Doug Lorimer
"Labour is facing a Muslim backlash over Iraq with thousands of traditional supporters defecting to the anti-war Respect party", the September 11 London Daily Mirror reported, following the shock result of a local council by-election in Tower Hamlets, east London, in which Labour was pushed into third place.
Voters in the by-election in Millwall ward — previously the safest ward for Labour in London — gave Conservative candidate Simon Rouse 828 votes (35%), Respect candidate Paul McGarr, 635 votes (27%) and Labour candidate John Cray, 571 votes (24%). Under Britain's non-preferential, first-past-the-post voting system the ward was won by Rouse.
The swing against Labour was 20.6%. "A recent opinion poll revealed Muslim support for Labour nationally has plummeted to 38 per cent from 75 before the September 11 attacks three years ago", the Mirror noted.
"The Millwall result comes after Respect topped the poll in Tower Hamlets in the 10 June European elections", Paul McGarr wrote in the September 18 British Socialist Workery. "It also follows the victory by Respect's Oliur Rahman at the end of July, winning a previously Labour-held council seat in the St Dunstan's and Stepney Green ward.
"Three times now Respect has taken on New Labour in the east London borough, and three times Respect has beaten them. If you rank the 17 wards in Tower Hamlets in terms of how well Respect did in the 10 June European elections, Millwall was 15th out of 17 for us. To go from that to more than double our vote and beat New Labour has scared local Labour figures rigid.
"Every Labour councillor in the borough now knows that Respect can unseat them at the next full council elections due in just over 18 months' time."
From Green Left Weekly, September 22, 2004.
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