This is a cross-post from Left Futures by Jon Lansman who edits that site, is a member of the Tower Hamlets Labour Party in the Weavers ward and who is a longstanding Bennite ally of Michael Meacher MP.
Tower Hamlets Labour Party is like nowhere else. Throughout London, every constituency party campaign team is doing its best to get the vote out for Ken. They recognise that for the party nationally and in London, that is Labour’s political priority. But here the local vendetta takes priority. Against Lutfur Rahman, independent Mayor overwhelmingly selected by Labour members and then elected by the public after being dumped as Labour’s candidate without investigation and replaced by his accuser.
Here hatred drives priorities:
“Hate George Galloway? Help us fight his party and his friends in East London. We campaign every day.”
So tweeted Tower Hamlets Labour Party within minutes of the Bradford West result.
Whilst much of the rest of Tower Hamlets is left uncanvassed and piles of Livingstone leaflets sit undelivered, everyone is encouraged to work in just two out of seventeen wards — those where there are council by-elections. Last night, Labour’s candidate in Spitalfields & Banglatown lost what was, at the last borough election, a safe Labour seat:
Kirsty Blake (Green) 99
Richard MacMillan (Lib Dem) 39
Gulam Robbani (Independent) 1030
Matthew Smith (Conservative) 140
Ala Uddin (Labour) 987
On May 3, Labour’s candidate in Weavers, where Labour ousted three Lib Dems at the last election, faces a serious challenge from local Respect leading light Abjol Miah. The Lib Dems previously enjoyed significant Bangladeshi support in the ward but this time, as they did in Spitalfields, they are standing a paper candidate. I don’t know if they favour one side over the other — they are probably happy just to see the Labour family tear itself apart. On this occasion, the Bangladeshi community leaders seem to be united behind the Respect candidate who is also backed by Lutfur Rahman and his supporters.
Until last night, my expectation was that Respect would win. However, the Spitalfields result was surprisingly close. And that was undoubtedly the result of a last minute poison-packed leaflet distributed anonymously, which appears highly defamatory, and is certainly grossly misleading in some respects.
Hatred runs deep on both sides. Lutfur Rahman and his supporters feel they have been denied justice, that charges were made against them maliciously and see themselves as true Labour. There are no significant political differences between the two sides. The Labour group on the council, now in opposition, would have been making essentially the same cuts and protecting the same services as Lutfur Rahman is now.
Every councillor that is full of hatred, whether Labour or independent, whether hard-working or idle, whether they’ve always been in Labour or spent some time in Respect or any other party, whether they’ve led a blameless life or have the odd skeleton in their past, every one of them was elected as a Labour councillor in 2010. Every one of them was vetted by Labour officials and imposed as a Labour candidate. Some of them were still in primary school when Labour Party members were last allowed to select their council candidates.
The person chosen from the ward membership to help choose the Labour candidate in Weavers was the former CLP Chair, who resigned when he backed the academy bid of a school whose governing body he chaired, against the policy of both party and council Labour group. When I texted him to ask if he would join a doorstep session for Ken in Weavers, his response was:
“I’d rather sick hot needles in my eyes.”
The text is still on my phone. Hatred runs deep.
The losers are the people of Tower Hamlets. And possibly Ken. And, if Ken loses as a result, the people of London. And the Labour Party.
Trial by Jeory 
Unbelievably, the LBTH Labour Party slogan is “Uniting The East End!”
God, if you click on the link to Left Futures they’ve reproduced the leaflet. Looks like Phil Woolas was drafted in to run the campaign.
Yes – I’m not reproducing it nor linking to it until I get permission from those libeled. Or given proof to substantiate the claims.
That’s your excuse is it, Ted?
The new generation of voters will not necessarily vote along tribal lines as they did in Bradford. Ken changes allegiance as quickly as the people he is talking to change. Last week he said that he was the standard bearer for a muslim Britain, yesterday he denied that he said it. At least Boris is honest and doesn’t change his tune every 5 minutes.
When will the Labour left realise that Islamofascism and communalism have no place in any democratic socialist alternative? It will be better for London, and for Labour, that Johnson wins, rather than have Livingstone hanging around like Banquo’s ghost as the most powerful Labour politician in Britain.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/God-Who-Hates-Courageous-Inflamed/dp/0312538359
A book I strongly recommend, and particularly given the fact that hate seems to be such a problem in the islamic centre of the UK.
(I hope advertising Amazon’s products isn’t verboten on here … !)
Tim
I think the analysis of your guest writer was flawed and very one sided.
1) The writer implies the election of Ghulam Robanni was close because of “a last minute poison-packed leaflet distributed anonymously” – but from what I have heard very similar leaflets if not worse were also being distributed by the pro-Lutfur camp. This also takes no account of what IFE/Respect/Lutfur are saying to people on the doorstep and at mosque.
2) “[Lutfur’s supporters] see themselves as true Labour” – do they all? Really? Never underestimate the power of denial. Yes the public pronouncements from the Mayor would seem to support this but the behind the scenes activities and core beliefs of many of his supporters (e.g. the IFE) appear utterly incompatible with Labour values – at least the secular, democratic socialist values that I believe it is supposed to espouse. Membership or support for organisations which believe devotion to god is more important than civic and social freedoms is surely counter to national Labour Party values. Whatever happened to;
“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
Face it – many people are indoctrinated in to religion as children. I was. I know how it feels. It is wrong and hopefully one day it will stop.
If they were really “socialist” they would not be encouraging further religious division through their tacit support for divisive religiously inspired ethno-centric campaigns against alcohol and strip clubs et c. to name but two. In truth the IFE, temporarily frustrated in their attempts to take over Tower Hamlets Labour, have now decided to cripple it as a political force locally and force it to negotiate by drawing away some of its core supporters though false representation as a democratic left alternative.
3) “every constituency party campaign team is doing its best to get the vote out for Ken.” Yes and what a pity Ken Livingstone did his best to keep the vote in for the official Labour candidate to be Mayor of Tower Hamlets in 2010 and by so doing deeply wounded and betrayed all the loyal party workers in Tower Hamlets who were working so hard in extremely difficult circumstances to get the official candidate elected. I don’t know how much judgement went into the choice Ken made but I saw him that day he joined Lutfur on Brick Lane and personally I suspect it may not have been the long-planned decision it was made out to be and was perhaps the result of one too many glasses of white wine.
I am probably still going to vote for Ken (I may yet abstain) but not out of any great enthusiasm. If I do I am doing it for one reason and one reason alone – he has promised to cut the tube fares. However, it is clear to me now that Ken is not going to win and you cannot just blame that on Tower Hamlets Labour. There is a world beyond Tower Hamlets and among my left-leaning friends outside this borough among even the most previously devoted fans of his there are now many questioning their continued support for him. They are very unimpressed with his ongoing public courtship of religious people whose beliefs and aspirations are totally at odds with the free, liberal and tolerant London many of his “soft” supporters love and want to protect above all else. They have also not forgotten his verbal response to the London riots which many felt was formulaic, intrinsically counter to their own law-abiding personal interests and his views appeared completely at odds with the reality they see on the street.
Blaming THLP for Ken’s inevitable defeat is like blaming the outbreak of World War II on poor Polish diplomacy. Tower Hamlets is a mess Ken did a lot to encourage and many people in the capital have simply moved on.
You’ve obviously never heard of Christian Socialism before – a strand which played a key part in the background to, and membership of, the original Labour party. (I don’t know about the current crop of Labour MPs but the late John Smith QC MP was certainly a member. Gordon Brown might have been.)
Quite right, James F. The level of selectivity from Hard Left Lansman is unbelievable. There are people unwilling to doorstep for Ken all over Borough Labour Parties in London. And Ken’s disloyalty to Labour in Tower Hamlets is of course legendary.
If I were part of THLP I’d find it hard to get out of bed of a Saturday morning to campaign for Ken to get his old seat back. Without Ken’s input (and postal votes!) I don’t think TH would be half the mess with its #nightmayor. The politics are almost tribal here now.
Just re-read this article and it seems Lansman is a Tower Hamlets Labour Party member in Weavers Ward. Is this guy thick or just a liar?
Also from Left Futures at http://www.leftfutures.org/2012/04/ed-its-time-to-apply-the-lessons-of-bradford-to-the-east-end/
………………………………………………………………
“These people, between them, have, through their actions done so much to damage Labour’s standing amongst Muslim voters. The Blairites for their support for foreign wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Harman and others through their crass misjudgement of the situation in crucial inner London boroughs such as Tower Hamlets.
This week, Ed Miliband need to pick up the phone to Mayor Lutfur Rahman of Tower Hamlets. He needs to apologise for the quite disgraceful way in which he and his supporters have been treated by the Labour Party. He has to ask Lutfur Rahman for his support and heal the wounds by readmitting Rahman and his supporters into the Labour Party forthwith. He needs to understand that tens of thousands of London Muslims and many others of all faiths and none, have been hugely offended by the way in which Rahman was prevented – like Livingstone before him – from being the party’s standard bearer, and subsequently expelled.
Ed Miliband needs to know that the small minded actions of a small minority have indirectly led to open season being declared on Rahman and a significant section of the London Muslim community by deeply destructive elements on the racist and Islamophobic right. These same voters are proud – as Labour should be – that a British Bengali has become the first directly Mayor of an East End borough, rich in all the better traditions of real Labour. They are dismayed that what should be seen as unalloyed good news, is constantly tarnished by the steady drip of a foul malevolence that now knows no boundaries of common decency.”
Couldn’t have put it better myself.
I don’t know who wrote this piece on Left Futures but they seem to be entirely ignorant of the issues in Tower Hamlets. Are they aware of Shiraj Haque? Are they aware of the Mercedes, the office revamp, the court reference for the taxi driver sex offender? Are they aware of the significant number of Bengali Muslims who are appalled by Lutfur?
The author is someone called Rainsborough. Anyone know what their background is? Or able to guess….?
Ted, re your comment “Are they aware of the significant number of Bengali Muslims who are appalled by Lutfur?” It might be worth reminding you that only last week Lutfur’s man won the Spitalfields & Banglatown election in a Muslim dominated ward for a seat previously won by a Labour candiidate.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/london-mayor-election/9218506/Ken-Livingstones-supporters-accused-of-harvesting-postal-ballot-papers.html
Didn’t take long did it?
I know it is a fact that the hard left in the party consistently whitewash the corruption and/or theocratic tendencies of Muslim politicians on the Islamist right, tarring those in the party and outside who oppose such figures with the brush of racism and Islamophobia, but I have never understood quite why they engage in this soft-soaping. Are they too lazy to look at the real problems and issues? Or is their blind hatred of an imagined Blairite bogey monster so powerful that they will back any politics that is opposed to the party’s previous leadership?
In the end, I think it must come down to a politics of anti-Imperialism and an “enemy of my enemy is my friend” approach to politics. But it is frankly bizarre to see nominally secular leftists supporting reactionary rightwing communalists and theocrats, many of whom are connected to a party which commited war crimes and has mere slithers of support in Bangladesh.
Ben, you have summed the whole thing up most succinctly, I couldn’t have put it better myself. The Respect project collapsed in Tower Hamlets precisely because the far left in the shape of the SWP allied itself with the worst reactionary elements within the Bangladeshi community as well as simple blatant opportunists and businessmen after council property and contracts.
The left have of course been ecstatic at Galloway’s win in Bradford and as with Tower Hamlets are convinced that there is now a newl eft political opening in the country. They will have their illusions shattered when the realise that what has happened is a Kashmiri version of the East End and not the first shots of their long hoped for revolution.
Any groups which take as their starting point the Bolshevik coup-de-etat known as the Russian Revolution and the fictional works of Karl Marx are doomed to the dustbin of history and a good job too.
Landsman is certainly not in favour of open discussion when it comes to his own site as he has blocked two of my posts claiming that they were abusive. All I did was to criticise him as I am doing here.
As with other posters I have found that the far left is not too removed from its Stalinist and Trotskyist origins when it comes to suppressing dissent. In open societies however the only way they can harass opponents is to refuse to post their comments on the blogs they control.
As with the orchestrated applause at party conferences we have a typically ridiculous sycophantic post from an S Madewell which would not be out of place in the letters pages of Pravda or Izvestia demanding that anti state elements should be shot.
Talk about bleeding show trials, the left, like the Bourbons, have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. And they wonder why they are marginal.
The leaflet (linked to by Left Futures) contains allegations already published here on this blog, so don’t see how discussing those (again) would be potentially libellous. These are the ones with regard council properties – two of which have been brought up here already. On Feb 1 2012, from commenter TheTruthHurts:
and commenter Bimol Dutta on April 4:
There are other properties mentioned in the leaflet but they are not ones already mentioned here. Whoever wrote this leaflet and those commenters here – could they not expand on what they are alleging? If Sutton Street has been sold, a check on Land Registry (free searches for council employees) may provide the answer. As for Limehouse Town Hall, as before: Mrs Biggs and ‘Stitches In Time’ and/or the Limehouse Town Hall Consortium Trust must know whether this is true.
I think Dave Donaghue, Madewell and Lansman must be reading from the same Trotskyist script which means that whatever the blindingly obvious truth of any situation stick to the party line whatever. All of them seem to have some connection with the borough but yet live on another planet.
In relation to the leaflet if it has been reproduced on another website and is therefore in the public domain why not put it up here? Either that or go to the people mentioned and ask them for their comments.