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LABOUR IS licking its wounds in Tower Hamlets as official figures show the Party attracted just 25,602 votes from across the Borough in last Thursday’s election of Members of the European Parliament.
Since Lutfur Rahman was first elected Mayor of Tower Hamlets, the local Labour Party has rubbished the number of votes won by him and his successor independent candidates. Since Labour’s landslide at the last Council elections, some party representatives have been behaving as if they have regained their vote on a permanent basis. The MEP figures for the borough should make Labour members pause and consider just how volatile the Party’s electoral support can be.
Here are the figures.
•In 2019, Labour pulled out 25,602 votes for MEP candidates.
•In 2010, Lutfur Rahman – standing as an Independent candidate, with no party machine to support him – won 23,283 votes.
•In 2014, Lutfur Rahman won 37,395 votes – rather more than Labour managed on this occasion. Labour loyalists will probably suggest that his vote was tainted because the election was later annulled by the Election Court. However, that Court did not find significant numbers of votes had been fraudulently obtained.
•In 2015, in the snap mayoral election, Cllr Rabina Khan won 26,384 votes as an Independent candidate – ahead of Labour’s 2019 score. Again, she came from a standing start.
•In 2018, Cllr Rabina Khan and Cllr Ohid Ahmed both stood as Independent candiates. Between them, they won 27,987 votes.
Labour’s 25,602 votes was not down to poor organisation. Nothing was stopping people who wanted to vote Labour from going out and doing so. Labour will have to think through why its message did not inspire voters to come out and support Labour.
Labour’s vote has not been this low since the then Cllr Helal Abbas helped the national Labour Party remove the local members’ choice of candidate for the 2010 mayoral election – and went on to record a very low vote of just 11,254 votes.
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