WTF just happened?

This was not the news I was expecting to wake up to on Friday morning:

Boleyn (Newham) council by-election result:

IND: 42.5% (+42.5)

LAB: 32.1% (-27.0)

GRN: 21.1% (+3.5)

CON: 2.5% (-15.6)

REF: 0.8% (+0.8)

LDEM: 0.8% (+0.8)

Votes cast: 2,710

Independent GAIN from Labour.

The Independent in question is Mehmood Mirza, a figure well-known (and not necessarily in a good way) to local Labour people.

For those fortunate enough not to have encountered him before, the excellent Newham 65 blog addressed the question Who is Mehmood Mirza? 

Mehmood Mirza has surprised many by winning Thursday’s by-election in Boleyn ward. But who is he, and what does he stand for?

He has described his occupation variously as a legal adviser, a campaigner and a human rights activist, but he is also a significant private landlord. He currently owns ten properties in the borough, which will make him – since the departure of Ayesha Chowdhury from the council last year – the most propertied Newham councillor-landlord.

The piece is worth reading in full for a flavour of what we can expect to see in council meetings over the next three years. His first outing as Cllr Mirza will be on Wednesday. 

Lewis Baston, writing for the On London blog tried to take a broader view of why Labour had lost a seemingly safe seat.

Mirza’s win came as a surprise to most observers, although he had obviously run an effective campaign on the quiet. While Labour dominates in Newham, other candidates poll a third of the votes cast even at a peak Labour elections such as 2018. There – particularly with the focus of a local by-election – there is still the critical mass required for a challenge in the right ward at the right moment.

I don’t think anyone in Boleyn would have described the Mirza campaign as being run on the quiet. But the point about a potentially critical mass of non-Labour voters that can coalesce around the right message is well made. As Baston notes

Boleyn was one of the three best Newham wards for Respect in 2006, when it mounted the most successful recent challenge to Labour’s ascendancy. Mirza’s vote in 2023 mobilised some of this left of Labour and independent strand of opinion, and he was assisted by left wing campaigners. Some of Mirza’s policies were not particularly socialist – he said he was in favour of free car parking and a lower council tax, so he might have attracted some Conservative-inclined voters too.

Some? The Tory vote collapsed completely! Mirza basically stole their local policies – opposing LTNs and parking charges – and combined them with a hefty dollop of anti-establishment populism. As in May 2022, Mirza’s actual policy platform – as opposed to his left-wing posturing – was indistinguishable from the Conservatives.

Open Newham, the voice of the dispossessed ancien regime, wasted no time in pointing the finger

This is an indictment on Mayor Fiaz. In five years, she has taken Labour from a seemingly impenetrable position to one in which Labour appears vulnerable; she has alienated her colleagues on the council; and faces serious accusations of bullying of staff and colleagues.

The two constituency parties remain suspended by the Labour Party. There is a real doubt that Fiaz would have been reselected if the members had been allowed to choose in 2022.

The election of Mehmood Mirza will not mean that the voting arithmetic on the council has significantly altered. It will mean that there is a consistent and hostile, independent opposition voice who will seek to hold the mayor to account. If Fiaz experienced some discomfort at council meetings before, we can only anticipate that this will increase in the future.

Over on Twitter the Jeremy Corbyn fan club was in equally jubilant mood, declaring

Seat taken by a staunch Corbyn supporter standing as an independent – up yours Akehurst and co

And

Newham folk don’t like being stitched up by Central Office & [having] candidates foisted on them.

Which ignores two inconvenient facts. Firstly, that in neighbouring Wall End ward Labour’s vote share went up by 12 percentage points with a candidate selected in the exact same way. 

And secondly, that staunch Corbyn supporter is a buy to let landlord with multiple properties who swans round the place in a huge Mercedes & campaigns on lowering taxes, abolishing parking charges and removing LTNs.

Maybe get your head out of your arse, understand that most voters neither know nor care about Labour’s internal processes and recalibrate your political compass.

None of which is to ignore the fact that this result is an absolute disaster for the Labour party in Newham. Losing two seats to the Greens is one thing; losing a third to a populist campaign like Mirza’s is altogether more threatening. Just look across the borough boundary to Tower Hamlets. 

Tags: Boleyn ward, Mehmood Mirza