Local elections 2026: Independent Socialists unveil two candidates for Homerton

Alana Heaney and Heather Mendick

Heather Mendick (left) and Alana Heaney. Photograph: Hackney Independent Socialist Group

The Hackney Independent Socialist Group has signalled its ambitions for next year’s council elections with the announcement of two new candidates.

Alana Heaney and Heather Mendick will contest Homerton ward when voting takes place on 7 May 2026.

Heaney is a trustee of the Gascoyne One Community Centre and was previously a housing adviser for the London Irish Centre.

Standing alongside Mendick in a video posted on social media, Heaney said: “We’re both passionate about housing. We’re both passionate about community. We’re both passionate about the democratic process, and we want to be part of that.”

Mendick is a seasoned local activist, most recently leading the Morning Lane People’s Space campaign, which is fighting for residents to be given a voice in the redevelopment of the Tesco site in central Hackney.

She said: “I am sick of asking Hackney Council, whether it be for more council housing or to end their complicity in Israel’s genocide in Palestine, and them just ignoring us. I really want to change that.”

The Town Hall has faced pressure to divest its pension fund businesses allegedly linked to war crimes in Palestine.

While the pension fund does not directly own stocks or shares in individual companies, the chair of the pensions committee, Cllr Kam Adams, previously said there were passive investments in “companies conducting business activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories”.

A council spokesperson last year told the Citizen that “any divestment solely on ethical grounds would be in breach of the Law Commission guidance”.

The Independent Socialists, who formed after splitting from Labour, have three councillors: Fliss Premru in Clissold, and Penny Wrout and Claudia Turbet-Delof in Victoria.

But they said they are “working to increase that” in next year’s elections.

Three Labour councillors currently fill the seats in Homerton ward: deputy mayor Cllr Guy Nicholson, cabinet member for finance Cllr Robert Chapman, and chair of the Town Hall’s audit committee, Cllr Anna Lynch.

6 Comments

  1. Martin Sugarman on Thursday 3 July 2025 at 06:42

    Lord save us from Mendick and Heaney!!!!!



  2. john anthony on Thursday 3 July 2025 at 08:16

    Well, at least they won't waste £5.6 million of our money fighting court cases brought by the residents trying to get housing repairs done. I just hope the residents will "save us" from the likes of Guy Nicholson in 2026, who couldn't run a sweet shop.



  3. john anthony on Sunday 6 July 2025 at 05:45

    The Independent socialists are absolutely right about zionist terror in Palestine, which has been going on for 77 years. For example:

    From The New York Times, Jerusalem April 9th 1948,
    "A combined force of Irgun and the Stern group (lead by Menachem Begin) captured the Arab village of Dier Yassin on the western outskirts of Jerusalem today. In house to house fighting the Jews killed more than 200 Arabs, half of them women and children"

    A letter of protest appeared in the New York Times on December 4th 1948,
    "…terrorist gangs attacked this peaceful village, which was not a military objective…. killed most of its inhabitants – 240 men, women, and children.. The terrorists far from being ashamed of their act, were proud of this massacre, publicised it widely and invited all the correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and the general havoc at Deir Yassin" (Signed by Albert Einstein and 27 prominent Jews in New York.)

    M. Begin writing about this attack said, "The Arabs throughout the country were seized with limitless panic and started to flee for their lives. This mass flight soon developed into a maddened uncontrolled stampede. Of the almost 800,000 who lived on the present territory of the state of Israel only 165,000 are still their. The political and economic significance of this development can hardly be overstated." M. Begin "The Revolt" (1951)

    Begin was wanted for murder by the British for his part in the bombing of the King David Hotel on July 22nd 1946.



  4. martin sugarman on Thursday 10 July 2025 at 06:28

    John Anthony as ever exxaggerates and lies and misquotes from anti-Israel sources, encouraging anti-Jewish and racist views in readers of his revisionist claptrap. I encourage readers to look carefully at this summary first –

    https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-capture-of-deir-yassin

    Deir Yassin in 1947-8 was a nest of barbaric terrorism, as it overlooked the essential road between Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem, and the capital was under siege. Convoys taking food and water and arms to Jewish resistsers in the City were ambushed and massacred on a regular basis with mutilation of bodies, especially of the Jewish women fighters, a common practice, and the Arab HQ was always Deir Yassin which was in a strategic spot even during WW1 when Britain fought the Turks in that area. For the rest see the above link from the Israeli view point and the references quoted.

    Hackney Citizen should fact check before publishing such garbage as Anthony produces on a regular basis.



  5. john anthony on Thursday 10 July 2025 at 11:43

    Where have I misquoted anything? The first quote is verbatim from the New York Times, so is the second from a letter written by Albert Einstein et. al. and also published in the New York Times and the third is a quote from M. Begin's book "The Revolt" (1951) p.164. So where have I misquoted?

    Is Begin's book where he speaks with obvious satisfaction about the effect of piles of Palestinian corpses on the Palestinian population, "an anti Israeli lie", and is it a lie that Begin had a price of $15,000 on his head for the Bombing of the King David Hotel killing 91 people?
    You keep calling people liars, so where have I lied?



  6. john anthony on Sunday 13 July 2025 at 06:41

    "Civilised people don't starve children to death"
    Discuss.



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