Statement from Councillor Abjol Miah

“One thousand ESOL places have been lost at Tower Hamlets College as a result of government cuts voted through by Labour councillors on the board of Tower Hamlets College including Councillor Abdal Ullah. Over twenty ESOL staff have been laid off and community centres where outreach ESOL courses were being taught adversely affected.

“Despite the fact Working Neighbourhoods Funding was secured for ESOL teaching, the Cabinet, of which Councillor Ullah is also a member, refused to channel this funding to the college which had a proven track record of quality ESOL provision. Rushanara Ali boasted she would talk to her friends Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson but still the cuts went ahead.

“ESOL has now been under attack from this government, of which Rushanara Ali would like to be such a loyal member in the unlikely event of her election, for three years. Unlike other adult courses, ESOL courses are means tested so that anyone earning over £17,000 has to pay £1,000 pounds per year to access an ESOL course. This is, of course, an impossible charge. And yet the government claims it wants to see more community cohesion. Enabling particularly women to learn English is essential to this and yet the government is making it harder for women in particular to access these essential courses.

Tomorrow night, Thursday, Tower Hamlets College Union has put on an ESOL Question Time for Tower Hamlets parliamentary candidates. I am going to be there but the union says Rushanara is yet to confirm. What is the problem? Surely her New Labour minders are not too frightened to put her up in front of an audience which will be justifiably angry at the hypocrisy shown by this government and this council over ESOL teaching.”

A developer is being slammed after plans for more housing in a historic part of the East End have once again been put forward despite the group being forced to scale down its project.

Parliamentary Respect candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow Abjol Miah today condemned Durkan over their proposals for Gun Wharf in Bow.

Residents along the Hertford Union Canal, off Old Ford Road, successfully campaigned against a housing block up to seven stories high within the Victoria Park conservation area

After Tower Hamlets council rejected the plans Durkan were forced to scale the development down to four storeys, which was then approved. But now Durkan Estates have put in a fresh planning application.

Campaigners accuse the developers of effectively seeking permission to either do away with the provision of affordable housing or add another storey, and more than halve their contribution to the local authority.

Cllr Miah said: “These plans are outrageous and socially irresponsible. Durkan’s original plans attracted dozens of objections. Quite rightly they withdrew them and came back with a compromise plan that was acceptable to residents. Now they have reneged on this deal”

He said he had “little doubt” the council will throw out the new plans and said there will be a “huge row” if they don’t. And if Durkan decides to take the plans to the London Mayor, who can override the council, he warned: “We will take this fight all the way to City Hall and beyond.

Cllr Miah addressing the Tower Hamlets College UCU rally

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” That is how Poplar MP Jim Fitzpatrick sums up his opposition to changing to a directly elected mayor in Tower Hamlets.

This is a statement of the most extraordinary complacency. The housing waiting list has spiralled out of control over the last ten years and there are now some 15,500 families living in overcrowded conditions according to the council’s own statistics. Our young folk are having to move out of the borough to Barking, Ilford and beyond to find housing. And although we have had 40% of all construction in London, over 70% of that has been to build homes far beyond the reach of the incomes of most people who live in Tower Hamlets. Tower Hamlets residents are being displaced in favour of the super-rich bankers of Canary Wharf and the City of London.

Whilst this housing scandal has been developing, we have had no less than four changes of council leader and four changes of chief executives in the last four years. These council leaders have been picked by small numbers of Labour officials and councillors in what would have been, in the old days, smoke-filled rooms, without any reference to the voters themselves. If the Labour establishment has its way, our fifth council leader in as many years will be picked after the May council elections by Labour regional officials who don’t even live in Tower Hamlets.

This all looks pretty broke to me.

Make no mistake. I believe that many council officials have been doing sterling work and achieving considerable success in some areas. But this is despite, rather than because of, our system of government.

Directly elected mayors are now to be found in the surrounding boroughs of Newham, Hackney and Southwark. It is just Tower Hamlets which Fitzpatrick thinks should be denied a system which would make the council leader, the mayor, directly accountable to the voters themselves and which would give that mayor the power and authority to address the massive problems which Tower Hamlets faces.

We need strong leadership in Tower Hamlets to demand from central government the resources we need and to stand up to the cuts central government will try to impose (whether it is a Brown or more likely a Cameron government).

The overwhelming feeling amongst voters in Tower Hamlets is that they want change. That is why I am sure voters in the mayoral referendum will reject Fitzpatrick’s complacency and endorse the directly elected
mayor we need.

Councillor Abjol Miah, Respect prospective parliamentary candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow
Town Hall
Mulberry Place

• Parking policy in Tower Hamlets
• Car free zones
• Housing policy
• Boris Johnson’s Fare Rises
• Youth facilities
• Ocean regeneration and business uncertainty

Read the motions:

1) Parking policy in Tower Hamlets
Moved by Councillor Abjol Miah, seconded by Cpouncillor Dulal Uddin

This council notes that:

a) the policy of ticketing, clamping and removal of vehicles in this borough is widely reviled by car owners as unjust

b) around £5 million is raised annually from car owners through the issuing of penalty charge notices and retrievals from the car pound

c) grievances include the draconian exercise of clamp9ng and removal powers on council and registered council estates

d) lack of signage as to the parking restrictions in some areas of the borough

e) confusion caused by the presence of parking restrictions on Sundays in some parts of the borough

f) confusion caused by significant differences over the times of parking restrictions in different parts of the borough

g) confusion caused by the welcome concession of allowing two hours free parking around market areas at market times

h) the recent statement by the council that “the length of time a car is parked before removal is immaterial”

j) the opposition of the vast majority of residents on some estates, such as John Smith Mews, E14, to the introduction of a clamping system for parking on their estate

k) penalty charge notices, decamping fees and retrieval fees are extremely high for those on lower incomes

This council believes that:

a) the primary purpose of the council’s parking policy should be to enable residents and others with legitimate parking rights to park as conveniently as possible and to ensure that traffic is not blocked by parking

b) the primary purpose should not be to punish car owners for minor transgressions of the rules

c) the primary purpose should not be to raise funds for the council by a punitive tax on some car owners

d) the council and registered social landlords should not impose clamping and other parking penalties where the residents of an estate are clearly overwhelmingly opposed to those penalties

e) the parking policy should be applied with due respect to common sense and what is reasonable and unreasonable in the specific circumstances

f) the length of time a vehicle is parked in circumstances that transgress parking restrictions is material, as are the reasons why a vehicle might be temporarily parked in circumstances which transgress parking restrictions, and that car owners should be given a reasonable chance to remove their vehicles where such transgression has occurred

g) Tower Hamlets parking policy should be subject to a root and branch review to make it more reasonable, comprehensible and acceptable to car owners and users.

2) Car free zones
Moved by Councillor Dulal Uddin, seconded by Councillor Abjol Miah

This council welcomes:

a) the acknowledgement by the council that the so-called Car Free Zone policy has been flawed

b) the proposal to abandon the blanket policy of excluding all residents of Car free Zones from qualifying for residents parking permits and to allow those who already hold such permits to take them with them if they move to a Car Free Zone

This council notes that:

a) the council’s proposals to modify the so-called Car Free Zone policy will not help a variety of victims of this policy who were misled into moving to Car Free Zones such as Mrs Naasir and her family who are being asked to move yet again if they are to qualify for a residents permit in order to keep her car which enables her to transport her family safely and economically or Mr Golding who has part bought his property and will have to sell up or give up his black cab on which he depends for his income or Mr Mohamed who is being asked to pay £520 per year to park his car on his estate by his registered social landlord, or the residents of 81 Horseferry Road who have had their permits suddenly and summarily withdrawn by the council or many others who have been the victims of injustice in relation to this scheme

b) the council’s proposals do not go nearly far enough therefore in addressing these multiple injustices

c) Car Free Zones tend to discriminate in favour of wealthier residents and against less well off residents

d) Car Free Zones are not Car Free in that they often have estate parking although this may be restricted and expensive

This council believes that:

a) there is a problem of parking capacity in the borough especially as Car Free Zones are not especially effective in relieving pressure on parking spaces because of widespread avoidance

b) there is an environmental problem arising from excessive car use

c) Car free Zones have not been an effective or equitable way of dealing with these problems

d) council officers urgently need to address the specific injustices that have been caused by the Car Free Zone policy including the discriminatory effects against the less well off and those with larger families and come back with much more radical policies than the damp squib announced at the last full council meeting

3) Housing policy
Moved by Councillor Fozol Miah, seconded by Councillor Abjol Miah

This council notes that:

a) there is a massive housing crisis in Tower Hamlets

b) well over 20,000 are on the council’s housing waiting list

c) an estimated 15,500 families are living in overcrowded conditions, half in social and half in private housing

d) overcrowded and poor housing are a blight which it should be the highest priority to overcome in the early part of the 21st century

e) that the director of Tower Hamlets Homes has recently expressed concern that even if THH gets 2 star status later this year, insufficient investment will be provided to bring the 60% of council housing stock that does not meet the decent homes standard up to that standard

f) that Tory Mayor Boris Johnson’s target of 20,000 new social and affordable homes by 2011 will be missed

g) that Tory Mayor Boris Johnson’s target of a 60/40 mix between social and affordable housing is currently being missed

h) that most new housing in Tower Hamlets is not being built as social or affordable housing but instead is being built for purchase in the private sector at prices far beyond the means of the vast majority of Tower Hamlets current residents

j) that many Tower Hamlets residents will either continue to suffer poor and/or overcrowded housing or be forced to try and move out to the outer London boroughs to find adequate and affordable housing

This council believes that:

a) proposals from both the Conservative and  Labour Parties to cut government investment in order to address the problem of the government’s deficit will have dire consequences for building the housing we need and bringing existing housing up to the decent homes standard in Tower Hamlets

b) we need more investment in social and above all council housing and that this investment must not be at the expense of investment of repairs and improvement

c) target for the amount of social housing being built in Tower Hamlets should be radically revised upwards in opposition to the position of Tory Mayor Boris Johnson

d) what we need above all is a crash programme of council house building which will boost the construction industry and the economy and is the only way to realistically address the blight of overcrowding in Tower Hamlets

4) Boris Johnson’s Fare Rises
Moved by Councillor Harun Miah, seconded by Councillor Abjol Miah

This council notes that:

a) fares for many of the less well off residents of Tower Hamlets have been subject to a huge rise sanctioned by Tory Mayor Boris Johnson who has ultimate responsibility for Transport for London

b) fare rises have been particularly targeted on the less well off who use buses with much lower increases on other fares

c) Mayor Johnson claims the fare rises are necessary to raise funds and yet he had dropped plans for an Western extension of the Congestion charge and to tax polluting vehicles both of which are possible ways of generating more revenue

This council believes that commuters should be encouraged to use public transport not discouraged in orer to help protect the environment

This council deplores the massive fare rises introduced in the last few days

This council calls on the Greater London Assembly, Mayor Boris Johnson and Transport for London to go back to the drawing board and thoroughly revise the fare rises which are discriminating against the less well off here and in the rest of London

5) Youth facilities
Moved by Councillor Mamun Rashid, seconded by Councillor Abjol Miah

This council notes that:

a) the London Borough of Tower Hamlets has a much higher than average number of young people

b) there are very high levels of unemployment for school leavers in Tower Hamlets

c) many young people live in poor and overcrowded conditions

d) many young people lack adequate youth facilities and opportunities for self-development on their estates

e) one such estate where adequate facilities are lacking is the Pitsea Estate in Shadwell ward

This council regrets the closure of youth facilities by the council in the past as a grievous and short-sighted policy

This council believes that:

a) lack of good youth facilities and opportunities for self-development amongst young people will encourage anti-social behaviour

b) good youth facilities easily accessible to young people in the areas where they reside are a necessity not a luxury

c) urgent consideration should be given by officers to expanding youth provision on estates which currently lack those facilities, especially where local community activists are coming forward with concrete proposals

6) Ocean regeneration and business uncertainty
Moved by Councillor Abdul Munim, seconded by Councillor Abjol Miah

This council notes that:

a) the Ocean estate is to be the subject of a major regeneration project

b) this regeneration will involve the demolition of some existing buildings

c) demolition will include Marmora House on Ben Jonson Road which houses many local shops which provide essential services to the local community

d) shop owners and keepers in Ben Jonson Road recently received letters from a developer informing them of a planning application to redevelop the site where they have their shops

e) shop owners and keepers in Ben Jonson Road have spent many years building up their businesses and serving the community

f) the letter from the developer makes no reference to providing them with alternative facilities from which to operate after they have left the existing premises or for them to have the right to return to the newly established shop premises upon completion of he redevelopment

g) this is causing severe stress and concern to the business community in Ben Jonson Road and those residents who currently depend on these shops for important and vital services

h) shop owners and keepers have made submissions to the planning department asking that alternative premises from which their businesses can operate should be guaranteed and that they should have right of return once redevelopment has been completed

This council welcomes any development and regeneration that will benefit the residents

This council believes that:

a) regeneration and redevelopment must take place with full consultation with residents and shop owners and keepers serving those residents and with their consent

b) there have not been adequate reassurances to businesses and residents in Ben Jonson Road and its vicinity about the nature of the regeneration and redevelopment planned for this area.

c) discussions and consultation should take place as a matter of urgency with the business community in this area to hear their concerns and to develop plans to allay those concerns

The time has finally arrived for a new era of leadership in Tower Hamlets. We are on the lookout for talented individuals to field for the Tower Hamlets Council Elections in May 2010.

If you believe that you have the qualities that Respect promotes and are brave enough to run an electric election campaign, then download the form below:

Tower Hamlets Respect Local Authority Councillor Candidate
Application Form 2010 – Click Here

The success of the petition, launched by Respect group leader Councillor Abjol Miah – campaigned for by Respect and many prominent community activists and leaders, reflects the high level of support within Tower Hamlets for a more democratic form of local government. Years of Labour-run administration have brought the Council into disrepute. We have had four council leaders in as many years, as Labour bickers amongst themselves and forgets their real purpose: to serve the community. Chief executives on salaries that would make City bankers blush have come and gone, at huge expense.

A directly elected Mayor would address this democratic deficit by providing a direct line of accountability between the leadership of the council and the voters. That is perhaps why the move from the start has been energetically opposed by Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems. Labour’s opposition is most baffling, when you consider that it is the national Labour government’s position that councils SHOULD introduce mayors! Even the legislation providing for a petition to force the issue was introduced under the present government.

At the emergency meeting of the Council, it was clear that although Labour could not legally deny Tower Hamlets a referendum, they could force it to take place at the worst possible time for voters. There were two options. The first, favoured by Respect councillors and the Council’s own Monitoring Officer, the staff official responsible for carrying out elections, was to have the referendum in February. This would have meant that the Mayoral election could take place at the same time as we elect our local councillors. Not only does this make logical sense, but the second alternative – to have the referendum in May and the election for Mayor in October – would have meant four months in the summer when a different system of government was in operation, only to be done away with again once the mayor was elected. A February referendum would therefore have avoided this costly farce.

Predictably, the Labour group – supported by their friends in the Tory and Lib Dem groups – put their own party political needs above the best interests of the Borough and voted to support a May referendum and an October election. This will clearly be a chaotic mess. It was pushed for – against the recommendations of council staff – for the simple reason that all three of the other parties are opposed to a directly elected Mayor and are scared by the popular support for it.

Respect will not be deterred by these self-interested and corrupt goings-on. We look forward to taking our vision of a more accountable, democratic and value-for-money Council to the electorate in the coming months.

The collection of over 10,000 signatures by Respect to force the Council to conduct a Borough-wide poll reflects the popular concern over the Labour group’s plan to adopt a less democratic ‘cabinet’ system unchallenged.

Please come to Town Hall at 6.30pm sharp to show support for our councillors.

Clement Atlee was a giant of the Labour party, committed to helping the less well off, the poor and the vulnerable and to making a fairer, more just and equal society.

He was also the most successful peacetime prime minister who established the National Health Service and the welfare state, nationalising the commanding heights of the economy so that public utilities received the investment necessary to ensure they provided a good public service.

It is a disgrace that his statue outside Limehouse Library should have been boxed up for so long after it was damaged by vandalism (‘Clem Set to be Repaired’, Advertiser, November 12). I welcome the decision to restore his statue at a more fitting location.

What an irony, though, that Conservative parliamentary candidate and former banker Time Archer should e photographed by the boxed statue with someone no one has ever heard of from Etonian David Cameron’s front bench!

Attlee’s statue will stand as an indictment of the rotten Tory policies pursued by this New Labour government and Tower Hamlets council over the last dozen years.

But it will stand as an even bigger indictment of the Tories themselves. Attlee, I am sure, would have strongly opposed the deregulation of the banks started by Archer’s hero Margaret Thatcher and continued by Tony Blair, the deregulation that has brought the world economy to its knees.

What we need in Britain is a return to the policies of Clement Attlee – public ownership that ensures public services meet the public interest, a crash council-house building programme and a system of redistributive taxation to ensure those most able to pay make a fair contribution to the public purse which pays for essential public services.

This is something you will never get from the Tories and their super-rich friends.

2.30pm, Prithi Restaurant, corner of Brick Lane and Hanbury Street

Tomorrow Friday 20th November

The press conference will be covering two issues:

1) The mayoral referendum triggered by petition yesterday. We know of no other mayoral referendum triggered by petition, which required 5% of the registered Tower Hamlets electorate to sign the petition. It was successful in the face of official opposition from both the Labour and Conservative parties. Now Respect intends to lead the campaign, embracing members of all parties and none, for a Yes vote in the referendum, likely to be held on February, in the face of official opposition from Labour Lib Dems and Tories.

2) The visit to Bangladesh of George Galloway, Councillor Abjol Miah and a delegation of some 24 people in total from the Respect Party.

The visit begins on Tuesday 24th November. George Galloway and Councillor Miah will be meeting the Prime Minister, the former Prime Minister and the former President of Bangladesh, visiting various places in Sylhet and going to the site on the border where the Tipaimukh Dam project will control the flow of water into Sylhet.

“This is a fantastic achievement,” said Councillor Abjol Miah. “There has been a tremendous feeling building up in Tower Hamlets that things must change. That is why so many have flocked to sign the petition to trigger a referendum after the Labour and Conservative Parties decided they would not allow the people to vote on the matter. I want to thank everyone who has helped to bring about this incredible result.”

George Galloway MP said: “This is a mighty blow for democracy against the political establishment, both Labour and Conservative, who have opposed this referendum. I am very pleased that this referendum has now been called as a result of the efforts of so many across Tower Hamlets. Now we will start the campaign for a Yes vote to establish a mayor who can really begin to address the problems this borough faces whilst being directly accountable to the people.”

Cllr Abjol Miah, second from left and local activist Abul Hussain, second from right

Tower Hamlets Respect has stepped up efforts to take our message of a better borough into the community in recent weeks.

Today Councillor Abjol Miah, Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow, was joined by local residents and activists as they went door-to-door on Jamaica Street in Stepney Green, delivering hundreds of our new Respect national newspaper.

Councillor Miah spoke to residents who said they were fed up of being ignored by the New Labour-run council and wanted change. Councillor Miah said:

People here have been taken for granted by the council and the government for too long. All we want are decent homes, neighbourhoods and facilities, with proper opportunities for employment and education. But instead we get dodgy housing associations, car-owners penalised and services eroded. Respect is standing to offer everyone the voice they deserve.

The activity followed last week’s day of action on the Malmesbury Estate in Bow, where every home received a free copy of the newspaper.

Can you spare an hour to help Respect win for Tower Hamlets?

Further days of action are planned in the coming weeks. For more information and to volunteer – even for just an hour – see Volunteer With Us.

Cllr Miah addressing the Tower Hamlets College UCU rally

STATEMENT FROM COUNCILLOR ABJOL MIAH, LEADER OF THE RESPECT GROUP TOWER HAMLETS COUNCIL AND RESPECT PPC FOR BETHNAL GREEN AND BOW

There is going to be a referendum on our future system of government in Tower Hamlets. Of that I have no doubt. Although a majority of Labour councillors apparently wish to deny the voters of Tower Hamlets a choice, they had better wake up to the fact that the law has fortunately taken this matter out of their hands and put it into the hands of Tower Hamlets voters who have signed in their thousands to support a referendum.

I want to give a huge thank you to everyone in the community and all the community leaders who have done so much to raise thousands of signatures for the petitions that have been submitted to the council to trigger a referendum.

Now it is time for Labour, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats to start engaging properly in the arguments.

On offer to Tower Hamlets are two systems – a modification of the present system of “Leader and Cabinet” but with the leader elected for longer, or a directly elected mayor as we have in Newham, Hackney and the Greater London Authority.

In my view the arguments for a directly elected mayor are overwhelming. The current system is fundamentally flawed and no modest change to it as proposed is going to make it any better. Indeed it will probably make it worse.

Under the current system, the leader is selected by a small minority of councillors in the Labour group at least some of whom will be strongly influenced by the promise of a paid Cabinet job. Over the past five years we have had no less than four different leaders because of the profound divisions in the Labour group, not to mention four different chief executives. This lack of continuity is a big problem in ensuring a strong policy direction to deal with Tower Hamlets problems.

Worse that that, the important decisions are made in secret in a shadowy body called the Leadership Advisory Group meeting in secret and without published minutes. The leader, exercising huge power over the council’s billion pound budget, is unknown to the vast majority of voters. So there is a lack of accountability as well as a built in instability in the present system.

With a directly elected mayor, on the other hand, the people themselves will choose who they want to lead the borough. Mayoral candidates will be obliged to go out and sell themselves and their policies to the electorate. There will be a clearly identified person with whom the buck stops. So the system will be more democratic and directly accountable to the people.

However the mayor will also be able to claim a mandate from the people of Tower Hamlets to implement the policies we need and to stand up to central government. This is not only because he or she will be directly elected. The mayor will be elected by a proportional system so the mayor will genuinely be able to claim the mandate from an overall majority of the voters, rather than the minority that elects the majority of councillors today.

And the mayor will be elected for a four year term, renewable if the mayor proves a success. So we will get more continuity in policy making.

All the evidence from around the country where there are elected mayors demonstrates their success. This is never more so than across London, where even Ken Livingstone’s opponents accept he was an outstanding mayor for London and brought about some significant and radical changes for the better, for example over the congestion charge and transport. No-one now seeks a return to a different form of government for London as a whole even if one is opposed to the policies of the current incumbent as I am.

In neighbouring Hackney, a council that was a basket case before the introduction of a mayor has now shown huge improvement in its performance on the government’s indicators. Mayors in other parts of the country have demonstrated they can run more efficient and effective public services and be radical and innovative in their service provision. Even in Hartlepool where the successful mayor dressed up as a monkey for his election campaign, his administration has won praise from academics researching the performance of local government.

Government ministers like Lord Adonis have urged the rolling out of the mayoral system, used so successfully in many other countries in Europe and the United States, but have been frustrated by local interests seeking to hold on to their little bit of power. That is sadly what we are seeing with New Labour in Tower Hamlets. Although here it seems to be one faction in Labour see a mayoral system as a threat to their attempt to take back power over the local Labour Party.

But that is no way to make decisions about how to establish the best form of governance for Tower Hamlets. The attitude of those opposed is in addition incredibly patronising. Apparently the voters cannot be trusted to elect the “right” person to be mayor. Fortunately these and other silly arguments against a mayor will be tested to destruction in the referendum. I firmly support a vote for a mayoral system in a referendum. But, above all, the people themselves must be given the right to decide this issue in a referendum and no politicians or parties with their petty concerns for their own self-interest must stand in the way of that.

“This is a disaster,” continued Councillor Miah. “Already the jobs promised by the massive Olympic investment have failed to materialise for residents of Tower Hamlets. Just a miserable 3% of the jobs on the site at the moment have gone to residents of Tower Hamlets and some of them are only resident here for the duration of their contracts. There are very few apprenticeships so young people in Tower Hamlets are effectively being excluded from Olympics jobs. The situation is no better at Canary Wharf where less than 8% of the tens of thousands of people employed there live in the borough and few of them are from less well off backgrounds with long-term residence in the borough.

“The levels of deprivation, low incomes, benefit dependency and poor housing and a terrible indictment of some twelve years of Labour government and 15 years of Labour running the council. Over this period the gap between rich and poor has increased not declined. No wonder the statue of Clement Attlee has been boxed up by the council. Clement Attlee who was such a giant of the Labour Party and who did so much to establish a welfare state and fight to overcome poverty and deprivation would not want to look out on Tower Hamlets today controlled by a Labour Party not fit to clean his boots.”

Cllr Dulal Uddin with Robin Hood residents and community activists

Residents of the Robin Hood Gardens estate dramatically walked out of a consultation meeting with council officials last Saturday. “Residents are fed up with the uncertainty over their future,” said Respect Councillor Dulal Uddin, who attended the meeting with the residents.

Councillor Dulal Uddin continued: “People’s lives are going to be dramatically affected by the redevelopment of the estate. The residents want answers to their questions. They were promised that officers would answer their questions once they had finished their presentation. But when it came round to it, there were no satisfactory answers to any of the crucial issues at stake. That is why dozens of residents spontaneously got up and walked out of the meeting in disgust.”

Residents have been making a number of demands of the council. These include the demand that tenancy rights would be maintained in any decant, that they should have the right of return to like for like accommodation in the redeveloped estate and their tenancy rights again guaranteed in any return and the preservation and development of community facilities.

“The fundamental problem with the redevelopment plans is that they should be for 100% council development and instead they want to put this out to development by a housing association with all the attendant problems and with insufficient new development going to alleviate overcrowding and the massive numbers on the council waiting list,” continued Councillor Uddin. “The residents are very angry and are going to fight the council on this every step of the way. I have now asked the council for a meeting with leaseholders who have their own issues in the hope we will make some more progress there.”

UPDATE: The East London Advertiser has now picked up the story

The Labour group on Tower Hamlets council split apart two days ago over the attitude to take toward a reform of the system of local government in Tower Hamlets. The council is facing a choice between adopting a “New Style” leader and Cabinet system versus a directly elected mayor, used in Newham, Hackney and the GLA and recommended by the government!

A petition containing 10,000 names to trigger a referendum on the system was delivered to Tower Hamlets Town Hall on Friday by George Galloway and Councillor Abjol Miah. The effect of this on the Labour group is outlined below in an anonymous report written by a Labour councillor present at the Tower Hamlets Labour group meeting this past Monday.

1. Deputy Leader Joshua Peck brought an emergency motion to the Labour Group to endorse option A (new style leader and Cabinet as opposed to mayor) – in the Council Leader Lutfur Rahman’s name; the Council Leader did not see it before the meeting therefore did not support the motion. Peck said that this was in response to the consultation results below and the threat Respect posed with the referendum petition. A very brief debate started with Councillors Lutfur Rahman, Ohid Ahmed and Marc Francis saying that rushing into this was unhelpful and the community’s views [via any referendum] were important before any decision was made. Cllr Carli Harper Penman prevented others who supported Lutfur Rahman from speaking by taking a vote on whether the debate should continue. This was upheld by one vote after Cllr Rania Khan left the room.

Option A (Leader and Cabinet): 496 responses plus a dodgy Labour Party driven petition with 1393 names = 1889; Option B (Directly Elected Mayor): 205 responses plus a petition containing 10,000 names; Neither option: 9 responses

2. Ken Clark, Labour’s Regional Director, turned up to the Group meeting without warning (invited by Deputy Leader Peck) and told the Labour Group which way to vote. Cllrs Wais Islam, Shafiqul and Rajib voted against despite promising to support the Leader’s recommendation to delay deciding the Group’s position. Cllr Khan walked out to avoid voting – she had been advised by Peck and Clark to do this prior to the meeting. The Leader along with 11 others voted for an amendment put forward by Cllr Marc Francis that said: a) the group resolves to analyse the consultation responses in detail and to examine the arguments for and against each Executive model and b) to hold a formal debate and vote at our next meeting on 23rd November. This was rejected by Ken Clark and Cllr Carli Harper Penman without reason. They ruled it illegal but failed to outline the grounds. Clark continued to intimidate the Group. He went on to say that although the Mayoral model was promoted by Central government is was not suitable for LBTH because of political instability – in other words, Bangladeshis could not be trusted to lead.

The anonymous Labour councillor concludes: “Once again, the unelected autocrats of the Labour Party move against the will of the people. This is exactly why we want the mayoral system.”

This is a little hard to follow for those of us who have not been following the detailed politics of Tower Hamlets, and its group of Labour councillors; but what seems clear is that there is deep division over the question of whether or not the group should support an elected mayor; and the arguments opposing a directly elected mayor are in this case based upon factional political considerations, and perhaps a certain amount of contempt by the London Labour Party for the Bengali population of Tower Hamlets.

The shenanigans above include the deputy leader, Joshua Peck, introducing a emergency motion in the name of the council leader, Lutfur Rahman, without first consulting councillor Rahman.

It also shows that bureaucratic manoeuvres used to thwart the desire of the councillors to have more time for consideration; and although the leader of the Labour Group and 11 other councillors wanted a delay, this option was ruled “illegal” on the dubious advice of an apparatchik of the London Labour Party.

This is a serious division, because councillors who hold a democratic mandate, and who are responding to the wishes of their electorate do not appreciate being pushed around by tricks and wheezes reminiscent of the worst aspects of Student Union politics.

This story may run and run.

Abjol Miah, George Galloway MP and others handing in the petition to the Town Hall

Councillor Abjol Miah handed in a petition with some 10,000 signatures of Tower Hamlets residents at the Town Hall on Friday, demanding a referendum on the form of government in Tower Hamlets. He was accompanied by Respect councillors Dulal Uddin, Mamun Rashid and Harun Miah and MP George Galloway, as well as a number of community leaders.

Some 7,800 signatures are needed to trigger a referendum, so a referendum of Tower Hamlet voters is now a certainty once the process of verification is completed.

Councillor Miah thanked the community leaders and activists for working so hard over the preceding few weeks to deliver the signatures. “This is an incredible achievement. In just a few weeks since we launched this campaign, a vast number of people have come forward to express their dissatisfaction with the present system and to demand the opportunity to debate and vote on a mayoral system as an alternative.

“The present system falls between two stools,” Councillor Miah continued. “On the one hand we have an unaccountable council leader in whom a very large amount of power is vested, including vitally the power to appoint to paid Cabinet posts and the disposal of almost a billion pounds of taxpayers money annually, but who is known only by a very few electors.

“On the other hand, the leader is too weak to deal with the problems that this borough faces. We have had no less than four different leaders over the last four and a half years and four different chief executives. This is a direct result of the deepening divisions in the Labour party and it is unlikely to improve any time soon. This is a recipe for instability and weakness.

“If we had a directly elected mayor, we would have continuity for four years and there would be an identified and well known individual with whom the buck will stop. And if we have a Respect mayor, we promise to establish a mayor’s office in the heart of the borough where the door will be open for residents to bring their problems and grievances for the mayor to address and sort out – democratic accountability and strong leadership. Newham and Hackney have mayoral systems, not to mention the Greater London Authority. And this is what we need to shake up government in Tower Hamlets.

“But above all, we need a proper debate in Tower Hamlets followed by a vote involving all our residents,” concluded Councillor Miah. “That is what these petitions will achieve. Let the people decide.”

GEORGE Galloway hands a petition in to his local Town Hall this morning calling for a directly-elected mayor for London’s deprived East End.

The 9,000-name petition is being given by the Respect party leader to Tower Hamlets Council’s new chief executive Kevan Collins, to trigger a referendum.

Only 7,800 signatures are needed for a public referendum on the issue.

The idea for an elected mayor to replace the present council-leader, who is selected each year by ruling party councillors, has won backing from the Bethnal Green & Bow MP and Respect’s Opposition group leader on the local authority.

Directly-elected mayors already run both neighbouring Hackney and Newham.

Galloway is calling for the same ‘strong leadership’ in Tower Hamlets which he says would be directly accountable to the voting public.

The Town Hall, which has been holding consultations to see if the public wants to change the political set up in Britain’s most-deprived borough, is backing an alternative proposal of a leader selected by councillors for the full four-year term.

Unlike the ruling Labour group, Respect’s councillors want to see a more transparent and stable governance model that Tower Hamlets citizens can influence and hold accountable. That is why we are backing calls for an Mayor, directly elected by the people of Tower Hamlets.

You have just a few hours left to vote. Do so here.

The Constable historically holds the keys of the Tower of London and to celebrate the arrival of the new incumbent, Tower Hamlets Council is encouraging borough residents to go to their local library or Idea Store (the meedja centres that have replaced many of the old libraries) and hand over unwanted keys, with a tag attached on which they have written a story or some detail of significance relating to each key; these will then form the central feature of an exhibition.  I have a whole drawer full of them; so many memories, but also so many totally forgotten places and objects, even people. Tower Hamlets lead councillor for Culture, Rofique U Ahmed, comments, ‘The keys to the Tower of London have unlocked the secrets of Britain’s most notable historic figures, so this exhibition is sure to interest everybody.’ I am not always flattering about what my local, Labour-controlled Tower Hamlets council gets up to, but this I think is a really neat idea.