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Howard Clarke looks at the local election results in
Tower Hamlets.
results Hamle
BNP
defcated
ackon looks on as voters throw him out.
HE DEFEAT OF Nazi councillor Derek
Beackon in May's local elections dealt an
important blow to the British National
Party (BNP). The BNP hailed last year's ›y-election victory by Beackon in the East London ›orough of Tower Hamlets as a breakthrough into the big league of politics... the greatest achievenent... of any party within the nationalist (!) novement before or since World War Two". (British Vationalist, No.137, November 1993). These megaomanic delusions were rudely shattered on May 5.
Beackon's victory last September was a vote of inger and despair at the appalling social conditions vhich exist in the area: the housing shortage, high inemployment, overcrowded schools and poor menities. It was a product also of the disenchantnent with the established parties, in particular the abour Party, for failing to show a way forward. n such a situation, underlying racist sentiments urfaced, providing an audience for the BP.
But the BP's victory in its turn produced a lassive reaction, not just in Tower Hamlets but ationally, as millions were alerted to the danger
of fascism. This was reflected in the 50,000-strong mobilisation for the joint YRE/ANL October 16 Welling demonstration, followed by the 40,000strong TUC demonstration in Tower Hamlets earlier this year.
The Isle of Dogs itself was polarised by the BP's success. Since the by-election the BNP have picked up support. But they have also provoked a reaction. This was the predominant feature of the May elections with the enormous leap in the Labour vote on the Island being, above all, a vote against the BNP.
This included many middle-class voters in the new private housing developments, who this time voted Labour. There was also a massive turnout of black, Asian and Chinese voters, 20% of the Island's electorate. On the council estates, however, the BNP were vying with Labour for the white vote. The result was an unprecedented turnout for a local election of 67%. The Labour candidates polled more votes than the total number cast in the last council elections in 1990!
This mood to defeat the BNP was also the key factor in Labour's victory across Tower Hamlets. The Liberals had blatantly resorted to racism in the past to bolster their position. They were held responsible for creating the climate in which the BNP had grown. In particular the Liberals' system of devolved powers to 'neighbourhood committees' created the possibility that, by winning just two of the 19 wards in Tower Hamlets, the BNP could
of Dogs) election results,
to '94
Labour
Local election
May 1990
,665
(45%)
By-election Oct 1992
1,275
(39%)
By-election Sept 1993
1,473
(34%)
Local election
May 1994
(52% ™
3,480
Liberal
476
(40%)
1,178
(36%]
,284
(29%)
830
(12%)
BNP
657
(20%)
,480
(34%)
,843*
(28%)
Tory
276
182
134
250
Turnout
42%
37%
44%
67
*This each (31%)
is the average vote of the three candidates in elector has three votes. In fact, Beackon pollec while the other two BP candidates polled 1,7
respectively.
a ward 1 2,041 75 and
Where voles 1,713
Millwall
St. James
St. Peters
Holy
Trinity
vote in
Tower Hamlets,
1,843
653
889
755
Tr
28%
22%
20%
19%
Han ets •
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have controlled the Isle of Dogs and Globetown neighbourhoods, with a combined badget of over £40m. Consequently, Labour's vote rose by 8,000 compared to the 1990 elections. Significantly, however, underlining the real basis of the swing to Labour, nearly 50% of this increase was achieved in the four wards contested by the BNP.
OW WILL EVENTS in Tower Hamlets de-
velop? On the surface the elections were a
crushing victory for Labour. A majority of
29 Liberal councillors to 20 Labour and one BNP has become a 43-to-seven Labour majority. Previously solid Liberal seats now have apparently equally 'solid' Labour majorities. Yet one certain prediction is that nothing will remain 'solid in Tower Hamlets in the years ahead.
Tower Hamlets is the poorest borough in Britain, with an unemployment rate twice the London average. Average income levels are the lowest in London: in some areas more than 65% of households receive income support or housing benefit. Eleven per cent of households have more than one person per room, the worst overcrowding in Britain. 45,000 homes, out of a housing stock of 67,000, are in need of repair. These are the terrible social conditions that allowed the BP to gain a foothold in the borough. Yet this social deprivation is set to worsen in the period ahead.
The Tory government is only likely to concede additional resources to Tower Hamlets if a mass struggle is organised. A mass campaign, however, will not be led by the new Labour council, with only a handful of left-wing councillors. Instead, unless opposition is built in the unions and on the estates, it will go the same way as Labour councils across Britain, passing on Tory cuts and attacking council workers.
Nor would a Labour government pursuing procapitalist policies lead to significant improvements in conditions in Tower Hamlets. A Labour government might release some cash to local councils, for example, unfreezing the receipts from council house sales which currently go to service council debts. Before the 1992 general election Labour committed fibn of these receipts to be spent on new homes. Yet this would only scratch the surface of the problems in the inner-city areas: Elbn spent just in London would still mean less than 650 new homes per borough. Unemployment, another key issue, currently stands at 16,000 in Tower Hamlets - what will it be in four years time?
The most likely scenario then is that the next local elections in 1998 will be fought against a
background of four years of battles against the
Labour council's cuts. This will certainly be the
case if the general election that will have taken
place by then sees the Tories re-elected. But
equally a Labour government, possibly depend-
ent on Liberal support, will preside over attacks
on the working class. Where will the inevitable protest go then?
6 • Tower Ha
T IS CERTAINLY not inevitable that the BNP
will build on their present base in Tower Ham-
lets over the next four years. Firstly, following
their electoral setback, a split is possible now between 'electoralists' and those who want to concentrate on street-fighting.
More generally, the ruling class are hesitant at this stage to encourage the BNP even to the limited extent that the NF were cultivated in the 1970s, under a Labour government, as a useful destabilising force against the labour movement. Now they fear that successes for the BP will radicalise workers and youth, particularly black and Asian youth, into a counter-movement they could not control. Significantly, the East London Advertiser, the local paper owned by Tony O'Reilly's international media and business group, switched from favourable coverage of Beackon in the immediate aftermath of the by-election to an 'anti-Nazi' stance by May.
A more serious reactionary force would be a right-wing split from the Tory Party, grouped around the Euro-rebels'. Under the last Labour government the Tories were the main electoral opposition to Labour in Tower Hamlets. They were only overtaken by the Liberals as Thatcherism hit home in the early 1980s. Now they have been reduced to a pathetic rump, winning less than 4% of the borough-wide vote this May.
Nevertheless, a new 'patriotic party, which could not be combatted by a Don't vote Nazi appeal, could certainly sweep up the reactionary core of the Tower Hamlets Liberals. On the other hand, depending on national developments, the local Liberals themselves may recover over the next four years. Whatever the exact course of events, Tower Hamlets will remain an important testing ground for reaction in the years ahead.
By the same token Tower Hamlets will also be a testing ground for socialist ideas and organisations. Struggles will certainly take place in this inner-city borough. But they will not be organised in the main from forces within the Labour Party.
A local purge of Militant in the early 1990s, combined with the march to the right nationally, has affected the Tower Hamlets party. In a confidential report produced earlier this year council leader John Biggs described the borough party as 'semi-moribund, with many ward organisations 'chronically inquorate. Symptomatic of how events
are more likely to develop was the independent
candidacy of a 23-year old Bengali community activist in Wapping. Standing as Independent Labour, with a manifesto quoting from clause four of La-
bour's constitution, he polled 15% of the vote.
A mood to fightback will undoubtedly develop
among the council unions, Bengali youth, tenants
organisations and local community campaigns,
radicalised by the events of the past few months.
Militant Labour in Tower Hamlets will play a key
role in organising and giving a socialist direction
to this fightback in the turbulent times ahead. O
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