Made in Lambeth, Failed in Lambeth: The catastrophic Starmer project was born in the borough – and is now crashing down in humiliating fashion, thanks to Claire Holland’s latest bout of petty Labour factionalism

For twenty years, Lambeth Labour behaved as though the borough belonged to them. Not represented. Not governed. Owned. The Town Hall machine became so dominant, so tribal and so ruthlessly …

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May 10, 2026 - 13:33
Made in Lambeth, Failed in Lambeth: The catastrophic Starmer project was born in the borough – and is now crashing down in humiliating fashion, thanks to Claire Holland’s latest bout of petty Labour factionalism

For twenty years, Lambeth Labour behaved as though the borough belonged to them. Not represented. Not governed. Owned.

The Town Hall machine became so dominant, so tribal and so ruthlessly factional that opposition parties often looked less like political rivals and more like tolerated background noise.

Internal dissent was stamped on. Critics were frozen out. Residents raising concerns were frequently treated as irritants to be managed rather than people to be listened to. And now? It’s over.

The 2026 Lambeth local elections delivered a political earthquake that would have been considered unthinkable only a few years ago. After two decades of total dominance, Labour lost control of the council in catastrophic fashion. Final score on the doors: Greens 29, Labour 26, Lib Dems 8.

The mighty Lambeth Labour machine didn’t just wobble. It imploded.

And the significance of that defeat stretches far beyond the borough boundaries because Lambeth Labour was never just a local council administration. It became the finishing school for one of the nastiest and most controlling political factions in modern Labour politics.

The borough acted as a testing ground for the Labour Together project – the highly organised factional operation that helped propel Keir Starmer into Downing Street.

The tactics honed in Lambeth were eventually exported directly into Westminster. Control the selections. Silence critics. Frame opponents. Reward loyalty. Centralise power. Treat politics as permanent internal warfare.

The key architects of that political culture – figures such as Morgan McSweeney and Steve Reed – cut their teeth in Lambeth politics before taking their operation national. What looked for years like an unstoppable political project is now beginning to rot from the inside.

The very factionalism that helped the Labour Together network seize power is now actively destabilising the government they built.

To understand why this local election matters so much, you have to understand what Lambeth became under Labour. This was not merely a Labour-run council. It became one of the most factional and tightly controlled political ecosystems anywhere in the country.

Lambeth developed a reputation inside Labour circles as a conveyor belt for ambitious operators aligned with the party’s right flank and its managerial, highly centralised political culture.

The borough became packed with careerists, advisers, future MPs, parliamentary hopefuls and SPADs. Winning arguments became less important than winning control.

And from that culture emerged an astonishing network of Labour Together linked figures who eventually embedded themselves at the heart of national government.

There are now seven former Lambeth councillors sitting as Labour MPs. Beyond them sits an army of ex-Lambeth political operators working behind the scenes as advisers, strategists and SPADs.

Former Lambeth councillor Jessica Leigh became a special adviser to Yvette Cooper. Her partner Stuart Ingham later worked as Starmer’s Director of Policy during the 2024 general election campaign.

Former Lambeth cabinet member Pete Robbins now advises Downing Street on local government policy. How’s that one going now, Pete?

Former Lambeth councillor Henna Shah works as an adviser inside No.10. Her husband Matt Pound – a major ally of Morgan McSweeney during the Labour opposition years and one of the key backroom fixers behind the Starmer project – now works as political secretary to Chancellor Rachel Reeves, spending his days thinking about the British economy.

Even the more bizarre side characters of Lambeth Labour somehow ended up orbiting the Starmer project. Former Lambeth Mayor Philip Normal resigned in disgrace after shocking historic social media posts resurfaced. Normal is also the partner of former Downing Street communications chief Matthew Doyle – another senior Starmer-era casualty whose reputation suffered serious damage after controversy surrounding his proposed peerage and links that emerged during the process.

The links between Lambeth Labour and the upper levels of the Starmer government became so dense that the borough effectively turned into a feeder system for Westminster power. The problem is that many of the worst habits travelled with them.

No figure perhaps better represents the culture of factional Lambeth Labour than Deputy Leader Danny Adilypour.

Adilypour’s name appeared an astonishing thirty-three times in the leaked report into Semitism and its footnotes. The report exposed deeply toxic internal Labour culture during the Corbyn years, including factional hostility, abuse and internal sabotage.

Adilypour reportedly referred to himself in one message as “trot-smasher in chief”. In another exchange discussing Momentum supporters, he allegedly stated that “half our current membership have serious mental health problems, that’s the frightening thing”.

But the controversy did not stop there.

One previously unreleased exchange showed Adilypour laughing alongside another Labour staffer who complained that working with BAME Labour had made them “racist”.

Journalist Paul Holden, in his excellent book The Fraud, directly questioned whether Adilypour was an appropriate figure to serve as deputy leader of a borough where around 43 percent of residents are from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.

And yet this was the culture Lambeth Labour elevated. Not despite the factionalism. Because of it.

For years, loyalty mattered more than competence. Claire Holland’s leadership doubled down on that approach right up until polling day.

The seeds of Labour’s collapse were visible months before voters finally detonated the borough’s political landscape. Selection rows. Deselections. Internal bitterness. Angry members. Resignations. Dissent.

Instead of listening to mounting concern from ordinary local members, Lambeth Labour continued operating through a rigid top-down structure where loyalty to the leadership clique mattered above all else.

Critics inside the party repeatedly warned that the local leadership had become detached from residents and increasingly intolerant of dissent.

They were ignored.

The early selections process ahead of the 2026 elections exposed the same old culture once again: reward the loyalists, sideline critics, maintain control.

Even as public frustration mounted across the borough, the leadership appeared more focused on internal management than external reality. The arrogance was astonishing.

This was, after all, the same Lambeth Labour operation that once proudly branded itself “The L Team”. At the height of its power, buses would literally leave the Town Hall carrying activists off to campaign in other parts of the country because Lambeth itself was considered electorally untouchable. Why bother campaigning seriously at home when total dominance had become normal?

Except this time the ground beneath them was collapsing.

By the final days of the 2026 campaign, panic had clearly set in. Labour activists were reportedly pulled away from northern wards in the borough and redirected into central Brixton battlegrounds amid growing fear that flagship Labour territory could fall to the Greens.

Those fears proved entirely justified.

Meanwhile, the symbolism outside Brixton’s Ritzy cinema summed up the changing political mood perfectly. Pictures emerged of Andy Burnham attempting to rally Labour activists in increasingly desperate fashion.

But those images were overshadowed by scenes of Green deputy leader Zack Polanski drawing crowds reportedly ten times larger in the exact same location.

Lambeth Labour’s own grassroots members had finally begun realising what critics had been saying for years: the project above them had failed.

There was no single reason for the collapse. It was a perfect storm. Part national. Part local. Part ideological. Part self-inflicted.

Yes, the unpopularity of the national Labour government clearly damaged the party. But that explanation alone lets Lambeth Labour off far too lightly.

The reality is that the council itself had become deeply unpopular.

Residents increasingly viewed the administration as arrogant, combative and incapable of listening. People were not treated like citizens to be served. Too often they were treated like obstacles.

There was a general air of arrogance when it came to dealing with residents. Lambeth Labour often seemed performatively inclusive while acting in an alien and deeply hostile way towards many local people. Residents weren’t there to be served. They were there to pick fights with.

Likewise opposition parties inside the Town Hall. Sure, this is politics. But there was no sense of co-operation. Lambeth Labour became perhaps the most tribal faction within the wider Labour movement. They were, in many ways, a very odd collection of local political obsessives.

And nowhere was that clearer than in the astonishing run of legal defeats suffered by the council.

Over the last few years Lambeth Labour was taken to court three separate times by residents. And lost all three.

Three times.

Each case represented residents feeling so ignored by the democratic process that legal action became the only remaining route available.

The Brockwell Park festivals ruling found the council had acted unlawfully.

The West Dulwich Low Traffic Neighbourhood was overturned in the High Court, with the council even denied permission to appeal.

Then came the spectacular collapse of the council’s second attempted school merger process.

Three legal defeats. Three humiliations. Three entirely avoidable situations if the council had simply followed proper process and engaged honestly with opposition.

The political consequences arrived swiftly.

Cabinet members associated with those policy disasters all lost their seats.

Donatus Anyanwu gone.

Rezina Chowdhury gone.

Ben Kind gone.

Shut the door behind you.

Housing should have been Labour’s strongest issue in Lambeth. Instead it became another symbol of administrative failure.

The much-hyped Homes for Lambeth project turned into a sprawling public-private mess that swallowed money while failing to deliver enough genuinely affordable council homes.

Four council houses over a four year period when 1,000 was pledged, is not a good look.

Residents were repeatedly promised large-scale council housing delivery. What they often got instead were developer-led schemes branded as “affordable” while ordinary residents continued being priced out of the borough.

Meanwhile, the council’s much-publicised Residents’ Reset increasingly looked like political branding rather than meaningful structural change.

The next administration will inherit the nightmare task of finally untangling the Homes for Lambeth fiasco while simultaneously attempting to address a worsening housing crisis.

Good luck with that.

Then there are the finances.

Oh Lordy.

For years Lambeth Labour blamed virtually every financial problem on austerity and the old Tory-Lib Dem coalition government. There was truth in some of those criticisms. But eventually residents started asking a more awkward question: what exactly was Lambeth Labour doing with the money it did have?

The People’s Audit spent years attempting to shine a light on financial decision-making inside the Town Hall. They repeatedly offered to work with the council in a co-operative way to help identify solutions and improve financial scrutiny.

Rather than engaging constructively, Lambeth Labour often appeared dismissive and openly hostile toward criticism.

Warnings were ignored.

Suggestions were ridiculed.

Now the borough faces a frightening financial future. An incoming administration will somehow have to deal with repayment of the £40m government housing loan while simultaneously navigating widespread concern over asset sell-offs and long-term financial stability.

The bitter irony, of course, is that the central government now hovering over Lambeth’s finances includes many of the exact same political figures who emerged from Lambeth Labour in the first place. Steve Reed’s fingerprints are all over this.

The borough became trapped inside its own political ecosystem.

The election casualties were extraordinary.

Entire sections of the Lambeth Labour establishment simply disappeared overnight.

In Brixton Rush Common, Labour was wiped out completely. Marcia Cameron lost. Ben Kind lost. Even current Mayor Adrian Garden failed to survive.

In Brixton Windrush, the defeats of Scarlett O’Hara and Donatus Anyanwu will not generate much sympathy among many long-time critics of the administration. Both carried reputations for factional arrogance and entitlement.

After years of seat-hopping around the borough, Emma Nye finally came unstuck in what had once been viewed as relatively safe territory in Knight’s Hill.

Veteran councillor Jackie Meldrum also fell after decades of service – one of the last great survivors of old-school Lambeth Labour politics.

Mohammed Hashi lost in Stockwell East despite being widely respected as a community figure. Surprisingly, he had put his weight behind the wrong political project at the Town Hall.

Long-serving councillor Liz Atkins also exited the stage.

There were humiliations elsewhere too.

Former cabinet member Jane Edbrooke, the architect of the Culture 2020 Review that attempted to close libraries, attempted a political comeback in Streatham Hill West and Thornton after leaving council politics for a nice little earner with the National Lottery.

She finished third behind two Liberal Democrat candidates.

Meanwhile disgraced former Labour MP Kitty Ussher failed in her attempt to re-enter politics through Lambeth, finishing third in St Martin’s despite Labour taking one seat and the Greens another. As Treasury minister, she had previously resigned under Gordon Brown following the expenses controversy around flipping homes to avoid capital gains tax.

Sixteen years after losing her seat, former Lib Dem councillor Judy Best made a remarkable return by topping the poll in Streatham Wells.

And in one of the night’s most politically symbolic victories, former Green Party co-leader Jonathan Bartley returned to Lambeth Council in Clapham Town, helping deny Labour a clean sweep of all three seats. If the Greens form an administration, expect Bartley to play a major role at cabinet level.

There are complications ahead for the Greens too. Saiqa Ali in Streatham St Leonard’s remains under scrutiny following allegations of antisemitism during the election campaign. Such are the mathematics involved in forming an administration that her support may yet become politically important.

Not all Labour candidates failed.

Joanne Simpson held on in Kennington and Labour will likely fight hard to retain her influence around planning matters. To be fair, she does have considerable experience.

And it is important to acknowledge that many decent Labour councillors lost despite not personally embodying the worst aspects of the factional machine. A significant number found themselves trapped inside a rigid cabinet structure dominated by a centralised leadership clique.

Their loyalty ultimately cost them their seats.

This was not a conventional election. Nor was it a straightforward count.

The sheer level of split-ticket voting across multi-member wards created enormous complexity during the count at The Oval. Officers and counters had to return on Saturday morning because the process could not be completed overnight.

And perhaps that complexity revealed something encouraging.

Many voters were not simply backing parties. They were choosing individuals.

Strong local candidates from different parties managed to cut through factional tribalism. Ironically, ordinary voters showed far more political maturity than many of the party machines competing for power.

Attention will now inevitably turn toward Claire Holland.

After such a catastrophic result, serious questions will emerge over whether she can survive politically.

Holland already survived one leadership challenge last year.

Surviving another may prove far harder.

David Bridon is widely viewed as ambitious and interested in the top job.

And nobody should be remotely surprised if Danny Adilypour once again begins positioning himself aggressively. If successful, Adilypour would merely become the latest Lambeth Labour figure attempting to climb the familiar conveyor belt of managerial Third Way politics.

The problem is that the conveyor belt itself now appears badly broken.

The immediate question now dominating Lambeth politics is simple: who actually governs?

The Greens hold the numerical advantage.

Logic would suggest some form of Green–Lib Dem arrangement.

Both parties share little love for Lambeth Labour after years of hostile treatment inside the Town Hall.

But coalition mathematics are rarely straightforward.

Some Liberal Democrats may privately worry about the more radical elements within the local Green group. Others may conclude that a deal with Labour – despite the electoral damage – aligns more naturally with their own centrist instincts and Third Way tendencies.

Such a move, however, would trigger fury among many voters who wanted genuine political change. The memory of the Liberal Democrats propping up the Conservatives nationally in 2010 still lingers.

A Green minority administration remains possible, though potentially unstable. Every major policy vote would become a negotiation.

A formal Green–Lib Dem coalition would likely provide greater stability, especially around finance and governance. The Liberal Democrats possess experienced operators such as Chris Nicholson.

The Greens, meanwhile, now contain several young and inexperienced councillors who will face an immediate crash course in municipal government.

Whatever arrangement emerges ahead of the AGM later this month will inherit an absolute mess.

A housing crisis. A financial crisis. A credibility crisis. A governance crisis.

Ground zero

Which brings us back to Steve Reed.

Reed must be shitting himself ????????????????

For years Reed helped champion the exact political culture that dominated Lambeth Labour. Aggressive factionalism. Message discipline. Control politics. Relentless internal warfare.

During the 2026 local election campaign he threw enormous energy into attacking the Greens nationally.

And now?

The Greens have smashed Labour in his own political backyard.

The borough that helped launch the Labour Together era has become one of its most humiliating warning signs.

Reed’s once-comfortable political base suddenly looks far less secure. His job-for-life image as MP for Streatham and Croydon North suddenly doesn’t look so safe if there were a general election tomorrow.

And across Westminster, the wider Labour Together project is beginning to look increasingly fragile as public frustration grows with the government.

For all Keir Starmer’s personal flaws, the collapse of Lambeth Labour shines an unforgiving spotlight on the political machinery surrounding him.

The same people. The same methods. The same arrogance. The same belief that internal control matters more than democratic connection.

Lambeth voters finally snapped.

And their message echoed far beyond the Town Hall.

After twenty years, the machine broke.

And so farewell, Lambeth Labour – for now.

We never did get that free swimming for every resident.

SEE YA!

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