ELN: Friday, 22nd October 2010. Was it the day politics in Tower Hamlets came of age, the day the voters expressed a clear preference for how they wanted to be governed? Or was it the day that politics sank to a new low, with politicians bickering among themselves before a bored public?
One thing is certain: the day Councillor Lutfur Rahman was elected Executive Mayor of Tower Hamlets was a day for firsts. The first directly elected Mayor in the Borough. The first Bangladeshi Mayor. The first time a Bangladeshi candidate won a mandate from the whole Borough at the ballot box.
But not the first time a candidate chosen by the members of a local Labour Party was removed by Labour bureacrats. It had happened to Ken Livingstone in the first year of the millennium. A majority of Labour Party members across London had chosen him to be the Labour candidate, but their votes were outranked by those of London’s MPs. Labour went on to stand Frank Dobson MP, with Jim Fitzpatrick acting as his Campaign Manager. Livingstone stood as an independent candidate, and won the vote hands down – beating Frank Dobson by a margin of three to one on first preference votes. Livingstone was welcomed back by Labour before the next London Mayoral election.
So, too, with Cllr Rahman. He was chosen as Labour’s candidate by a majority of local Labour Party members – a choice endorsed by the then London Director of the Labour Party who announced him the official Labour candidate on the night of the count. His campaign launch was attended by at least 1,000 people. He was removed by Labour’s National Executive, meeting on the Tuesday before nominations for the mayoral election closed on the Friday. He was removed because of undisclosed allegations made by Cllr Helal Abbas – who had come third in the party members’ selection ballot and whom the NEC then chose to be Labour’s candidate. Lutfur went on to win the mayoral election on the first ballot – beating Cllr Abbas by a margin of two to one.
It was a magical night in many ways. An election count usually is. It was clear that Cllr Rahman was in the lead, but not clear if he’d won on the first ballot. The Tories were the first to call it. The Lib Dems weren’t sure. The Greens were magnanimous. Labour was not. The Returning Officer borrowed 50p for the metre, plugged in his pocket calculator – and declared the result. A victory for the people. The right to choose their own candidate, free of bureaucratic interference. The right not to be told what to do by a distant party machinery. A victory for democracy.
It was also a night of contrasts. New Mayor Rahman gave his victory speech, promising to govern on behalf of all the people of Tower Hamlets and inviting others to work with him for the good of the Borough. Cllr Abbas gave his losing speech, congratulating Labour’s National Executive for removing Cllr Rahman and choosing him instead. And outside, in the October cold, at two o’clock in the morning, there waited 300 voters to see their Mayor emerge from York Hall, just yards away from the Labour Party Rooms where he’d won the Labour selection and been announced as the official Labour candidate.
They’d waited to hear him speak, but the crowd wouldn’t let him get a word in edgeways – their cheers and chants must have woken up half of Bethnal Green. The warmth of their welcome dispelled the October chill. In the end, they let him speak – but then they wouldn’t let him get away, each person there pressing forward to shake his hand, slap him on the back, touch his coat. No one noticed three figures slip out of the hall and head off in the direction of Poplar: Jim Fitzpatrick MP, John Biggs AM, and Cllr Helal Abbas – none of whom had had a welcome from their electors like this one.
In what seems like five minutes, a year has passed. What has happened over that year? Has having an Executive Mayor helped Tower Hamlets? What difference have we noticed?
For a start, Sharia Law has not been introduced across the Borough – as many of the extreme right wing blogs around the world insisted it would be. Second, the political landscape hasn’t just changed in Tower Hamlets. When the Borough’s electors voted, back in May 2010, to have an Executive Mayor, no one knew we were going to have a Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition Government in Westminster and the worst global financial crisis since the 1930s. Both have probably constrained Mayor Rahman more than he would have liked. But for the rest of it? East London News is not going to jump to a conclusion. We are an independent, community, investigative paper. Over the coming months, we’ll be conducting a Fact Finding Mission. There must be facts to find – though that’s not often the starting point of longer established newspapers. We’ll interview the key political players in the Borough, and we’ll be out among the people, finding out what you think. The people of Tower Hamlets will speak. And we’ll be here to listen.