The Clash of Civilisations, E1?

Well, hardly. Respect’s stunning success in Tower Hamlets has provoked borderline hysteria amongst some:

Once the sectarian identities multiculturalism inevitably promotes get hold, it doesn’t seem to matter how bad the politicians who exploit
them are, as Respect’s success in London’s East End shows…

Once again, we find a slice of the electorate in a poor part of Britain that is so lost in identity politics and victimhood that it will vote for those who stoke their rage, no matter how worthless they are.

You can almost smell the contempt, wafting over from the Betsey Trotwood.

Elsewhere, we find that Respect is “Britain’s first electoral Islamist party.”

This is plainly a racist argument. The author has seen councillors with certain names, and with certain coloured skins, and assumes he is looking at “Islamists”. It is an argument designed to appeal to that squealing section of the former Left dangerously close to convincing itself that the Muslim hordes are massing against poor, vulnerable “liberal values”. Latter-day Pope Urbans, dropping religious obscurantism for an “anti-totalitarian” perversion of the Left’s history, urge vigilance against the unbelievers.

This risible nonsense does not stand up to the most cursory examination of politics in Tower Hamlets. Take, for example, the two new Respect councillors in Whitechapel. One, Wais Islam, described himself in his election literature as “leaving New Labour to join Respect”. Another, Shahed Ali, was a Labour Party member for nearly twenty years. Now, they are both Muslims; but I trust our tolerant, liberal friends would not be so crass as to say outright that every Muslim is a “fundamentalist”. The same pattern appears across the borough: those joining and campaigning for Respect are former Labour Party members and supporters. Some are Muslims, some are not.

These new members have joined Respect partly because of the war, but mostly because of the awful fashion in which New Labour has run Tower Hamlets for the last twelve years. In Shahed’s case, the final straw was the destruction of local Labour Party democracy: local members were not even allowed to select their own council candidates, the final list being dictated by central office. New Labour, sensing rebellion, attempted to rule by fiat.

The privatisation and dismemberment of local services, the housing crisis, the absence of youth facilities: these are the issues that mattered on the doorstep. Far from the apocalyptic fantasies of the pro-war “Left”, this election was fought, street-by-street, on bread-and-butter issues. Respect stood on a demonstrably Old Labour platform; it will stand in the council chamber for demonstrably Old Labour values. A previously under-represented, deprived, and thoroughly working-class area of London now has councillors prepared to fight its corner.

New Labour, in marked contrast, repeated its 2005 election trick, leaning towards communalism. In Shadwell, leaflets promoting the impeccably New Labour council leader, Michael Keith, urged voters to ignore Respect’s “lies” and vote for the “Muslim party”. In Whitechapel, a vicious whispering campaign against the Respect candidates’ alleged lack of Muslim virtue managed to return one of Michael Keith’s lieutenants at the expense of a politically talented young Bengali woman.

It is worth noting, by the by, that Respect has more Muslim women councillors than all the other parties put together. Labour ran next to no female Muslim candidates; the Lib Dems did not field any in winnable areas. Only Respect broke with a long-standing local tradition. These are not the actions of a “communalist”, still less a “fundamentalist” organisation.

In the topsy-turvy world of the Euston Manifesto group and their clique, all this is stood on its head: far from demonstrably fighting for women’s rights, Respect is alleged to be repressing them; far from fighting on a traditional, socialist platform of public services, local democracy, and working-class solidarity, Respect is alleged to be dividing the community; far from being the only party consistently opposed to communalist politics, Respect is alleged to be promoting “communalism”.

This smoke-and-mirrors trick only works when Tower Hamlets is presented as some desolate heart of darkness, into which the light from brave, sure-footed liberal scribes occasionally penetrates. Much of the borough is poor, desperately so, and overcrowded; too many of its residents have been effectively abandoned by all the main parties; the inequalities it presents are breathtakingly severe. This much is true. But claims that Tower Hamlets is also “Muslim-dominated” are very wide of the mark: at the last census, the borough was found to be 51% “white British”; it is 33% Bangladeshi, not all of whom are Muslim; and there is only one council ward in which Bangladeshis are even the majority. One-third of respondents in Tower Hamlets as whole defined themselves as Muslim.

Put simply, a plain “communalist” party cannot win here. The demography is set against it. The degenerated local Labour Party, in attempting to shore up its weakened vote, has taken to running two, separate “communalist” campaigns come election time: one for “white” areas, and one for “Muslim”. But New Labour’s serious defeats in two critical wards, Whitechapel and Shadwell, show there is no great appetite for communalist politics amongst British Bengalis. The unpleasant settlement between New Labour and old-style clientelism has been very significantly weakened.

And the wild-eyed fundamentalists? Some can be found, in dribs and drabs, attempting to break up election meetings, or campaigning against the Brick Lane Mela. They cannot be found in Respect.

Respect has already pushed New Labour onto the back foot over council house privatisation. We have exposed the ballot-rigging that has taken place under their watch. We have built an organisation that can overturn wards they have held for nine decades. With at least three council seats likely to be reballoted in coming weeks, New Labour’s slender council majority is close to vanishing.