I first met Rushanara Ali, Labour’s new MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, three years ago when she was campaigning to become the party’s parliamentary candidate for the constituency. I was at the East London Advertiser at the time and we had printed her photo to illustrate the lead item on my column.
Days later, one of her rivals in that race, who is now an extremely senior figure at the council (I’ll let you guess), moaned that we had made her look “beautiful”. It was the first taste I had of the bitter jealousy felt towards her, just because she was a woman.
In the time since, she has had to put up with all kinds of comments. Some relate to how the Gavron family supposedly helped her, first through Oxford University and more lately as a researcher at the influential Young Foundation. Others criticise her for accepting membership of the incredibly high-powered British-American Project, a group described by Independent columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown as “modern-day freemasonry but without the silly rituals, dark secrets, and deep misogyny”.
She’s also very close to both Miliband brothers and great things are expected of her.
During the election campaign, she was also taken to task for keeping a low profile and ducking debates—a strategy devised by her former boss and predecessor, Oona King. I have some sympathy for her critics on this last point. If she’s going to be an effective MP for the area, then she has to be more willing to engage with the media; after all, she is extremely charming and gracious in company and comes across well.
However, I can also understand her reluctance to put her head too far above the parapet. For there can be no other MP who has to deal with the kind of vile personal abuse and smears that she does, again, just because she is a thoughtful and secular Muslim woman.
Comments posted here on a website operated by MPAC UK, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (it has to be stressed that they are users’ comments, not posts by the website itself), are grotesque.
No, she doesn’t wear a hijab: so what? And so what if she can’t speak fluent Sylheti—she left Bangladesh when she was seven! For the record, she doesn’t have any children. And whom she chooses to have a relationship with is her business, be they white, black or brown.
Here’s what her spokesman told me yesterday: “Ms Ali is aware of these untrue allegations. She has reported them to the relevant authorities [he declined to say which ones] and is awaiting their response. These types of remarks, while offensive, will not in any way detract from Ms Ali’s work as the new MP for Bethnal Green and Bow.”
Good.
Trial by Jeory 
I looked at this post and the comments
They insinuate that it could have been posted from Respect ‘ believe me I know Abjol would have never accepted this kind of slander from anyone .
In fact he never at any time was critical to Ms Ali the only thing that he ever said about her was at a hustings when he commented that it would have been nice for her to have shown up so people got to know her.
He never once on the doorstep discredited any of the other candidates his campaign was on his record as a councillor his activism and what he would bring as an MP and you know Abjol and you should know he is a very humble man and would not run that sort of propaganda unlike others
You need just look at the others election material my goodness even the leaseholders accused Respect of not doing anything LOLL you know that to be a porky Respect were the only ones that fought for the leaseholders we even went to the Royal courts to give them a platform so you know what we was up against from everyone.
Even the Labour party knocked at one of my aunts doors and called respect the Disrespect party and told her Disrespect trying to get control of the council and you know who Respect only is going to be looking after she was so disgusted with the comments made she phoned Labour HQ and was informed that Respect supporters are going around saying things and pretending they are from Labour’ you couldn’t make it up
I feel is someone who wanted to make it look like it was coming from Respect was the one who made the comments Think about it Why would a Respect supporter wait for the day before the election to slander someone with comments like these this would never gain them any support they would only make people go against Respect not draw in voters?
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Comments made that it was Respect supporters that were the ones who were responsible for what happened in the Mosque I am certain if Abjol was there he would never tolerate supporters to act like that in a holy place so I am certain once again this post was only there to discredit the Respect Party
Hopefully when Rushanara gets who made such comments she will make them public for all to find out the identity of the blogger
Hi Ted
Welcome to East London blog land!
Carole, these smears were all over the place – we’re not just talking about one or two people on the MPAC forums. I’m sure Abjol Miah didn’t make these comments, but I am not aware of Respect ever distancing itself from this type of thing. Criticisms of Rushnara Ali for not being a good Muslim were encouraged (for example in the ‘wedding-gate’ debacle and Respect’s call for RA to state her position on ‘traditional Islamic weddings’). This plays well with some people, but is it a progressive way to run a campaign? I’d say about as progressive as attacking Obama on the basis of his race.
I have a lot of admiration for you Carole, and some other Respect activists, but I hope Respect is finished. The good things that the party wants to do around housing and welfare are more than undone by the social policing encouraged by conservative religious types in Respect. You can’t build up working-class solidarity while at the same time encouraging conservative Muslim identity politics and throwing accusations of ‘Islamophobia’ at all critics. It’s time for Respect supporters to be a little self-critical and not just see conspiracy theories everywhere.
(tip: while you’re on MPAC – check out the discussion ‘Is Ajmal Masroor splitting the Muslim vote’? includes more choice statements from Respect supporters about how women should behave).
as a former resident, am just relieved that that [word deleted – TJ] Abjol Miah is out.
oh, and, from that link you’ve provided, i hope Rushanara Ali is definitely seeing a white chap, or even cool would be if she was seeing a black chap. I wish more Bengali women were doing their thing for genetic diversification of our country.
I’m sorry to disappoint Rachel, but Respect in Tower Hamlets is far from finished. It would be a pretty silly move to close shop after 18,000 local residents vote for our two parliamentary candidates!
As for your other bizarre comments, they really are pretty tiring. You can’t name a single way in which we have compromised our fierce opposition to homophobia, sexism and all bigotry. So instead we get half baked insinuations from you, which I see you have repeated ad nauseum on a range of blogs over the past few weeks. Do you not get bored? I know you think you can ‘finish’ us off but as you cannot you’re wasting your time in a a very futile endeavour.
To the Friendly Lefty:
Who is the ‘we’ you are taking about? Didn’t you read the comments by Respect supporters on the MPAC blogs? Didn’t you notice the sexism of those comments?
I wonder if by ‘we’ and ‘us’ you just mean white lefties.
[…] of yesterday’s meeting of the Labour NEC, we already know that Bethnal Green and Bow MP Rushanara Ali had raised serious concerns to Harriet Harman about the selection of Lutfur Rahman as candidate for […]