The Lib Dems have just issued the following press release.
The Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor of Tower Hamlets, John Griffiths, today called the Respect Party’s decision not to stand in the mayoral election, but instead back the controversial Labour candidate as “contemptible.”
“There has clearly been a stitch up between Respect and Lutfur Rahman’s Labour Party. This pre-election deal shows complete disrespect for the people of Tower Hamlets.”
“Voters in the borough, including many members of the Labour Party, were already nervous at the prospect of Lutfur Rahman taking the Mayoralty and command of the Council’s £1.3bn a year budget. They will be terrified at the prospect now, given the deal that has clearly been done.”
“It was Respect which organized the petition for the mayoral referendum and campaigned for the yes vote on 6th May. Not to contest the election they wanted is the strongest indication yet that, following George Galloway’s defeat and Respect’s disastrous showing in the Council Elections, the Party is in terminal decline.”
The Lib Dems have repeatedly warned of the danger of an elected mayor leading to a one-Party state in the Borough with power concentrated in one individual.
“In the wrong hands, an all-powerful Mayor, heavily backed by one section of the community, would exaggerate the worst of the Council’s recent tendencies – centralising power and removing accountability of local Councillors for the allocation of public funds.”
“As Mayor, I would build a consensus and encourage cross-community involvement in the political process. This means devolving resources and responsibility to those bodies and communities best placed to make use of them, including community councils, health boards, local schools, as well as tenants/residents’ associations – citizen-run organisations which can provide a check and balance on Mayoral power.”
“This election is an opportunity to reestablish Tower Hamlets as a borough of many neighbourhoods and communities – each one different, but each one contributing to the common wealth, and at the same time providing a necessary check on the power of an executive Mayor.”
How in any sense of the word is it a ‘pact’? Go out looking for conspiracies everywhere and guess what? You find them!
It’s big of the Lib Dems sniping at Respect for a pact when they got into bed with the Tories. As Nick Clegg would say, ‘the public want parties to work together’. The irony of it all amazes me.
[...] statements on Mayor The Friendly Lefty makes has commented on my last post that Respect’s decision not to field a candidate against Labour’s Lutfur Rahman [...]
3.Respects statement today reinforces the argument that your blogs and indeed Andrew Gilligans blogs do have truth to them. I really hope the Labour party NEC now finally realise just exactly what they have accelerated here in Tower Hamlets. The very Respect party that claims to have campaigned for a directly electd mayor was simply a front for Lutfur Rahmans Labour party which has always consisted of support from Respect activists. This pact between Lutfur Rahmans Labour group and Respect did not just happen today, it has been on-going for months. Labour candidates at several wards were targeted by Respect candidates with support from pro-Lutfur activists in a bid to oust them to ensure that Lutfur Rahman remains leader but that failed due to the unexpected surge of Labour turnout on May 6th. Just take former Labour councillors Fazlul Haque and Salim Ullah as an example?
It continued throughout the process to select a mayoral candidate for Labour where hoardes of Respect candidates and activists were helping Lutfur Rahman win his campaign. They were also at Lutfur Rahmans Launch party at the Troxy. We have to now understand that Tower Hamlets council has been infiltrated and taken over by IFE members and sadly in time, the Bangladeshi Muslim community will be branded just like the BNP – only this time, it will not just be the 13 BNP councillors in Barking and Dagenham that get ousted, it wil be the 41 Labour councillors in Tower Hamlets that will fall victim to this very dangerous scenario.
I bet my bottom dollar that after Lutfur wins the Mayoralty, and if members are given the opportunity to select their by-election candidate, Lutfur will ensure that they field either a very weak Asian candidate, or a white candidate with no intention of helping him/her winning, but to simply give Respect the opportunity to elect a Respect councillor. I would not be surprised if that man was former councillor, Abjol Miah, the man who criticised Lutfur Rahmans leadership himself.
This is a kind of ‘Dead Poets Society’. You’re either in it and part of it, or you have no role to play in governing Tower Hamlets. One can only quiet rightly blame Labour party HQ allowing farmed manufactured members to vote for a candidate that colludes with the extremist Respect.
Final Question, I wonder if Lutfur Rahman as Mayor will now allow current Respect chair, Carole Swords back into the council chamber after being banned for throwing a cup of water over close Mayoral aide Cllr. Marc Francis?