Phil Graham

TWO independent councillors have announced they will be standing in the 2026 council elections, and are recruiting candidates to join their group.

Phil Graham and Ilkay Cinko-Oner have both left the Labour Party in the past year and now sit on the Town Hall benches as independents.

Their group has gone through a number of rebrands, originally calling themselves the Islington Independent Socialists, but now they will campaign under the banner of Islington Community Independents (ICI).

Cllr Graham said: “If anybody feels politically homeless in Islington after the Labour Party seems to have gone away from Labour values, we’d love to speak to them about standing for us or supporting us doing lots of the other things.”

Ilkay Cinko-Oner

The group say that, if elected, they will oppose austerity measures that harm the community, protect the NHS, advocate for safe and affordable housing, promote environmental sustainability, and support global justice and peaceful resolution to conflicts.

Cllr Graham added: “Politics is in a completely different place now, it’s changed forever. It’s changed forever, and we have to start the fightback against the far right, which you don’t do by pretending to be the far right, which Labour are doing.”

The group plan to build a slate of “vetted” candidates and said there will be interviews to select people to stand.

Cllr Graham said: “We don’t want Nigel turning up. It’ll be done by democratic process, there are a lot of infiltrators out there.”

The Tribune understands that the other two councillors who currently make up the group, Asima Shaikh and Matt Nathan, will not be running for re-election.