Further to my last post, it’s not just the Tories and Labour who are facing splits after last night’s Commons vote on gay marriage. Respect are as well.
While their single MP George Galloway voted in favour of the proposed law, that doesn’t seem to have gone down well with his chief lieutenant in Tower Hamlets, its former leader and wannabe MP, Abjol Miah.
For why else would he create a discussion on his Facebook page highlighting the vote by his long time enemy and Labour MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, Rushanara Ali, also in favour of gay marriage.
Hat tip to Graham Taylor, who today resigned from the Labour party over the issue, for pointing out the discussion. Graham has also gone one step further and written directly to George, who has seen his tweet about it, asking him to condemn many of the homophobic comments on Abjol’s page. Some of the comments suggest Rushanara has cast herself out as a Muslim for her vote.
Here is Graham’s letter to George:
Open Letter to George Galloway
George
In 2010 you and your party officials once condemned me and called on me to resign my (then) position as Tower Hamlets Labour Party agent for Islamophobic comments made by others on my Facbook page. In fact I withdrew the post as soon as this was brought to my attention.
Will you now condemn as Abjol Miah, The Respect Party’s parliamentary candidate in Bethnal Green and Bow in 2010, publicly and in as equally vociferous terms?
And here’s a copy of the Facebook discussion. The comments by a Mohammed Hussain are particularly thick.
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Samsul Islam Politically motivated sellout!
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Nur Almualim What would you have done out of interest? -
Muhammad Khan ^voted no. -
Shareef Ad-Din Tafader What could you expect from her! -
Zain DeCarter lolllll voteing for the other side Rushanara lol -
Nur Almualim Those who elected Rushanara Ali will get a share of the sin.
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Mohammed Rahman Disgrace! Tut tut -
Samsul Islam How does one become sinful of anyones actions i.e. Rushnara Ali when one cannot foresee her intention or action thus share a sin for her action? -
Nur Almualim Wakala- she has been given wakala by the people who voted for to legislate on her behalf.
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Nur Almualim *their
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Muhammad Khan what a silly thing to say. u must be a psycho who can see the future.
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Zain DeCarter hm no one new that rush ali was gonna do this i never vote her last time will never vote her next time
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Shareef Ad-Din Tafader Everyone is resposible for their own action but if knowingly support someone,s bad action then will get a share of the sin.
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Nur Almualim You didn’t know the Labour party was pro-homosexuality? You don’t have a clue about politics.
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Zain DeCarter i would not be surprised if we have a gay or lesbien primeminister from the labour party in a few years
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Muhammad Khan Nur, u dont have a clue about life let alone politics. Which party is not pro homosexual? Theres a difference between being pro homosexual, and pro gay marraige, which many in MPs opposed.
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Omar Sami Faruque It isn’t for an individual to say those who voted for her will also share her sin….NO MAN, excep ALLAH -
Mohammed Hussain She’s defanately not from sylhet! -
Mohammed Hussain She’s probably bi!!!
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Fran Legg As did George Galloway. What is your point, Abjol? -
Zain DeCarter lol mohammed thats what i think lol
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Muhammad Khan aha Galloway.
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Omar Sami Faruque *except
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Samsul Islam There is a difference between a parties perception on a subject and an individual’s perception when voting, nobody other than Allah(swt) would know what her intention was when voting on this subject.
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Mohammed Hussain There all gay!
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Muhammad Khan marriage by definition is a union between a man and a woman. Parliament did not stick to this definition.
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Mohammed Hussain They all have a drink and get merry! And after the light goes off! It doesn’t matter who’s who!
Rob Hoveman, George Galloway’s chief of staff, replied to Graham this morning. Rob says because Abjol hasn’t made any homophobic comments, he shouldn’t be condemned. I suppose the question is why hasn’t Abjol used his own Facebook page to condemn the homophobic comments? Rob, if you’re reading this, do you think Abjol should condemn them?
Here is Rob’s reply:
Dear Mr Taylor,
You have sent George Galloway a screengrab of a number of people exchanging views, none of whom appears to be Abjol Miah. Your suggestion that George Galloway should condemn Abjol Miah on the basis of the evidence you have supplied is palpably absurd.
As for the events of 2010, may I remind you that you referred to Tower Hamlets town hall as a centre of Islamic Fundamentalism on facebook, a claim that was an Islamophobic insult to every Muslim that worked in the Town Hall. You may have taken down the offending comments that you made and also encouraged but I do not recall any apology and you remained, of course, the Labour Party election agent for Rushanara Ali and the Labour council candidates.
Yours sincerely,
Rob Hoveman, Chief of Staff to George Galloway MP
UPDATE – Friday, Feb 8, 9am
Shortly after the last update above, Rob Hoveman emailed me with some clarifications about his discussion with Graham Taylor. They were a bit odd, so I asked Rob if he had anything else to add. He hasn’t.
So here’s his letter to me:
Dear Ted,
You have posted the first of a number of emails I sent to Graham Taylor this morning concerning his allegations. The email I was responding to had a screengrab of a number of people exchanging views on Rushanara Ali’s decision to vote to legalise gay marriage. In that first screengrab Abjol Miah had not in any way participated in this exchange, never mind made any homophobic comments. Mr Taylor then sent me a second screengrab with Abjol Miah stating that Rushanara Ali had voted for gay marriage, as did George Galloway. Again there was no homophobic comment attached to this plain statement of fact. I pointed out to Mr Taylor in response that there were no comments attached to this screengrab and therefore I was still at a loss as to what it was he expected George Galloway to condemn.
Mr Taylor then referred me to your blog where I have now seen a fuller screengrab. However, nowhere in this does Abjol Miah appear saying, encouraging or endorsing any homophobic comments. So I am still at a loss as to why George Galloway should in any way condemn Abjol Miah.
The issue of gay marriage is one on which people hold strong views. There are many people who have profoundly held religious convictions that gay marriage is wrong. The free vote in the House of Commons reflected that this is a matter of conscience. We should accept that there are people who oppose gay marriage without being homophobic and that it is perfectly reasonable to respect such views whilst disagreeing with them. That is why, after all, the law that has been passed exempts religious institutions which choose not to opt in to holding gay marriages. Of course, George Galloway and The Respect Party would condemn any homophobic comments where those comments are motivated by hatred and prejudice, but it seems to me that Mr Taylor is simply confusing matters.
Yours ever,
Rob Hoveman
Chief of Staff to George Galloway MP
The Rob Hoveman with whom I used to have regular contact when I was at the East London Advertiser would certainly agree that some of the comments on Abjol’s Facebook page were motivated by hatred and prejudice, eg this latest one:
Mohammed Hussain Brother Abjol miah! Your in big trouble now! She will set her gay friends on you now! Watch your back!!!
Trial by Jeory 
I am so glad the vote went through, and especially glad it was done by an (essentially) Tory government. That way there can be no accusations of it being done by a loony, left-wing Labour party. It is about equality. Full stop.
I personally haven’t seen a single article in the media that really examined what secular marriage is about. The commentary has not seemed able to separate religion and marriage; and yet the majority of marriages are civil ceremonies (68% in 2010, Office of National Statistics).
The comments coming from certain parts of Tower Hamlets just further highlights, in my mind at least, the woeful lack of integration by a large number of the local Muslim population. Don’t Hate Assimilate.
Respect is a ramshackle coalition of extremist groups bound together through a mutual understanding that individually they are un-electable but together they stand a chance.
In their desperation for power or just, attention, they have put aside their inherent ideological incompatibility and pooled their foot soldiers in an alliance of convenience. Each group believes that it alone will one day win through and seize absolute control over party at the expense of all the others in some sort of Stalinist putsch. Inter–connected with this is the UAF – a quasi-fascist street organisation (which is ironic) led by people who oppose anyone who opposes them, violently, and want to overthrow government by consent in favour of some sort of cruel-to-be-kind statist dictatorship – which at the end of the day is very much like what Mussolini’s black shirts hoped to do really.
Away from the core who understand this dichotomy there is a periphery of well-meaning but stupid supporters who unless managed with almost super-human caution are prone to fall out with one another. This group includes an energetic minority of Leftists, feminists and anarchists (who are very often gay and instinctively support gay rights) which are lumped uneasily alongside large numbers of rather conservative Muslims that form the backbone of the party’s electoral support. Often these Leftists are forced to hold their tongue whilst “holy cows” are sacrificed to satisfy the voting hordes.
A tried and tested method to create a sense of oneness in the periphery is the promotion of various forms of anti-semitism dressed up so as not to offend the more liberal supporters as “Arabism”, “ant-imperialism” et cetera… Some so-called socialists are even prepared to justify al-Qaeda objectives because my enemy’s enemy must be my friend, mustn’t it?
Unfortunately for the core incidents like the airing of George Galloway’s alarming views on “insertions” and the occasional re-emergence of radical-left totems such as the pushing gay-rights to their ultimate conclusion bring these cavernous and insurmountable fault-lines to the fore.
Just as feminists cannot support comments designed to defend Julian Assange conservative Muslims cannot abide those who champion ‘Western’ notions of sexual freedom and diversity.
The good thing for us is it is HILARIOUS to watch.
“they have put aside their inherent ideological incompatibility and pooled their foot soldiers in an alliance of convenience. ”
The Hitler-Stalin pact comes to mind.
Actually, I think we’d be surprised by the number of closet muslims in Respect. Galloway is very ambiguous about his religion, but he’s married 3 or 4 muslim women, and my understanding is that islam permits muslim men to marry non-muslims, but (unsurprisingly) this freedom is not permitted to muslim women. I think it would be a unique historical situation if Galloway was a non-muslim and was permitted to marry so many muslim women. We have seen plenty of “honour killings” over far less than that.
The Left are very prepared to pretend to be something they are not. As Mohammed said “war is deceit”.
You just have to search the “Respect” Party’s website for the word “gay”. They have been around for almost a decade, but you will find that the word only appears once or twice, and never in the context of gay rights or standing up for gay people. Clearly they think that gay people are not deserving of Respect. Here’s a google search that will return all 2 of the pages on their website that have the word “gay” on the page: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Arespectparty.org+gay The word “lgbt” fares even worse.
Just like the Stalinists who are behind that party, “Respect” would ship gay people off to the Gulags if they were ever in power.
Using the same search, and replacing “gay” with “Israel” returns 173 pages.
The homophobic, jew-hatred of the “Respect” party is eminently provable.
“Chief of Staff to George Galloway”
That means he’s in charge of 2 secretaries, a cat, a photocopier and an unplugged fax machine.
note the militant undertones…next George will start wearing a uniform and saluting people in strange ways,
Does the cat, by any chance, wear a red leotard?
Rob Hoveman is a living illustration of how bigoted and unprincipled the ‘progressive’ left is when it comes dwn to it. the Tories may contain mor ethan their share of homophobes but at least they mostly aren’t sucking up to people who want us killed – unlike Respect, UAF, the SWP, Hope Not Hate and a good section of London Labour. What revolting creatures you are.