A story of friendship gained and lost, through a journey to change the East End for the better. Why I am taking a sabbatical.
Prologue: Thanks, but no, thanks.
“No. Even now, I can’t altogether believe that any of this really happened…”
Christopher Isherwood
Many people have asked me to come back to get involved and sort out local Labour and take on some leadership roles. Thank you, but no, thanks. It has been a long, emotional seven years and I just want a break. Below is a brief description of my journey in TH Labour politics, and an explanation of why I am taking a break.
“Look for the copper tablet-box,
Undo its bronze lock,
Open the door to its secret,
Lift out the lapis lazuli tablet and read it,
The story of the journey of that man, Gilgamesh.”
Epic of Gilgamesh
A new beginning? Once upon a time in the #Endz
“Come traveller, I will teach you about him who experienced everything… it is a story of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, two friends becoming human together.”
Epic of Gilgamesh
How did it all start?
It all started one sunny September morning in 2015. On the way to work, I had an idea, that I would not get to work and called E. E and I knew each other from campaigning on human rights issues abroad. During the summer of 2015, together, we have been campaigning amongst friends to sign up and support the leadership campaign of Jeremy Corbyn for Labour Leader.
E agreed to meet me at the Queen Elizabeth exhibition centre, to wait for the result of the leadership election result. There when we met up he did not come alone, he came with his partner, who I met for the first time. As the three of us sat, we witnessed and took part in history with the declaration that Jeremy Corbyn has been elected to the Labour leadership. We also happened to be interviewed by the Guardian newspaper, in a piece marking that moment.
It was all then a whirlwind, the three of us help launch Momentum, at an event on Mile End Road, Tower Hamlets. There, with the help of my friend Imad we launched the idea of the People’s Politics Philosophy and Education (PPE) political education program. Then E and I parted our ways, him going to the United States and I, focusing on the People’s PPE program.
Bandits: The New Jacobins of the East End
“The point about social bandits is that they are peasant outlaws whom the lord and state regard as criminals, but who remain within peasant society, and are considered by their people as heroes, as champions, avengers, fighters for justice, perhaps even leaders of liberation, and in any case as men to be admired, helped and supported.”
Eric Hobsbawm
The following summer 2016, on the way to a meeting of the local Labour Party, I was hit with an idea I phoned E. We both met up and went into the meeting together. It was the vote by the local party for the second leadership election, both supporting Jeremy Corbyn. We both quietly worked the room, fully trained in the art of Bengal street politics, I received my training through my uncle in Bangladesh and E through his first-hand experience in the student politics of the City of Sylhet. To everyone’s surprise, Poplar and Limehouse Labour Party voted in support of Jeremy Corbyn.
That evening, both of us were giddy with the unexpected victory. We both discussed plans to change the party locally to make it more democratic, and truly representative of the local East End community. A multicultural and ever-changing community, shaped by global forces, with all the contradictions. What the left-wing, French Presidential candidate, Jean Luc Melenchon, describes as a ‘creolisation’. A blend of cultures that creates something new, something unexpected, that belongs to none of the cultures that comprise it.
We first put our plan into action, in the autumn of 2016. Where both of us, along with the colourful local community figure, Siraj Hoque, made the case for an open vote for the Labour Mayoral candidate for 2018. The meeting was the local BAME forum, which over 200 members attended, at Kingsley Hall. We were opposed by the supporters of Mayor John Biggs, who wanted him automatically selected. Individuals we labelled comically as officers of the East India Company, ‘Company Raj’. Amidst heckling and shouting, we took to the stage and made the case for open selection and wider party democracy.
We stunned the room into silence, presenting our case with a statue of Mahatma Gandhi beside us. Siraj Hoque started with 1757 and the Battle of Plassey, E took over the presentation as well as the historical timeline, and I finished by bringing it to the present day, ending with the quote from Tony Benn, that you can’t democratise British society unless you first democratise the Labour Party. We won the vote with a resounding majority. We will go on to win the plurality of the vote, but lose the overall vote due to votes by the Trade Unions.
But we set the mood in the local party for change and democratisation. We challenged closely for the leadership of the local party and eventually pushed through a motion for democratic selection of councillor candidates, for the first time in a quarter of a century, in the autumn of 2017. Again, E and I rose up to the challenge, giving stirring speeches at the General Committee (GC) of the Tower Hamlets Labour Party, shaming the Mayor and his supporters into not voting against the motion.
After the decision E and I, along with his partner were in a dilemma, should we apply to be councillor candidates? As grassroots activists, we never thought of being elected officials. In addition, we were being pressured by local Labour Party members. With a few minutes to go before the deadline, midnight, the three of us that night submitted our application. E and I were shortlisted, his partner was denied a place due to a technicality, but in reality due to intervention by Mayor John Biggs. Both E and I, against strong opposition from Mayor John Biggs, were selected as candidates in 2017 and elected in 2018. In the meantime, E and his partner separated.
How does an anti-establishment political stance, cope with the position of elected office, and being part of the establishment?
“The slopes to treachery from the dizzy heights of revolutionary leadership are always so steep and slippery that leaders, however well-intentioned, can never build their fences too high”
CLR James
The ‘Prestige’ of politics.
“Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called “The Pledge”… The second act is called “The Turn”… Because making something disappear isn’t enough; you have to bring it back. That’s why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call “The Prestige”.”
Christopher Priest – ‘The Prestige’
Like two apprentice magicians, now debuting as headline acts, both of us were in a dilemma. How do we continue, as activists, to make the case for change in the East End, with our new roles as councillors? In circumstances where it has very restrictive Labour Party rules, (Standing Orders) and a hostile leadership. We were both put to the test at our first council meeting. E giving a speech supporting the Mayor and the controversial pay rise for councillors. I along with Gabi supported, according to council records, James in his opposition.
Afterwards, E and I had massive disagreements. His approach, playing to the gallery and adulation of selective audiences to get things done. Whereas my approach, being the beneficiary of a long family history of public service, was a dedication to the craft of politics through the prism of social justice. Over the next year and a half, E and I drifted apart due to our approach to politics. Eventually coming to a head in October 2019.
“The audience knows the truth, the world is simple. It’s miserable, solid all the way through. But if you could fool them, even for a second. Then you could make them wonder. And then you get to see something very special.” (Robert Angier)
Christopher Priest – ‘The Prestige‘
The break came, in the fateful decision, when I backed his former partner over him. In a meeting in front of witnesses, at a restaurant on Cannon Street Road, I explained the consequences of what she was asking of me. It was a fractious meeting, I explained that I would support her but as a consequence, it will cause lasting divisions in the community and in the party and would make E my bitterest enemy. However, given the circumstances, it was the right thing to do at the time. I agreed to exit from frontline politics as soon as my term finished, allowing her to deal with the consequences as she feels fit.
As soon as I made my decision public, E and I stopped talking. From a close friend, closer to me than any of my siblings, he became my arch enemy. Aggravated by the success of his former partner. Not a day goes by where I don’t revisit that fateful decision, but each time the calculus is that I was right. Putting principles and politics over friendship and self-satisfaction. Years later, E and I have not spoken, and probably never will. Each of us dealing with the consequence of the death of a friendship now resurrected into a bitter political rivalry.
Where do I go now?
“The sacrifice… That is the price of a good trick.” (Alfred Borden)
Christopher Priest – ‘The Prestige’
The Road to Nowhere: Delhi bahut dur hai! (Delhi is a long way away!)
“If there is heaven on earth
It is this, it is this, it is this!”
Persian Inscription in the throne room, at the Red Fort in Delhi
As a moral warning, the Sufis of India narrate a story. Applicable to today’s Tower Hamlets, the tragic story of Prince Aurangzeb. A dervish of the Naqshbandi order, who spurned the palace life in favour of the austerity of the wilderness of the Deccan.
But when the Peacock Throne became empty, with the Emperor, his father declared ill. He turned his back on the wilderness and turned towards Delhi, to take on his brothers for the throne. Dara had the treasury, Murad and Shuja had the army, and Aurangzeb had just a steely determination. And as they say, the rest is history.
Aurangzeb took the throne, crowned with the name ‘Alamgir’, compeller of the world. Within a few years, he had all his siblings tried and executed for treason. Then set on a course to forge the Indian subcontinent in his own image, changing the course of its history through decades of continuous warfare. Leaving a legacy which still divides the subcontinent to this day.
As then, in Tower Hamlets the Peacock Throne is empty. Things in TH Labour are gonna get worst before they get better. With various factions lining up for various bouts of internecine warfare. A strategy for civic participation and holding to account which does not rely on TH Labour has to be charted and adopted.
Heeding the warning of the Sufis, I choose to turn my back on Delhi and chose to head into the wilderness. That is why for the foreseeable future given the current set of circumstances I am walking away from frontline local Labour politics, to focus on civic activism.
“The Naqshbandiyya are strange caravan leaders,
Who bring the caravan through hidden paths into the sacred sanctuary.”
Jami
Epilogue: The End?
“When all the illusions of personal immortality are stripped away, there is only the act to maintain the freedom to act.”
Epic of Gilgamesh
According to ancient Greek Stoic Philosophers, our concept of truth and justice is linked to our view of beauty or aesthetics. The ancient Arabs have a similar concept, with the word ihsan, denoting all three, literally meaning beauty, with many poets of the east taking it or its derivation as a pen name. Many attempts have been made to capture a formula which can be replicated to bring into reality the act of beauty. From Plato and Aristotle to Philosophers like Paul De Man and Derrida.
Coming back to England, Shakespeare, had the opposite approach. in his day, ventured out to break all the rules of literary aesthetics, the rules of decorum. As a result, he produced works which surpassed those of his contemporaries.
As a rule in politics, it was Enoch Powell who said that all political careers end in failure. But do they?
آج رنگ ہے ری ماں
aaj rang hai ri maan
“Today there is jubilant colour, O mother!
رنگ ہے ری
rang hai ri
Jubilant colour!”
Devotional Songs of the Sufis of the Chisti Order – Rang (Jubilant Colour)
PS. “Breaking Bad”
It’s been a long seven years. Time for a sabbatical. I guess the record speaks for itself. See below:
2015
Helped launch the Peoples PPE Program, with the endorsement of the then Shadow Chancellor, John MacDonnell at the inaugural event for Momentum at the Waterlily, Mile End.
2016
Had the first event of the People’s PPE at the East London Mosque, with Owen Jones, Peter Oborne and local historian Layli Uddin.
Co-produced with grassroots activist a one-day conference on Political Education, ‘Hackminster’, hosted by Queen Mary University.
2017
Pushed through democratic reforms, as the Secretary of the BAME Forum with the Chair. So that members locally democratically select their councillor candidates.
Selected by the Labour Party members of Mile End to be their councillor candidate.
2018
Successfully elected to be the Councillor of Mile End.
According to council records voted with Cllr James King, and Cllr Gabriela Salva against the increase in allowance to councillors.
2019
According to the newspapers, I and Councillor Gabriela Salva opposed the cuts to the Community Language Service.
With Cllr Tarik Khan, put forward the motion for Tower Hamlets Council to adopt the APPG Islamophobia definition.
With Cllr Danny Hassel, put forward the motion for Tower Hamlets Council to adopt an anti-academies stance in regards to local schools.
2020
Help up a Covid-19 support network in Mile End ward, working with local stakeholders. Also set up a local food bank and free hot meals for those on benefits as well as undocumented migrant workers,
Co-sponsored a successful petition with Independent Councillor Andrew Wood, to put a stop to parking changes in Tower Hamlets that would disproportionately affect families of a lower income.
2021
Successfully lead a cross-party campaign, along with grassroots activists, to have the controversial LTN Policy, Liveable Street halted in most areas and have the consultants removed.
Helped bring together a coalition of local stakeholders and grassroots activists, to form the #SAVEBRICKLANE coalition.
2022
The #SAVEBRICKLANE coalition held a grassroots policy conference on Community Wealth Building to tackle the structural issues of social cleansing and displacement. A set of policies adopted in the manifesto of the current Aspire administration.
Stood down and helped get elected to my seat, a former experienced councillor from Brent. As well as help Mile End Labour buck the trend in the local election and hold all three seats for Labour.
“He looked at the walls,
Awed at the heights
His people had achieved
And for a moment — just a moment —
All that lay behind him
Passed from view.”
Epic of Gilgamesh
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