Politics
New Green Mayor of Lewisham commits to twin with Palestinian town
Liam Shrivastava won the Lewisham mayoral election for the Green Party by a landslide and has pledged to stand in solidarity with Palestinians who are suffering under the ongoing genocide. Moreover, his principled commitments have the potential to provide a blueprint for how ordinary people can take on huge injustice at a local level.
Pointing to local investment in Israel’s genocide in Gaza through pension funds managed by Labour councils, which in turn financially empower the Zionist regime, Shrivastava made clear his intention to challenge and dismantle the sinister, cynical relationship maintained by Starmer’s Labour.
Given the huge sums of money ‘donated’ to Starmer and his cabinet of Zionist stooges, this challenge within the London region itself will undoubtedly result in a fair bit of upset in Downing Street.
However, that should simply be seen as a reason to push forward as our government has been complicit in this genocide all along.
“We would like to explore twinning with a Palestinian town.”
The new Green mayor of Lewisham Liam Shrivastava tells #TimesRadio he is “very keen” to show solidarity with the people of Palestine. pic.twitter.com/Qid2rbNY8F
— Times Radio (@TimesRadio) May 9, 2026
Green Party breaks Labour Party ‘era of dominance’
These polarised local elections have been a particularly fraught and emotional time for everyone involved — voters and candidates alike. Yet the results have brought renewed hope to many across the electorate, as communities chose hope and solidarity over hate and vitriolic division. After all, Lewisham has provided a shining example of what a forward-thinking community can achieve.
The area has long been a Labour stronghold, with the former party of the working class controlling the local council since 1971. However, that dominance has now been defeated, with Greens seeing 40 councillors elected to a measly 14 won by Starmer’s Labour. Moreover, despite other elections being very tight between populist parties Reform and the Green Party, Shrivastava absolutely wiped the floor with both Labour and Reform even further behind.
This only proves compassion and decency can truly defeat the vindictive politics of superiority and supremacy pushed by far-right, billionaire-funded Reform UK.
In the mayoral election, Shrivastava secured a whopping 35,265 votes affording him 40.4% of the vote share. Incumbent Labour received 30,374 with 34.8%, and Reform way down at the bottom with just 7,288, appealing to just 8.4% of the local population.
A grand total of 40 Green councillors elected in Lewisham to work with Mayor @LiamShrivastava — The Green Party (@TheGreenParty) May 9, 2026
Shrivastava: ‘punished for trying to encourage the pension committee to divest away from the genocide’
Sure to reinforce that renewed hope is the new Green Mayor’s commitment, from day one, to work to break local government ties with a genocidal state who has likely murdered hundreds of thousands and terrorised millions in Palestine.
Speaking to Times Radio, he first outlined how he would stop hard-working people’s money from benefitting Israel and its blood-soaked arms companies:
Within our manifesto, we have commitments around looking at our responsible investments policy when it comes to our pension funds. Obviously, we’ll be lobbying the London Collective Investment Vehicle to basically ensure that none of our pension funds are complicit with companies that are involved in the genocide. So that’s one of the things that we’re committed to.
Then he showed his commitment to solidarity, regardless of the borders and distance between us:
We also would like to explore twinning with a Palestinian town. A Labour Council, I believe Brent, have already done that. So that’s not an unusual thing for a county council to do. That’s certainly something that I’d be very keen to do.
But if we’re thinking about sort of statements and things like that, I remember when the genocide began, the former mayor of Lewisham, Damien Egan, put out a very partisan statement that was only talking about Israel, did not mention anything about the people suffering in Gaza. And that actually caused a great deal of harm in our community.
Going further, he highlighted that Labour had entirely abandoned this solidarity and commitment to international law – an unwelcome realisation that ultimately led him, and others, to leave the party themselves:
So many people in Lewisham were so angered by that. And, you know, this is one of the reasons why myself and other colleagues left the Labour Party. Because when we were speaking up about this, when we were trying to pass a ceasefire motion in our Labour group, a private setting, we were told that that was not permissible, that was not allowed. And even, you know, we were punished for trying to encourage the pension committee to divest away from the genocide.
So, yes, we will be very, very clearly stating our solidarity with the people of Palestine and, you know, those suffering oppression all around the world, in Sudan, in Iran, you know, all over the world. You know, all over the world, Ukraine, wherever.
Courageously taking on a pro-Israel establishment
The journalist tried to then challenge Shrivastava and suggested that these are pointless commitments in practice. Also, it’s curious to note how the journalist stopped short of providing any reason whatsoever as to why local people might be more “sympathetic to the Israeli cause”. Nevertheless, this new Mayor is clearly more than capable of managing these challenging, but highly necessary, conversations:
No, no, no. I mean, as elected representatives, as councillors and as mayor, I have a responsibility for all communities. And that includes obviously the Jewish community. I know that…
Because it’s about demonstrating that we are standing alongside justice. And whatever your views on this issue, it’s really important that we uphold international law. It’s really important that we don’t have investments complicit with these companies. And again, the reason why it’s important is because it’s important to so many of our residents. That’s why it’s important. We want to represent them.
And as I say, we would do it in a proper way, in a way that is inclusive towards all of our communities. We don’t want to create harm and division and things like that. We understand the importance of community cohesion.
I understand that as mayor, I have a responsibility to all communities. And as elected representatives, they also have responsibilities to think about how our actions, our statements, different things like that, how they can impact all our communities.
Lewisham Mayor Shrivastava finished, powerfully:
So, we’d always do it in a proper way and in a way that builds solidarity and a collective feeling. But most importantly, that we stand alongside justice and care.
Featured image via BBC
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