Five minutes after sitting down with Lewisham’s new Green Mayor, we are talking about Ghana versus England. The World Cup works in mysterious ways. Ghana is an unexpected part of Liam Shrivastava’s journey. Not long after joining Labour a little over a decade ago, he went to work as media manager for an elite football academy in the east of the African country. “It was in the middle of nowhere, like a tiny village. I used to take the canoe to work,” he says.
It was a move he describes as “totally random” – recommended by his then boss at Leeds University Student Union where he was doing the marketing. Some of the boys coming through the academy are now in Ghana’s senior squad which held England to a 0-0 draw last week.
Shrivastava says it was Brexit that first politicised him and Jeremy Corbyn who inspired him. That, for some, might seem contradictory, given the then-Labour leader’s unenthusiastic campaign to remain in the European Union. In 2017, as Labour won 40 percent of the vote and 262 seats in the general election, resulting in a hung parliament under Teresa May, Shrivastava watched coverage via a projector and a bedsheet in a town east of the Ghanaian capital Accra.
“I was, oh, man, I’ve got to get back involved in this,” he recalls. “So at that point, I was like, even though I was sort of having this sort of very amazing adventure, I was like, no, I need to go back to the UK and fight for socialism and more progressive politics because things are really bad.”
Shrivastava’s arrival in the south London borough he now leads was via a master’s degree in political communications at Goldsmiths College, where he first got immersed in local politics. He became the communications officer for a charity, the Institute for Race Relations, which he credits for honing his understanding of the media and the evident comfort he feels in the presence of journalists. “The experience very much sharpened my politics and my values.”
By the time the 2022 borough elections came around and despite the moves by Labour under Sir Keir Starmer to purge the party of its Corbynite elements, Shrivastava was selected for New Cross Gate ward. He won, but being a Labour councillor was never a comfortable experience for him. He was out of step with the majority of Lewisham’s ruling group.
Almost exactly a year ago (25 June 2025), facing disciplinary action over his criticism of Labour’s stance on Gaza and welfare benefits, Shrivastava defected to the Greens. In a withering resignation statement, he said the Labour Party he had joined was “unrecognisable” and the way to fight the rise of Reform UK was “not to pander to it, but to confront it with a positive, eco-socialist vision”. He tells me he has no regrets and that it was right to leave rather than to fight for the direction and soul of Labour from within.
Shrivastava is now one of four former Labour councillors who head Green administrations in London councils after being in the party for only a matter of months. The other three are James McAsh in Southwark, Martin Abrams in Lambeth and Mark Blake in Haringey
Shrivastava insists defecting was a “roll of the dice”, hardly a sure-fire political bet given the Greens had not had a councillor elected in Lewisham since 2014. “It definitely can’t be said that you’re doing it as something that is a guaranteed banker to being the Mayor within a year. Absolutely not. It was beyond our wildest dreams.”
He adds, “I wasn’t even sure if I was going to continue in politics. Genuinely, I was basically thinking, for various reasons, being a councillor is stressful, it takes over your life, you know, all these things.”
It soon becomes clear how strongly Shrivastava feels that Lewisham has gone under the radar and been let down by decades of Labour administrations facing scant opposition and scrutiny. He says it has been “massively overlooked” in terms of transport investment and connectivity, and his over-arching priority is to get the Bakerloo line extended and coming through the borough. He welcomes the Labour government’s commitment to the devolution of fiscal powers which could unlock funding and loosen the stranglehold of the Treasury.
Days after his election, Shrivastava surprised some observers by attending UKREiiF in Leeds – the biggest event in the national property calendar and not obviously natural Green territory. He was determined to get in the room with developers, planners and investors, and some present said he argued forcefully and impressively for the regeneration, economic opportunities and reduction in car use which could come from such a “transformative” project as the Bakerloo reaching further south and into his borough.
He says, “This part of southeast London is disconnected and there are high levels of deprivation, and we aren’t seeing this borough developing the way that maybe other boroughs are developing, and we’re not seeing that investment come in, and that is because of the lack of transport infrastructure.”
But at a private dinner at UKREiiF, Shrivastava also got an early taste of the potential challenges – and lingering resentments – which lie ahead. In a short speech to the assembled investors, fellow guest Anthony Okereke, Labour leader of neighbouring borough Greenwich, criticised Shrivastava over his election campaign.
This was about a video Shrivastava put out, attacking his Labour mayoral opponent Amanda De Ryk for having previously done consultancy for the development giant Muse, and in which he said he would never take money from a developer.
Lambeth’s outgoing leader Claire Holland also said pointedly that Shrivastava would be “standing on the shoulders” of his Labour predecessor in Lewisham.
Shrivastava tells me, “It’s disappointing that political opponents resort to these playground tactics. Some Labour leaders are clearly still sore about the election results, but the election is over and we need to be a bit more grown up and show Londoners we’re serious about working constructively across our differences.”
It would seem fair to assume that housing and development could be the defining test of Lewisham’s first Green Mayor, with all eyes on whether he comes to be viewed as “anti-developer and anti-homes,” as some opponents maintain.
He is one of the three London boroughs Mayors who’ve launched a legal challenge against the “emergency measures” agreed last year by the government and City Hall to boost house-building. The others are his fellow Green, Zoë Garbett of Hackney and Aspire’s Lutfur Rahman in Tower Hamlets. They are objecting primarily to the acceptable proportion of affordable homes proposed by private developers being reduced from 35 percent of the total to 20 percent on a temporary basis.
Shrivastava tells me, “It is incredibly disappointing…allowing developers to fast-track projects that only deliver 20 per cent [affordable] housing is not going to solve the housing crisis.”
He claims he will deliver at least 1,000 new homes for social rent over the next four years and wants to move away from purpose-built student accommodation and co-living schemes, which he says are proliferating, to more family homes that get people out of temporary accommodation. It is a tall order.
He says it is self-evident that the small number of homes currently being built by the private sector indicates “market failure” and that when developers are not prepared to take the risk, it shows how important it is for the public sector to step in.
He will not be precise on his plans at this stage – they will be revealed in due course – but wants more council and community-led building, working with chosen private sector partners. He disagrees that talk of moving away from a “developer-led” model will lead to developers moving away and looking to build elsewhere.
“I think we can find people that are willing to work with us. If some developers say, okay, we’ll go elsewhere, fine. We’ll work with other people because, you know, I’m sure there’ll be other people that we can work with. What is the point of approving a scheme that delivers no affordable housing? And is of, say, poor quality, which does not meet the needs of our communities? It’s only going to drive up prices. It’s only going to push people out.”
Shrivastava admits he wants to reduce dependence on developers’ own plans shaped by market conditions and bring forward more of the council’s own schemes. The key challenge is finding the right finance arrangements. “We believe that there are options out there. There are ways in which we can borrow, finance, build our own homes.” This may include pension funds.
His election manifesto talked of putting people before profits, the sort of rhetoric likely to raise the hackles of the built environment sector. He will not say what is an acceptable level, but accepts builders need to make profit. He insists he will be open and pragmatic. There will be negotiations so that “two parties can arrive at a point where they’re happy” and the amount of good quality affordable housing is maximised.
He is enthusiastically inheriting a project piloted by the Labour government in Lewisham which bundles small plots of brownfield land together to make development more attractive to small and medium sized developers.
If housing is the central long-term challenge, a visible blitz against fly-tipping is imminent, to underline the Mayor’s pledge to be more responsive. Hotspots are to be reclaimed for the community as has happened already in one place, Lewisham Green. “We cleared the space, we put down some wood chips, planted a few seeds. The community saw it, the residents saw it, and they’re like, oh, brilliant. Can we turn it into a community garden?
In several parts of London, Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) have become politically toxic. While Shrivastava commits to safer streets and reducing air pollution, he will not pledge to create more LTNs nor say whether he personally would like to see more. There will be better engagement and consultation than previously, and decisions will be evidence-led, he insists.
It has not taken long for talk to emerge of the dangers of factionalism within the Greens, with tensions between the Corbynite newcomers and traditionalists long embedded in their communities and focused on core environmental issues. Shrivastava says such talk is over-done and that shared values unite more than they divide.
“I don’t think there’s much disagreement when it comes to policy and things like that. There might be differences in terms of like culture, right, because there are very different traditions, very different ways of doing things, ways of working.”
In the past year, Green membership in Lewisham rose from 500 to 3200, making its the second biggest local party after Hackney’s. The Mayor says the party must develop new systems and processes to reflect its large membership and newly-held power.
He dismisses suggestions that, given the Greens’ dramatic rise to power in places like Lewisham with 40 out of 54 council seats, inexperience will soon reveal itself. On the contrary, he argues that a widely-drawn new skillset will bring fresh energy and ideas.
“We’ve got three councillors that have got architecture degrees. We’ve got journalists. We’ve got lawyers. We’ve got serious talent. It is bringing in new perspectives and different ways of working.”
There have been many defections from Labour to the Greens, but few who have gone the other way. The most prominent was Darren Johnson, a former London Assembly member and councillor in Lewisham for the Greens. He describes his old party as “morally bankrupt.”
“It doesn’t bother me,” says Shrivastava. “I think the fact Darren has joined the Labour Party and was actively campaigning with Labour during the election. I think it’s clear that he has moved. We don’t want, in my view, people like that in the Green Party.
“The Labour Party is morally bankrupt when it comes to Gaza and when it comes to trans rights, different things like that. And these are things that Darren feels, you know, more comfortable with. So it’s nice that he has a new political home.”
Scrutiny of Greens during their local campaign across London brought accusations of antisemitism, including social media postings by a Lewisham candidate who was removed. Shrivastava does not deny it’s a problem, but says it’s hardly exclusive to the Greens. From his experience at the Institute for Race Relations, he says there is a “heightened responsibility” for all councillors to be careful about the language they use, mindful of the potential impact on communities.
“I think clearly there’s work to do around vetting and also setting expectations from candidates. I think antisemitism and other forms of racism are a problem for all of society, and it’s present in all political parties, and that’s been, you know, clearly evidenced.”
Given the big Green break-through is widely viewed as a protest against Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister, I suggest Labour under Andy Burnham might reverse Green progress and Shrivastava could prove to be a one-term wonder. He doesn’t rise to the bait.
“I think if Andy is going to succeed, if he does become Prime Minister, it will be by being consensual,” he says. “It will be by recognising that we are in the era of five party politics, and that the Green Party’s rise, and obviously Reform’s rise, are not temporary. If he wants to be Prime Minister after the next election, he is going to have to cede some ground. He’s going to have to work with other parties.”
This is not, the Mayor insists, a high water mark for the Greens in Lewisham “This isn’t going to fizzle out,” he says. “I think this is only going to get better.”
Tim Donovan is the former political editor of BBC London and now a trustee of Centre for London and political adviser to Kanda Consulting. Follow him at LinkedIn. Photos from Lewisham Council.
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