus driver and former immigration caseworker standing in Brixton North, puts it bluntly: “I don’t have all the answers. But I know what it’s like to be pushed out by rising rents.” Tara Amfo (Brixton Myatt’s Fields), a neurodivergent occupational health technician raised in Lambeth, speaks of systems that “fail individuals” and the need for assemblies that make room for different ways of being heard. Joanne Scott (Brixton Windrush), who runs a community healing CIC, says: “I believe in community power, true democracy, and leadership that listens as much as it speaks.”

This is not a standard independent slate. It is a cross-class, cross-migrant, cross-neurotype alliance rooted in the invisible work that keeps Lambeth running: care, hospitality, driving, casework, translation.

So here is the consensus that goes beyond welcoming Green Party rhetoric: Community Assemblies are the vehicle, but working-class, sovereign, independent candidates are the drivers. Without the latter, the former becomes another consultation.

The call, then, is not merely to vote. It is to recognise that this election offers something Lambeth has not seen in decades: a genuine chance to replace a one-party state with community power.

Meet the candidates:

• Ruby Bukhari (Brixton Acre Lane) – global social justice advocate, former community advice centre worker, twice migrant.
• Harry O’Donoghue (Clapham Park) – Irish immigrant, Palestinian solidarity organiser, founder of Irish in Britain against political policing.
• Tara Amfo (Brixton Myatt’s Fields) – Lambeth-born occupational health technician, neurodivergent advocate, former sixth-form campaigner for school counsellors.
• Joanne Scott (Brixton Windrush) – 22-year Windrush Ward resident, CIC founder (When We Talk We Heal), creative healing workshops.
• Neila Baiguzhanova (Stockwell West & Larkhall) – 19-year Stockwell neighbour, mental health counsellor, fought damp homes and ignored repairs.
• Eduardo Salgado (Brixton North) – bus driver, translator, former immigration caseworker, ESL teacher, Latin American community advocate.

Real people. Real communities. Real change.

Lambeth deserves better than a choice between two establishment flavours. This is the election to make community democracy real.

These candidates are organising. Come meet them: Mondays 6-7 pm, International House, 6 Canterbury Crescent, SW9 7QD.

Communal Assemblies – The future for English-wide democracy