On Thursday 22nd August 2019, I spoke at the BAME Forum in Whitechapel on the issue of AWS. Initially, I was not going to attend, as I was ill at home, but due to the urging of the acting Chair, I attended and spoke. At the event, I did not state clearly my arguments, how All Women Shortlists (AWS) disadvantages BAME communities and BAME candidates. Below I intend to lay out the arguments more clearly.
The Tower Hamlets and Poplar & Limehouse Context
The decision by Jim Fitzpatrick MP to declare he will not stand again, giving clarity and the opportunity to members to consider and decide the next Labour MP candidate. Poplar & Limehouse is the poorer of the two constituencies in Tower Hamlets (the other being Bethnal Green and Bow), despite having Canary Wharf, with the highest poverty rates in the United Kingdom and hence Western Europe. Poverty is concentrated disproportionately within the BAME communities.
I was elected in 2018 as the Labour’s Cllr, Puru Miah for Mile End Ward to the Town Hall. I have seen first hand the huge inequalities in Poplar and Limehouse, as well as the grinding poverty many residents face.
The local Party has had its issues with BAME representation, recently following the publication of Shami Chakrabarti Report, the Labour Party decided to remove Poplar and Limehouse CLP from special measures, allowing full democratic participation by members without any restriction. As an Executive Member of the local Tower Hamlets Labour Party, I have seen first hand the barriers many BAME Labour Party members still face.
BAME Under Representation in Parliament
Of the group of MPs elected at the last general election, 7.8% or 52 of the total 650 members were from BME backgrounds. Yet while the number of ethnic minority MPs has improved in every election, they still do not equal the % of BME people in the country, currently 14%. The number of ethnic minority candidates selected by Labour to fight marginal seats so far is barely touching ten percent and some have even been replaced by their white counterparts.
In 2017, Dianne Abbott openly called for all-black shortlists, arguing that all-women shortlists have not worked for black and ethnic minority women. In the five marginal seats of Welwyn Hatfield, Putney, Harrow East, Wimbledon and Telford, ethnic minority candidates who contested the seat in 2017 have all been replaced by white women through the imposition of all-women shortlists, three of these seats are in heavily diverse areas of London. That restriction placed in selections, counter-intuitively work against BAME representation, in particular, Black Men. That there is a distinction needs to be made between diversity and representation, the working class and BAME communities of Poplar and Limehouse, need representation. That genuine representation can only be achieved through an open and democratic selection without any restrictions.
My Resignation from the local Tower Hamlets Momentum Group
At the meeting it was clear, that trust has broken down between the BAME community and the local Momentum Group. In order to rebuild that trust, I have resigned from the local momentum group, although still a member of Momentum as a national organisation. I believe only by resigning and distancing myself from the local group, can I act as arbitrator and address the grievances and accusations of racism labelled at the local group by the local BAME community.
Motion Passed at the BAME Forum Meeting to change the CLP Position to Open Selection
At the meeting, I stated that I disagreed with the specific wording of the BAME forum motion, but welcomed the substance of the
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