When Lutfur Rahman decided to stand against the official Labour candidate for mayor, he was very swiftly expelled from the party.
When eight of his fellow Labour councillors then declared their support for the renegade, party rules were again swiftly executed.
Harry’s Place reports that the rules are these:
The Labour Party Rules, Chapter 2, Rule A (4) (b).
“A member of the party who joins and/or supports a political organisation other than an official Labour group or other unit of the party, or supports any candidate who stands against an official Labour candidate, or publicly declares their intent to stand against a Labour candidate, shall automatically be ineligible to be or remain a party member….”
So given that the Labour party is aware of this post of mine yesterday in which Labour peer Lord Nazir Ahmed openly declares his support for Lutfur, surely they’d take similar action.
Er, no.
Here’s the statement I’ve just been sent from Labour HQ:
A Labour Party spokesperson, said: “Our focus is getting Labour’s excellent candidate Helal Abbas elected as Tower Hamlets’ Mayor. We will look into the allegations made in due course after the election.”
Talking about ducking the issue. What is there to investigate? The video only takes a couple of minutes to watch. I’ve just asked the Labour press office why it is applying one rule to the town hall and another to the House of Lords.
Watch this space…
Trial by Jeory 
Yes Ted, lets go after anybody and everybody that declares their support for Lutfur shall we? Maybe you should add Ken Livingstone to the list and anyone that has a Red in front of their name?
You are definately right Labour has double standard and is undemocratic, that is why they used Abbas’s hear say complaint and never followed it up or even gave Lutfur a chance refute it!
Ted is that why you show strong indirect support for Abbas in your blogs because it fits in your agenda rather than exposing Abbas?
Abbas can’t even answer a BBC reporters question on why he made the allegations:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00v94sg/BBC_London_News_13_10_2010/
(see from 12:32mins)
A liar is always caught out for his lies and often stumbles to say something!
Thank you so much for this. Very informative.
I seem to have missed Ted’s blog on this report by BBC London News. You’d think he’d write something about it, given that he had enough time and energy to cover a little known hustings event between the candidate. Is this selective amnesia?? Come on Ted.
“Matthew” – I’m not quite sure what you want me to say about the BBC interview. It added nothing new to the debate. What we saw was a man (Abbas) who’s clearly been trained to stick to a pre-prepared answer and not to deviate from it. I suspect very strongly that he was advised to answer any questions about Lutfur or the dossier by accentuating the positives in his own campaign.
The BBC reporter did well to press him on the dossier and Abbas realised he needed to adapt his response by talking about “due processes” etc. He looked nervous and he probably was.
He’s clearly not that comfortable in front of a camera that is beaming to millions rather than thousands. But neither is Lutfur: witness his interview with Andrew Gilligan on Disptaches, when it was his turn to answer awkward questions.
Ted, are you seriously giving any sort of value and weight to that trashy blog called Harry’s Place? It is full of racists, islamaphobes and xenophobes! Harry’s Place is a vile place full of the stink of cavemen grunting their racist comments!
That would be the Harry’s place blog that’s currently running regular anti EDL posts?
But of course it also campaigns againts Islamist Fascists as well – so they’re racists innit?
Or is it simply the fact that a lot of its contributors are Jewish that you don’t like?
Much like this blog, people are freee to comment how they like.
Harriet was asked that question by ELA just now at a press conference. She didn’t say that he was kicked out of the party, but she was harsh. You’ll have to ask Julia for what exactly she said.
The problem is that he has a vote in the Lords which gives him power.
Lord Ashcroft has money, which also buys you influence… and perhaps a seat in the House of Lords. I love our democracy.
I don’t know what I find more funny, that you failed in your attempt to get Nazir Ahmed expelled or that they referred to Helal Abbas as an ‘excellent’ candidate. You keep trying Ted
hahahahhahahhahahahahhahahahahhahahahaah.
I salute the Labour Party.
By the way, let me add that if Lord Ahmed had been expelled, then the Labour Party could have been seriously accused of Islamophobia.
“watch this space…” Lord Ahmed must be trembling in fear.
“Ted” – you say it adds “nothing” to the debate. You must have been watching a different interview.
There you go, trying to compensate for Abbas’ shambolic performance as “nerves”. If it was the other way around i.e. Lutfur Rahman unable to answer a Q, you would have presented it out as an example of his incompetence. Since you now seem to be an expert on the thought process of politicians, perhaps you can also bring yourself to recall that Lutfur was democratically elected by the Labour party members to be the mayoral candidate – but the NEC kicked him out – he had to stand as an independent – in the interest of fairness and DEMOCRACY (something we go to war for) people feel that it was an injustice and so are supprting Lutfur – hence you are getting labour councillors and members of the upper chamber of our great parliament rebelling against the imposition of Abbas.
“Ted” – does this make sense to you? Come on.
Well, “Matthew”, you know my name. Be brave and reveal yourself.
If it had been the other way around, I would have said the same thing – and I did…that he was nervous. Why he was nervous is a different question. I don’t think there is anyone in the Labour party who does not feel that the selection process was not a disgraceful shambles. And I’ve said that before.
I also know that there were deep concerns about the party membership. But the NEC is the party’s governing body and it’s for members (like you?) to sort that out. It’s up to the wider electorate to choose who becomes mayor.
What is clear is that this campaign has brought out some pretty disgusting, thuggish elements living in our community and that there are people out there whipping up personal and racial hatred.
I trust you’re not one of those, “Matthew”.
There we go “Ted” – I thought we could have an INTELLIGENT debate and before you know it, you do what you know best: try to SMEAR me by associating me with “whipping up personal and racial hatred”. Any rational individual would tell from our exchange that if anything, it’s your behaviour thats “thuggish”.
There won’t be any more expulsions until after the election – it’s a fairly complex administrative process. Lord Ahmed will be expelled after the election for sure.
Yeah and many people will rise up.
Rise up n do what?!?
Why on earth did Lutfur think a recent jailbird was a good person to speak to his young people’s conference?
Pointless, cos Lutfur couldnt find anyone else to endorse him. I liked the question by one of the journalists at Harriet Harman’s confrence, who asked why Pola uddin was not present in the Abbas Campaign. I would think, she probably would do more damage than help, with her current status.
If anyone saw Lutfur yesterday on Ch S. the guy was begging, pleading, would have been on his knees had someone not stopped him,and all to make Shiraz at Clifton the mayor
Abbas is not fit to be a Mayor and everybody in their heart knows that. So let’s cut out the bull***t. It must be hard to go out and campaign for Abbas knowing that he came through the back door and he just is not a worthy candidate. You all will have to leave with that guilt and the compromise.
We all know that out of the five candidates, it is Lutfur first and John Griffith second who are the strongest.
The mayoral system is new in Tower Hamlets so let’s have a change from Labour for once.
So you think Lutfur represents change? Change in what exactly? He has the same manifesto as he did before he got the boot, and the same incompetent councillors backing him. So I ask again, what change does he offer?
Don’t make a mockery out of what Obama represented, u ignorant fool!
Proves my point! Muppet.
I watched the propaganda programmes on channel S, they have already been fined before for breaking broadcasting regulations in 2008. The misrepresenation of all parties was clear.
Lutfur looked pathetic when he was begging to the audience as if he was a charity case, that is not why someone should vote for you.
Few other things I noticed in the programmes , the labour,conservative and lib dem candidates did not address the viewers but addressed the presenter Mahee the fraudster. I think at one point the conservative candidate looked right at the camera to address the viewers but Mahee asked him not to look at the camera and address him. However when luthfer came on the whole time he was addressing the viewer and Mahee was not in the shot.Someone needs to provide a translation of luthers speech to see what he really is like, he is causing divisions in communities and we need to boot him out of TH
I also noticed how the badge Luther was wearing was very similar to labours red badge, I think this is intentional to make the illerate viewersand voters confused. I
But Shelina Aktar, you forget Your leader Lutfur is going around saying he is still Labour. If he was such a strong candidate,I wonder why Labour didnt want him.
Its actuallu extremley easy to campaign for Abbas, because we dont have to lie to people
Labour did want him. At least the local branch did. But who cares about democracy eh?
Regarding Lord Nazir Ahmad and Labour’s failure to expel him from the party for supporting Rahman. Well, apparently it isn’t double standards and it is because he is NOT a member of the Labour Party!! Apparently he was kicked out in 2009 after he was imprisoned for dangerous driving (resulting in two deaths).