Cllr Rabina Khan steps up to the front line

The news that Cllr Rabina Khan will stand in the mayoral election on 11th June, announced at last Thursday’s rally at the Waterlilly, will come as a delight to many voters in Tower Hamlets.

As Cabinet Member for Housing (and, since May 2014, Development too), Cllr Khan has reached out across communities in the borough. Not only has she held surgeries in her own ward, she has also held boroughwide surgeries on housing issues – which have been, unfortunately, packed full of constituents. There’s hardly a problem in the borough she doesn’t know about.

As well as individual problems, Cllr Khan has also taken up issues on behalf of groups of residents – everything from small scale problems in a particular block to issues that affect a whole area and lobbying regional and national government over policy.

It’s not been easy. The Coalition Government has unleashed so many problems on the Borough; the London Mayor has made them worse; and the Labour-dominated Planning and Overview and Scrutiny Committees have bickered and been unhelpful. Nonetheless, plain spoken and with the tenacity of one of the more determined breeds of terrier, Cllr Khan has worked through the problems to win funding and awards for the borough and its housing. [Adverts]

Full Council has probably been the worst. Cllr Khan has faced political opposition – such as Labour and Tory Councillors uniting to stop Tower Hamlets First-backed resolutions being discussed. She has also faced a whispering campaign on and off the Council benches from those who can’t see past her stature and her hijab and dismiss her as young and dim. She has fought back magnificently: on those occasions when she has been able to speak at Council, no one can be in any doubt about her maturity, her determination and that she is there to defend her principles.

And now it is going to get worse. The vitriol that opposing parties threw at Lutfur Rahman – the personal attacks, the political attacks, the scorn – will fall on Cllr Khan’s shoulders. Already some in the media have appealed for the public to come forward with information about Cllr Khan and her past activities and employment. Having convicted her, or at least pigeonholed her, they are now looking for the evidence to back up their prejudices.

If Cllr Khan is the new hate figure, it is likely to make the community all the stronger in their support for her. And indeed it must: unless and until we can have an election on the basis of policies rather than prejudices we will never be able to call what takes place in Tower Hamlets “democracy”.

There are many forces trying to divide the community in Tower Hamlets, to sow the seeds of strife, to buy us off and set us against each other. Let’s see off these tactics by sticking together, united in our quest to be taken seriously and with respect.