Cllr Hamdache makes it all official

ISLINGTON’S Leader of the Opposition is taking up politics full-time after signing on as a London Assembly Member.

Benali Hamdache was next on the City Hall list for the party and so automatically got the chance to take on an Assembly Member role when new Hackney mayor Zoe Garbett resigned to concentrate on her own new job.

He headed to City Hall at the weekend to make it all official, but said he will stay on for the next year as the Green leader in Islington.

As the only Green to be re-elected in the borough, he will need to show the ropes to his 18 new colleagues.

He told the Tribune that he would continue to sit in the Town Hall for the next four years, but there would be leadership contest in 2027.

His Highbury colleague Jon Nott and newly-elected Tufnell Park councillor Sheridan Kates are tipped as possible successors.

Cllr Kates told the Tribune that she would be up for the job, adding: “I would love to – if people think that’s what they would appreciate. I think the Greens do things differently and we really have an opportunity to show that in our opposition as well.

“We are collaborative, we really hold each other accountable, and I would love to help make that happen.”