Tag Archives: East Ham

Labour holds East Ham Central

13 May

Farah Nazeer election leaflets

Labour easily held its seat in the East Ham Central by-election, with Farah Nazeer returning to the council after an absence of three years. Cllr Nazeer previously represented Little Ilford ward from 2010 to 2018.

The results:

Farah Nazeer – Labour & Co-op – 2,297 (53%)

SK Zakir Hossain – Conservative – 1,288 (30%)

Danny Keeling – Greens – 283 (7%)

Ed Comaromi –  Lib Dems – 239 (6%)

Paul M Jobson – Christian PA – 115 (3%)

Lois Austin – TUSC – 91 (2%)

Turnout: 42.6%

Although Labour’s vote was somewhat down from the 2018 election – despite a higher overall turnout and a wider choice of candidates on the ballot – the party still garnered more than 50% of the vote.

The Conservatives did very well, growing their vote from 509 to 1,288 – a whopping 150% increase. Perhaps the ‘yellow’ referendum campaign helped drive this? Their leaflets, which were distributed across large parts of East Ham, pushed policies on cars and parking charges which were indistinguishable from Shaun Bailey’s. And the local Tory candidate said he would suspend the MiPermit parking scheme. By playing to the grievances of a minority that feels it is not being listened to in the town hall, the ‘yellows’ may have pushed voters towards the party that shared the same outlook.

Neither the Greens nor Lib Dems stood in 2018 and both will probably be quite pleased with their results. The 13% they took between them might well have gone to Labour last time in the absence of any other progressive alternative. Results elsewhere last week will encourage both parties to think they have chances in 2022.

Bringing up the rear, TUSC and the Christians did about as poorly as expected.

East Ham Central is largely unaffected by the boundary changes that will be introduced next year, so Cllr Nazeer will likely be defending the same territory although the name will be a little shorter – just East Ham.

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By-election. But not yet.

26 Aug

Julainanne Marriott

Julianne Marriott (left) in her role as education lead

Julianne Marriott has resigned as a councillor for East Ham Central ward. She had announced at a meeting of the Council July that she was standing down as Cabinet member for Education and is now leaving the council altogether.

If a by-election is called to replace her it won’t take place until 6th May 2021, in accordance with the current Coronavirus regulations. So there’s plenty of time for Newham’s political parties to pick their candidates!

Ms Marriott was first elected in 2014 and was re-elected 2018. She will now be devoting herself to a new full-time job. My understanding is that her new role is not politically restricted, so there was no legal requirement for her to resign. She could have sat quietly on the back benches until the next election, collecting the £11,000 a year allowance. That she chose not to is entirely to her credit.

In a farewell note to colleagues she said (emphasis added)

Representing the people of East Ham Central and being part of Newham Council for six years has been an amazing experience and one that I’ve learned so much from. I will forever be a cheerleader for Newham and the role of local government. I can only hope that this Tory Government learns to feel the same way.

The Tories have systematically underfunded and undermined local government over the last 10 years and has now left us with an over £33m bill for supporting our most vulnerable residents through Covid-19. I can only sign off with the exhortation that there is a real enemy out there – and it’s one we need to focus our energy on fighting.

i look forward to seeing you on the doorstep as part of our journey to getting the Labour government Newham’s residents need.

Notice of a casual vacancy has been posted on the council website.

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Election 2019 Results

16 Dec

Stephen Timms, Rokhsana Fiaz and Lyn Brown

No surprises in Newham, as Labour easily held both of the borough’s Parliamentary seats. The party’s share of the vote declined slightly, but neither Stephen Timms nor Lyn Brown will be losing any sleep over that.

East Ham

Stephen Timms (Labour) – 41,703

Scott Pattenden (Conservative) – 8,527

Michael Fox (Liberal Democrat) – 2,158

Alka Sehgal Cuthbert (Brexit Party) – 1,107

Mike Spracklin (Green Party) – 883

Kamran Malik (Communities United Party) – 250

Labour majority of 33,147

 

West Ham

Lyn Brown (Labour) – 42,181

Sara Kumar (Conservative) – 9,793

Eimear O’Casey (Liberal Democrat) – 4,161

Danny Keeling (Green Party) – 1,780

Emma Jane Stockdale (Brexit Party) – 1,679,

Paul Jobson (Christian People’s Alliance) – 463

Humera Kamran (Communities United Party) – 143

Labour majority of 32,388

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East Ham gets the go-ahead

14 Jun

SyedTaqiShah1 2019 Jun 06

East Ham chair Tahir Mirza and secretary Syed Taqi Shah with Peterborough candidate Lisa Forbes

After several years in the doldrums East Ham CLP finally got itself back on its feet earlier this year. Branch AGMs were held, general committee (GC) delegates elected and a CLP meeting elected a new slate of officers in February.

Since when nothing much has happened. There hasn’t been a GC meeting and members have been left wondering what’s going on.

But there is good news – the investigation by London regional office to ensure all the elected GC delegates were legitimate has been completed. It was delayed for several months by staff being deployed to the local elections, the European elections and then the Peterborough by-election, but an approved list of delegates has now been sent to the East Ham secretary. So the CLP can get on and hold meetings.

The first will be a special trigger ballot meeting on City and East London Assembly member Unmesh Desai next Thursday (20 June).

East Ham’s trigger meeting is the last in City and East. So far Unmesh Desai has won five and lost one, in West Ham. This means he has already passed the threshold to be automatically re-selected as the Labour candidate in 2020. 

The ‘regular’ GC will follow on, including an election for party conference delegates. Nominations have to be submitted by 5pm on the day and, given that most branches won’t meet before the GC, it’s hard to see how they can put forward valid nominations.

No doubt London region will be keeping an eye on things.

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East Ham United

3 Mar

East Ham CLP AGM

When I blogged a couple of weeks ago about East Ham CLP’s AGM I suggested rival factions, specifically Newham Momentum and those still loyal to the former mayor, would be “putting together slates and cooking up deals to ensure that the ‘wrong people’ don’t wind up in charge.”

This clearly hit a nerve and Newham Momentum responded on their own blog, claiming this was just “rumours and misinformation spread by local Blairites.” The secretary of Newham Momentum added

“Ours is a broad and democratic Party. Newham Momentum is always willing to work with those comrades who genuinely respect this proud democratic tradition and are willing to work with us to combat cuts in local services whilst campaigning for the election of a radical, socialist Labour Government under Jeremy.”

So what actually happened?

Pretty much exactly what I predicted. Very few of the main officer positions were contested. Once Tahir Mirza had secured the chair on behalf of Newham Momentum, other candidates started to drop out, leaving right-wingers Lakmini Shah and Mariam Dawood to pick up the posts of vice chair (campaigns) and treasurer, while Momentum’s Syed Taqi Shah became secretary.

The full slate of elected officers

Chair: Tahir Mirza
Secretary: Syed Taqi Shah
Treasurer: Cllr Mariam Dawood
Vice Chair Campaigns: Cllr Lakmini Shah
Vice Chair Membership: Cllr Moniba Khan
Women’s Officer: Sophia Naqvi
Youth: Azka Rasool
LGBT Officer: Victoria Mitchell
BAME Officer: Cllr Sugathan Thekkepura & Asad Shan (Job Share)
TULO: Cllr Pushpa Makwana
Political Education: Tariq Hussain

After the meeting the new chair tweeted

I am very thankful for East Ham CLP to elect me as a Chair and all of us very determined to take @jeremycorbyn vision forward, every single officer elected is true socialist

And West Ham CLP membership secretary Mehmood Mirza chipped in, saying

@jeremycorbyn supporters win landslide @easthamlabour CLP after almost 2 1/2 years of special measures, thanks to all the delegates who supported the left candidates, congratulations to @TahirMirza01 Chair CLP & @SyedTaqiShah1 to be secretary,@moniba27 Vice Chair Membership.

One view is that this is “a diverse officer team consisting of pro-Corbyn Left and other local activists.” A more realistic assessment is that it’s a stitch-up that is politically unsustainable. After years of mismanagement under Sir Robin and his crew, East Ham members deserve better.

The AGM also selected delegates for the London regional conference Tahir Mirza, Victoria Mitchell and Cllrs Ayesha Chowdhury and Sasha Das Gupta.

After the meeting formally closed there were three guest speakers. MP Stephen Timms and London Assembly member Unmesh Desai spoke unchallenged, but Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz was rudely interrupted twice by the chair in an attempt to cut her her short. She ploughed straight past him. Which may be a metaphor for the next couple of years in Newham Labour politics.

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East Ham AGM announced

14 Feb

After a hiatus of more than two years, East Ham CLP is going to have a meeting. And it’s an annual general meeting to boot!

All 10 of the branch (ward) parties held their own AGMs late last year, under supervision of the London regional office. Local officers and general committee delegates were elected and now – at long last – the CLP is going to elect its own officers.

The agenda has been circulated

East Ham Labour Party – Annual General Meeting 2019

The Trinity Centre, East Avenue, London, E12 6SG

Monday 25 February 2019

Registration from 6:30pm. Meeting to start at 7pm.

  1. Introductions & apologies for absence
  2. Election of CLP Executive Officers for 2019/20 (at least half (7) must be women)
    • Chair
    • Vice Chair
    • Vice Chair Membership
    • Secretary
    • Treasurer
    • Women’s Officer
    • Policy Officer
    • BAME Officer
    • LGBT+ Officer
    • Youth Officer
    • Disability Officer
    • TU Liaison Officer
    • Political Education Officer
    • Social Media Officer
  3. Election of up to 4 Regional Conference delegates (at least half (2) must be women)
  4. Nominations for Regional Board
    • Chair
    • Vice Chair
    • Women’s Officer
    • Disabilities Officer
    • Ethnic Minorities Officer
    • LGBT Officer
    • 2 CLP Reps from Section 5 – City of London, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Barking &
      Dagenham, Havering & Redbridge (at least one must be a woman)
    • 2 NPF Reps (at least one must be a woman)

No doubt rival factions are busy putting together slates and cooking up deals to ensure that the ‘wrong people’ don’t wind up in charge.

There was evidence of this at a number of the branch AGMs. At the Manor Park ward AGM an alliance between Momentum and Sir Robin’s former allies, led by former deputy mayor Ken Clark, backed a mixed slate of Momentum and right wing candidates and effectively blocked supporters of the new mayor. 

This unholy alliance was born at the council Labour Group AGM back in May. Momentum-aligned councillors were elected as Group chair and chief whip, while the Walesite old guard held onto the chairs of Council and overview and scrutiny. Subsequently the same coalition has voted together to push for the referendum on the future of mayoralty to be held at the same time as the London elections in 2020, against the wishes of both Rokhsana Fiaz and Sadiq Khan. It is also jointly campaigning against plans to reform the Every Child a Musician programme.

It is worth keeping an eye on East Ham. While the two camps may be happy to ally for now to keep the mayor’s supporters out, there is a bigger prize in prospect and both factions want to grab it for themselves. At some point parliament will vote on new constituency boundaries, with the likelihood that one or both of our sitting local MPs will have to re-apply to be the candidate . One of the safest seats in the country will soon be up for grabs. It could all get very messy.

 

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East Ham re-booting

4 Dec

Oddbodcharge

After close to two years of inactivity it looks like efforts to revive East Ham Constituency Labour Party (CLP) are finally underway.

Despite being one of the safest Labour seats in the country, the East Ham party has been in ‘special measures’ since early 2017, when the last general committee (GC) meeting broke down in ‘acrimonious circumstances.’

Since then there has been a General Election and elections for a new Mayor and councillors. Also huge disputes and lack of records over which organisations were affiliated and entitled to take part in a Mayoral candidate trigger ballot, as well as allegations of non-resident members.

Most of the ten branch parties (one per ward) don’t meet regularly and there were no East Ham delegates at party conference. Regular and necessary business, like the re-run trigger ballot meetings and candidate selection meetings for the local elections earlier this year were supervised by officials from Labour’s London regional office. As an aside, none of this happens in West Ham, where all CLP and branch meetings take place regularly and on time.

London regional officers are again involved. 

All of the ten ward branches have had an AGM scheduled and members have been notified. Little Ilford and East Ham South met last week; East Ham North meets tonight; East Ham Central and Boleyn tomorrow. Wall End and Manor Park will meet on Thursday.

Beckton and Royal Docks branches met last night and, according to its new Twitter account, it was the first time in five years Royal Docks Labour Party had met!

Word so far is of well-attended meetings, with over 35 members at Little Ilford. Also the word is of well-behaved meetings. Royal Docks branch elected completely new officers, including, for the first time ever, a woman! The ward is unique in Newham in being represented by three male councillors, despite party rules that normally forbid this. 

Once the new officers – chair, vice-chair secretary, treasurer – and GC delegates are elected it clears the way for the CLP to hold its own AGM and elect officers. Separately, officers are contacting affiliated organisations – trade union branches and socialist societies – to identify their delegates.

London region will continue to supervise, which will impact on efforts to select Parliamentary candidates and support Council by-elections elsewhere in the capital, but this is good news for local members who have been deprived of any way to participate in party affairs.

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Election 2017 – your candidates

12 May

The lists of candidates standing in the general election for the two Newham constituencies have been published.

East Ham

  • Choudhry Afzal – Friends Party
  • Kirsty Finlayson – Conservative
  • Chidi Oti-Obihara – Green Party
  • Daniel Oxley – UKIP
  • Stephen Timms – Labour
  • Glanville Williams – Liberal Democrats
  • Mirza Zillur Rahman – Independent

West Ham

  • Rosamund Beattie – UKIP
  • Lyn Brown – Labour
  • Paul Reynolds – Liberal Democrats
  • Kayode Shedowo – Christian Peoples Alliance
  • Patrick Spencer – Conservative
  • Michael Spracklin – Green Party

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No mayor, no Christmas

21 Dec

Labour party members in Manor Park had to cancel their Christmas social at short notice last week because the mayor couldn’t attend.

The ward party chair sent round an apologetic email, explaining that the social couldn’t go ahead because of Labour party “rules”:

I have to inform you, regretfully, that after an emergency meeting, the Manor Park Social Event for next week (17th), has been cancelled. 

This is due to three rules: firstly, one of our guests cannot attend. (If our Mayor cannot attend then we cannot proceed with the social). Secondly, branches are not allowed to officially socialize as part of the Labour Party, only CLP. Finally, no guests outside of Newham are allowed to be invited to a Labour Party social event and there was some doubt about the music and choir at a Labour Party event.

This is very disappointing, as it was discussed and agreed at our branch meeting three weeks ago. 

However, I have asked the Chair of East Ham CLP if we can have a social event in 2016 for all of East Ham branches and this can go ahead. So we can look forward to this event.

I am very sorry for any inconvenience this cancellation may have caused. 

My sincere apologies.

Anyone searching the Labour party rule book will, of course, come away empty-handed. There are no such rules. It is straightforwardly an attempt to control and stop East Ham members meeting up and working together ahead of the trigger ballot to confirm Sir Robin, yet again, as the mayoral candidate. Divide and rule!

The ward chair was instructed to cancel the event, but maybe she should have seen it coming. She is also East Ham’s social secretary and has previously complained to the CLP secretary, Mariam Dawood, about the impossibility of organising activities without access to the full list of party members.

These shenanigans are an interesting contrast to the West Ham party, which has held many events open to all Labour supporters, mostly without the mayor. Some have included non-Newham guests – and even non-Labour people (disclosure: I’ve been to a couple).

Members in East Ham ought to be asking themselves about the motives of the people running their local party. Whose interests are they looking after?

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Parachutes

3 Nov

More shenanigans in Sir Robin’s personal fiefdom – East Ham constituency Labour party. And another email to Stephen Timms from unhappy members.

We are writing to you in relation to the recent election of the Chair of East Ham CLP … in our capacities as GC delegates, local branch chairs and Councillors. We are concerned that through a combination of undue influence from our local Mayor Sir Robin Wales, illegitimate nominations and a lack of transparency by some members managing and organising the AGM election i.e. Newham Campaign Organiser Carl Morris and Cllr Forhad Hussain from West Ham CLP, an unfair election process for the position of Chair has taken place.

The story starts back in August, when Boleyn councillor Obaid Khan applied to join the Fabian Society. He received an email back from Giles Wright, the national membership secretary, telling him

The Newham Fabian branch is no longer active but there is a flourishing branch based in Tower Hamlets.

So it was a surprise to find only a month later, at the East Ham AGM, that the defunct Newham branch of  the Fabian Society had nominated someone for chair. The lucky man was Femi Alese, chair of Newham’s Local Campaign Forum. Mr Alese was not a member of East Ham’s general committee and this was his only nomination. Unlike the other two candidates, not a single local ward party had put him forward. 

But a lack of member support wasn’t going to get in the way of Sir Robin having his place man elected. The outgoing chair, former councillor Paul Brickell, ruled the nomination valid and voting went ahead.

As the email to Stephen Timms continues: 

the AGM was … attended by a very large number of (unconfirmed) GC delegates, totalling 60 people who voted in the CLP election. Many of these people were unfamiliar to the active local membership. Many of whom clearly (and some of whom informally told us) that they were there at the behest of Sir Robin who was in attendance and very present with his associates Cllr Unmesh Desai, Cllr Ken Clark, Cllr Richard Crawford, Cllr Lester Hudson at the front door of the meeting. Given the context and his reputation, some could consider this ‘badgering’ voters.

…

Femi Alese … appears to have been ‘parachuted’ into the role by Sir Robin et al. Carl Morris and Cllr Forhad Hussain distributed the voting slips amongst GC and non-GC members. Sir Robin’s associates planned it in such a way that they sat close to the GC members to … see who they were voting for and then tell them who to vote for. This conduct, in the context gives the impression to many members that Sir Robin unduly influenced the meeting and it was not in effect a secret ballot. 

Angry members have also written individually to the CLP secretary, Mariam Dawood, asking for minutes of the meeting and a list of those who attended, with details of who they were representing. Unsurprisingly, these requests have so far been rebuffed.

There are calls for an investigation and for the election to be re-run. I doubt these will meet with any greater success.

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