The election of a BNP London Assembly member on 1st May was a shock, but not a surprise!

The election of a BNP London Assembly member on 1st May was a shock, but not a surprise. With an Islamophobic campaign to get rid of Livingstone, Labour’s poll ratings plummeting and UKIP’s vote collapsing with Europe on the backburner compared with 2004, the BNP always had the chance of picking up sufficient support in the outer London suburbs in particular to get someone elected. But it’s a tribute to all the campaigning against the BNP, particularly out in Dagenham and Barking, that the BNP only just scraped past the winning post. We need a serious response to the BNP but we should not panic. On almost all the major issues, it is clear that there has been no major shift to the right. On the one issue of racism that the BNP can try to exploit, there has been a rise in concern about immigration from Eastern Europe in particular. But here in Tower Hamlets the BNP got a derisory vote in one of the wards they put up a by-election candidate in and in Millwall, where the BNP’s Derek Beacon was dramatically elected back in 1993, they did not do much better. What is clear is there is massive disillusionment now with this Labour government. Whether it’s the 10p tax debacle, the slump in property prices and the more general housing crisis, rising food prices or the prospect of hard times ahead from possible recession, Brown and New Labour are getting the blame and voters are looking for other parties to punish New Labour. It is vital that all the campaigning to expose the BNP for what they are continues and increases. Searchlight and its supporters have done sterling work as has Unite Against Fascism and Love Music, Hate Racism. I hope as many as possible go on the Central London demonstration on 21st June against the BNP, but it will be vital this is followed up by more of the serious campaigning we have already seen on the doorstep. In particular, we in Respect intend to campaign with Labour MP Jon Cruddas and all those in and outside the Labour Party to push back the BNP in Barking and Dagenham. But what is needed above all is both a dramatic change in direction for the Labour government, which I just don’t believe is coming, and the building of a progressive alternative to New Labour. What people want to hear is that there will be a massive emergency programme to provide genuinely affordable housing for people from every ethnic background here in East London and an approach and policies which genuinely respond to the justifiable grievances of so many voters whether they are white, black or of Asian origin.
That’s why I am very happy that Respect took a very good third place in the City and East constituency in the London elections and pushed the BNP into fourth place. The election of Richard Barnbrook would have been much more significant if they could also have claimed to have become the third party of East London, but we denied them that. I and my colleagues in Tower Hamlets and Newham and across East London intend to continue both to campaign against the BNP and to build the progressive alternative working people in London need.