So, the deed is done, it seems. The East London Advertiser is reporting that Lutfur Rahman has finally jumped ship and decided to stand as an Independent in the mayoral election on October 21. It says that nomination papers have been served at Tower Hamlets Council, although a town hall spokesman has just told me that they’re not aware that has actually happened yet.
However, those in Lutfur’s camp have confirmed his decision, so let’s assume it’s true.
This will cause civil war in the Tower Hamlets Labour party, make no mistake about that. And it’s probably the purge that many members have been hoping for. While Lutfur is not standing as a Respect candidate, it will be George Galloway’s battle bus driving the thrust his grass-roots campaign.
So the question is who from Labour will join Lutfur on the road? Anyone making that leap will, like Lutfur surely will, be expelled from Labour. A lot of Labour councillors have some serious thinking to do over the next few days and up in Manchester. They include Marc Francis, Ohid Ahmed, Alibor Choudhury and the gang of three former Respect councillors Oli Rahman, Rania Khan and her mother, Lutfa Begum.
If they go they will be joining some pretty unsavoury characters in Respect, of which more later….
Trial by Jeory 
Alhamdulillah! Rejoice! Rejoice!
Many of us in the Labour Party are very happy at this news. Ted, please add to that list ( Marc Francis, Ohid Ahmed, Alibor Choudhury and the gang of three former Respect councillors Oli Rahman, Rania Khan and her mother, Lutfa Begum) husband and wife Aminur and Rabina Khan. Both are far higher up in the IFE than any of the others.
Please can they all go and join Lutfur and his band of Jamaat-e-Islamai/IFE/Respect/SWP/Labour Left Briefing quislings and show their true colours. Then we might for once and all purge Tower Hamlets Labour of this cancer.
I so totally agree. The local party needs to move quickly to force Labour members and councillors to actively support the official candidate. If they won’t or there is evidence they aren’t they should be expelled quickly because otherwise they will supply information to our opponents. We need to stop the rot.
I think we need to have a clear distinction between Lutfur and those who have been misled by him. It’s sometimes difficult for people to recognise how deeply emotional Labour politicians get about their group and how they consider the other group to be more evil than the Tories.
The best thing to do is get them to publicly support the Labour Party, then put them on a slow boat on a nice little circumnavigation of the world, arriving back about, say, 22nd October.
The spectre of Christine Shawcroft – who when the Liberal Party ran Tower Hamlets, led Labour into glorious defeat.
The Blessed John Biggs finally led us back to victory after 12 years in opposition and was then shafted by an alliance of …errr Islamists and the hard left. Christine is a leading light on the Editorial Board (where have we hard that term before?*) of Labour Left Briefing along with Dave Lawrence (her ex husband), Steve Beckett and Jenny Fisher – the three of whom each hold important positions in Tower Hamlets Labour Party. Despite Christine living in Nottingham – she was outside the Laboour HQ screaming and shouting at Abbas’s people on Tuesday night.
Surrely it is time that this ragbag of neo-Trotskysists became a proscribed organistaion? Despite them proffessing to be ‘Labour till they die’ they refuse to work democratically selected non-Left candidates as they’re not ‘proper’ candidates! Not that we would have welcomed them on Jim, Rushamnara or (previously) Oona’s campaign trail – but despite being senior local activists – they never lifted a finger (apart from turning up to party meetings to crirtiisie them).
The NEC must act – it’s not just the IFE lot that need expelling. Beckett and Fisher must go too.
* The Militant Tendency always claimed to be just a newspaper managed by an Editorial Board, who in reality where trying to organise the takeover by extremists of the Labour Prty
I see Abbas support lot on here making dumb and stupid accussations that cllr. oli, lutfa and rania are IFE members. My God what planet are these ignorant people from! they all cant stand IFE from the conversations I’ve had with them.
the war between abbas and lutfur reminds me of the war between the bangladeshi prime ministers hasina and ex-prime minister khaleda zia. thank God Tower Hamlets politics doesnt end up in blood-shed between the two sides as it does in bangladesh. abbas’s rutheless seems to have played off and now he has got what he wanted… the nomination… and they love to play the media and journalists into their hands too!