Community Assemblies
Local Assemblies. Local People. Not Business as usual.
Ongoing Projects
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Emmett Marsh
Lambeth is full of people who care deeply about where they live, but too many feel unheard, ignored, or locked out of decisions that shape their daily lives.
Emmett is a detail-oriented instructor who’s spent the past decade helping people develop new tools, habits, and mindsets. Their approach is clear, practical, and always infused with curiosity and care.
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Help fuel our movement. Become a Member of Shake It Up.
Our May Canddidates
This May, we proudly ran a brilliant slate of community-powered candidates across Brixton and Clapham Park.
What we’re doing?
Shake It Up began in Lambeth because too many residents felt shut out of the decisions shaping their lives. We believe local democracy should not be something that happens once every four years — it should be something people can participate in, challenge and shape all year round.
1. Keeping Lambeth listening
During the campaign, we knocked on over 20,000 doors, held 8 public Community Assemblies, and spoke with residents across Lambeth about housing, safety, local services, inequality, young people, culture, care and community power.
That listening work does not stop because an election has passed. We are continuing to bring residents together to identify what matters locally, develop solutions and build the kind of borough we want Lambeth to be.
2. Building Community Assemblies
Our Community Assemblies are spaces where residents can come together, set priorities, debate ideas and make collective decisions.
In the campaign, these assemblies helped shape local priorities and select community-led independent candidates. Now, the next step is to turn that energy into lasting democratic infrastructure: a Lambeth-wide Community Assembly that gives residents an ongoing voice to influence, challenge and hold the council to account.
3. Growing community-led representation
In 2026, Shake It Up supported 7 independent candidates across Lambeth, rooted in the belief that local people should be represented by people who are accountable to residents — not party headquarters.
Most of our candidates came through our Community Assembly process. Ruby Bukhari had already been selected by her community as an independent, and joined the campaign as part of the same wider push for honest, local, accountable politics.
We are now building the training, support and democratic structures needed to develop the next generation of community-led candidates, organisers and local leaders.
4. Connecting Lambeth’s community network
Shake It Up is bringing together neighbourhood groups, charities, organisers, tenants, creatives, campaigners and residents across the borough.
The aim is simple: connect the people already doing good work, strengthen relationships across Lambeth, and build shared power socially, culturally, economically and politically.
5. Turning a campaign into lasting community power
The election showed that people are ready for something different. Now we are building beyond the election: developing leadership, strengthening local organising, creating democratic structures and making sure residents have real influence over decisions that affect their lives.
This is new.
This is creative.
This is Lambeth — by Lambeth, for Lambeth.
Community power.
Local voices.
Real change.
Lambeth is full of people who care deeply about where they live, but too many feel unheard, ignored, or locked out of decisions that shape their daily lives.
Shake It Up exists to change that.
We’re not backed by big donors or political machines.
We’re powered by local people.
Why now?
Lambeth is changing.
For years, local politics in the borough felt closed, predictable and unresponsive. Many residents stopped voting not because they did not care, but because they did not believe anything would change.
But the 2026 local elections showed that old patterns are breaking. Labour lost control of Lambeth Council for the first time since 2006, while the Greens became the largest group, winning 29 of 63 seats, with Labour on 26 and the Liberal Democrats on 8.
That shift matters. It shows that Lambeth residents are willing to vote differently. But changing who sits in the council chamber is only part of the answer.
Real democracy means residents having power before, during and after elections.
Across Lambeth, people are facing rising rents, housing pressures, inequality, cuts to services, safety concerns and a growing sense that decisions are made without them. The proposal makes clear that Lambeth reflects wider national challenges: declining trust, political apathy and a widening gap between institutions and the communities they are meant to serve.
Shake It Up exists to close that gap.
We are here to break long-standing patterns of opaque, top-down local politics — and replace them with transparency, accountability, participation and community power.
Because when residents are given real opportunities to listen, deliberate, organise and lead, they show up. The campaign proved that. Now we want to build the structures to make that participation permanent.
How decisions are made
Shake It Up is built on a simple principles:
Shared values. Local autonomy. Collective accountability.
We are run by a growing core team and borough-wide working groups covering organising, campaigning, training, finance, legal, communications and community engagement.
At the same time, ward and neighbourhood teams have the freedom to shape their own local work, responding to the issues people raise on doorsteps, at stalls, in meetings and in assemblies.
Community Assemblies sit at the heart of the model. They are how residents shape priorities, review progress, challenge decisions and hold representatives accountable. As Shake It Up grows, our governance will be designed around transparency, participation and accountability to communities — not traditional party hierarchies.
Shake It Up is built on direct democracy: returning decision-making power to residents, building trust from the ground up, and creating a borough where Lambeth people have a real say in Lambeth’s future.
Shake It Up is built on Direct Democracy, using Citizens’ Assemblies to return decision-making power to residents.
Get involved
This only works if local people get involved. And it doesn’t take much.
There are three easy ways to start:
Come to a meeting
Join our open weekly meetings to hear the latest, ask questions, and meet others getting involved.
See our events below…
Volunteer your time
From canvassing and organising to admin, comms and finance, there’s a role for everyone, whatever your skills or availability.
This is about people power, not party power.
It starts with showing up, working together, and believing that Lambeth can do politics differently.