Local Labour out of touch?

The Labour Party in Tower Hamlets was in two minds last Thursday (28th July) as the two Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs) nominated different candidates in the Labour Party leadership contest.

Poplar and Limehouse CLP nominated Jeremy Corbyn by a narrow majority. Jeremy Corbyn secured 15 votes and challenger Owen Smith obtained 13 votes.

Bethnal Green & Bow CLP, which had nominated Jeremy Corbyn in the 2015 leadership contest, swung the other way. This year it nominated Owen Smith. Jeremy Corbyn received 8 votes and Owen Smith received 28 votes.

Jeremy Corbyn the current Leader of the Labour Party, was elected with over a quarter of a million votes under a year ago. Owen Smith MP, the challenger, has been in Parliament since 2010. Both of the Borough’s MPs – Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar & Limehouse) and Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green & Bow) – have refused to support Jeremy Corbyn in this contest. As there is only one alternative candidate, this leaves them having to support fellow rebel Owen Smith.

Local Labour members have been left worrying that the General Committee is rather out of touch with ordinary Labour Party members and Labour supporters. Hundreds of local people registered as Labour supporters last year – the vast majority of whom did so in order to support Jeremy Corbyn.

The close vote in Poplar & Limehouse did at least show that General Committee delegates gave careful consideration to the pros and cons of the two candidates. However, it is not clear why Bethnal Green & Bow should have had such a change of heart. Jeremy Corbyn is regarded as a good friend of the Bangladeshi community by many local voters and also as a principled MP who has always represented his own London constituency very well. This is not the first decision of the Bethnal Green Labour Party which local Labour supporters have found difficult to understand.

Although the leadership contest is an important issue for most local Labour Party members, a number of them must be feeling that it is an unwelcome distraction – at a time when they would be expecting the Party to be on its toes watching out for what the Tory Government is up to.

Have the rebels Labour MPs – including the two representing voters in Tower Hamlets – made a wise choice in turning the Party inwards over the summer months? Or have they, like the Social Democrat Party of the 1980s, helped the Tories to stay in government for another decade?

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