A tongue-in-cheek reflection of the physical attack on local Labour Party officials and the attempt to disrupt the trigger ballot meeting on the Poplar and Limehouse MP, Apsana Begum. A request to all to look at facts and not be engaged in the spreading of Islamophobic and racist tropes, against an already marginalised community.
“Face: You don’t have a plan, do you?
Hannibal: Of course I have a plan. But it’s a secret.”
— The A-Team, Season 2: Bad Time on the Border
What happened at the Whitechapel Poplar and Limehouse Trigger Ballot Meeting?
Recently, various videos and social media posts have been circulated by various individuals. They claim that they have uncovered a massive vote-fixing conspiracy. A conspiracy against female and Muslim representation. A conspiracy to unseat Apsana Begum MP.
I as the Secretary of Whitechapel Labour, had to field calls from journalists who have been briefed that the Whitechapel Labour Party is at the centre of this conspiracy. After giving my explanation as to what happened. They all left disappointed, as there were simpler non-sensational explanations.
No conspiracy at Whitechapel Labour. As branch officials, we gave every opportunity to both of our MPs to engage with us and the membership. One took up the offer. People claiming to be supporters of the other turned up at the meeting and physically attacked me and other officers to prevent the meeting from going ahead.
More ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’, than conspiracy.
The Weaponisation of Structural Islamophobia
Sadly due to structural Islamophobia in the media, the conspiracy theory is gaining more traction. The undercurrent in all the stories is, that Muslim members of the Labour Party in Tower Hamlets, are incapable of supporting female political representation. An Islamophobic trope as defined by the APPG Islamophobia definition and the Labour Party’s own Islamophobia Code of Conduct. There have been calls behind the scenes to suspend the local party. There fore disenfranchise the large Muslim membership, on the basis of Islamophobic tropes. Allowing the current MP to be automatically reselected.
Why are these allegations, without any basis of fact gaining traction? Why are they being repeated in the Westminster bubble? A case of structural Islamophobia?
Recently, the journalist Peter Oborne did a book launch in Whitechapel, ‘The Fate of Abraham: Why the West is Wrong about Islam’. Demonstrating that media institutions are more interested in peddling tropes against Muslims rather than reporting on facts. My appeal to everyone is to look at the facts and not be engaged in peddling tropes.
In summary, as Branch Secretary, I turned up to a privately hired room to assist in registering members for a meeting. People turned up unannounced and threatened us to cancel the online meeting. We handed the registration over to other Labour Officers who were not physically present and went home.
Below is a detailed explanation of what really happened.
Big Trouble in ‘Little Italy’ & ‘Surma Town’
During the 1990s, when the proposal to rename the Brick Lane area to Bangla Town was doing the rounds at Tower Hamlets Council. There was another proposal at the time that was also doing the rounds. That is the proposal to rename the Watney Market & Cannon Street Road area into ‘Surma Town’. Since then, the area has become the home of the recent arrivals of the Bangladeshi community from Italy and is commonly known as Little Italy with its very own Italian Cafés.
So it was in the basement of one of these Italian Cafés, in a private room. I was registering local Labour Party members for an online meeting. It was supposed to be an uneventful Labour Party internal ballot, what is termed a Trigger Ballot. Where members meet up and decide whether their current MP gets automatically reselected or faces an open selection process with other candidates within the Labour Party.
The Trigger Ballot for Rushanra Ali MP went smoothly the day before without any incidents. Therefore, the online meeting should be a smooth affair in the Trigger Ballot for Apsana Begum MP? But it wasn’t.
While struggling to identify members on the video screens to register them as the local Labour Party secretary, with the assistance of the Chair and Shadow Secretary. We suddenly found ourselves invaded by more than half a dozen individuals. In the next few moments, I found myself in the middle of pandemonium. Customers running for cover, groups going room to room searching, screams and shouts along with ancient battle cries from Sylhet.
Who were these people, and what did they want? Let’s just call them, for now, ‘The A-Team’.
Jack Burton: “I’m a reasonable guy. But, I’ve just experienced some very unreasonable things.“
Big Trouble in Little China
Introducing ‘The A-Team’
“If you have a problem,
If no one else can help
And if you can find them
Maybe you can hire the A-team”
Intro to the A-Team
I should have known something was going to kick off that day, when in the afternoon on social media I was singled out by a member of the A-Team, let’s call him Murdoch. Murdoch, on social media, said that the entire Trigger Ballot result depended on my actions. Just before the meeting, I was called by another member of the A-Team, asking me where I was.
Unknown to me at the time. Later informed by residents. While we were busy setting up for the meeting, the A-Team were gathering in Watney Market. After a briefing given to them by a prominent member of the A-Team, a local accountant. They set off marching as a group towards us in the Café.
For me, it was all a blur. With multiple threats and intimidation towards me to shut the meeting down. In the end, I handed over the registration to another Labour official who joined us virtually, online, and gestured that I was shutting the meeting down. Waited half an hour in the basement for the A-Team to disperse before I quickly cycled home.
As I got home, the results of the meeting were announced. I soon started getting phone calls from concerned friends and neighbours. The A-Team have found out that they were duped and that the meeting and vote went ahead. With members voting for open selection.
In a fit of rage, they decided to march on my house. Soon, friends and neighbours came round my house, to protect me from such an attack. I would like to take this opportunity to say, thank you to these kind individuals. People who stayed with me till late, only leaving once any further threats receded. Why did the A-Team flip?
One of the accusations was that we were tampering with the ballot. Somehow skewing the results towards a predetermined outcome. Really? Let’s go through the facts.
Whose vote fixing is it anyway?
“The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory, is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic.”
Alan Moore
Immediately after the attack and the result of the ballot was announced. The A-Team in response started circulating edited videos of the attack, with accusations that the vote was fixed, that somehow branch officials were biased against the current MP, Apsana Begum.
First, the attack occurred while we were carrying out the registration of members. As the Secretary of a Whitechapel Labour Party, I was there to assist the Chair and Shadow Secretary in identifying and registering members. All before the meeting has started.
Those members who did not have the Zoom app on their devices were told to come so that we can assist in downloading the app. Once the app was downloaded, members were given the meeting ID and passcode. They were told to either sit in the café upstairs or go home. Allowed, branch officers to carry out their duties, but also the reception in the basement was weak. Before the meeting started, we all went home, as others conducted it.
Was the outcome a foregone conclusion?
The other accusation is that the entire process was skewed. Was it?
When we met up as branch officers to discuss the logistics of the trigger ballot meetings we all decided to act impartial and to assist if asked, to facilitate access and dialogue with the membership by their local MPs. We were engaged by Rushanara Ali, but had no engagement by the A-Team. We proactively contacted the A-Team and reiterated our offer, but again no engagement. A few days before the meeting, I sat with a member of the A-Team, explaining the Trigger Ballot process. Even on the day of the ballot, I supplied the A-Team with the online meeting link, when they complained that some members did not receive it.
Given the lack of engagement with the membership, branch officials and residents in general. Is it really a surprise that members in Whitechapel voted for an open selection for Apsana Begum MP? Would you have voted for reselection when you have had no contact with your local MP since 2019? A case of a shambolic campaign rather than a grand conspiracy.
So how do we move forward?
What next? A Bonfire of the vanities?
“If Moses, Cyrus, Theseus, and Romulus had been unarmed they could not have enforced their constitutions for long—as happened in our time to Fra Girolamo Savonarola…”
Niccolò Machiavelli – The Prince
One is a story of inequalities and racial tension exploited for personal political gains, and the other is Tom Wolfe’s seminal novel ‘The Bonfire of the Vanities ‘.
I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who contacted me with messages of solidarity. It has been a tough experience. My memory is still blurred of the event, and the police have 6 months to lay charges on the perpetrators for summary Public Order offences. The human mind is a strange thing, you never know I might have a moment of clarity allowing the Police to lay charges on the members of the A-Team, who planned and carried out the attack. And then further encouraged physical attacks on social media.
I encourage everyone to look at facts on the grounds and not be engaged in peddling racist tropes about the Muslim community. Given the cost of living crisis and an economic recession around the corner, we all need to rally around practical issues and solutions. And not be engaged in imaginary cultural forever wars. The last thing I personally want to do is add fuel to the fire by adding more stories to the structurally Islamophobic mainstream media machine.
As I write this blog, I can’t help but have a smirk on my face. Despite my announcement of withdrawing from frontline Labour politics. I still find myself in the middle of the storm. Another footnote in the colourful political history of the East End. Looking forward to the best coffee in town, at the Italian Café in Surma Town, on Cannon Street Road.
“Everybody was kung fu fighting
Those cats were fast as lightning
In fact, it was a little bit frightening
But they fought with [not so 😉] expert timing”
Kung Fu Fighting – Carl Douglas
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