London is the world’s most brilliant city. Whether it is its response to the 7/7 atrocities or as the city that hosted the globe’s best Olympics yet, it is the coming together of culture, diversity and opportunity that makes it so.
Labour in Sadiq Khan has a candidate who in many ways is the personification of that melting pot and social mobility. Even in a losing year, Labour was 300,000 votes ahead of the Tories in May 2015, and the capital looks to be a ‘Labour city’ for the foreseeable future. Yet Labour has never truly won the London mayoralty. Ken Livingstone won standing against Labour. Four years later he was due to get re-elected; Tony Blair humiliated himself by negotiating the mayor of London’s return to the party fold, and thus it avoided another defeat. Then, twice, Livingstone lost, largely because the once radical had turned divisive. The patchwork quilt politics of piecing together a coalition of communities of interests fell apart as east London was chosen over west, Muslims over Jews. The quilt simply did not spread far enough in 2008. The 2012 rematch was then fought by a former incumbent who behaved like his seat has been unjustly taken from him rather than democratically removed. Short on humility and lacking any real new ideas – plus one or two tax problems and a few too many appearances on Press TV – the public were just not prepared to accept it was they who messed up four years before.
For the first time since its creation neither Livingstone nor Boris Johnson are on the ballot paper to head up City Hall. The Tories believed that they had found a perfect successor to the blond buffoon in Zac Goldsmith. He was touted as an interesting candidate able to simultaneously attract transfers from the Green party and the United Kingdom Independence party, while being Tory to his core. Goldsmith has shown independence from the government in his six years on the green benches – on Heathrow’s third runway and the right to recall. But Tory party members surely could not be more disappointed that they have been sold a pup. His personal charisma is lacking and his meagre appetite for the role is detectable by the voters. ‘Lacklustre’ best describes his approach.
The Tories, however, think they have two ace cards: Jeremy Corbyn, and Khan’s faith.
First, the idea that London will be a test ground for Corbynomics and ideas is laughable. Simon Fletcher is currently busy running the leader’s office and will not be dragged three stops down the Jubilee line to City Hall. Khan, as a loyal minister under Gordon Brown, is no hard-left figure. His pro-business, tack-centre campaign disproves Goldsmith’s slur and ridicules David Cameron’s ‘lab rat’ accusation. He is neither disloyal to nor dependent on Corbyn – this is the right positioning for a future mayor of London with their own mandate.
Second, the Tories are using Khan’s religion to campaign negatively against him. Goldsmith, Cameron and especially Michael Fallon should be downright ashamed of the campaign they are running. The first duty of a government is to keep its people safe. The second is to bring people together. Their tactics do neither. In fact, it shows their claims to be compassionate, modernising or ‘one nation’ to be truly wanting. The good people of Wandsworth – hardly a socialist republic – have returned Khan to the House of Commons on three occasions, he has served in Her Majesty’s government, and he is a privy councillor. If we cannot stand proud with the member of parliament for Tooting this will be a setback not just for every Muslim but also for the essence of what makes London great.
This is classic Lynton Crosby – the divisive ‘Wizard of Oz’ who masterminded the vile ‘Are you thinking what we’re thinking?’ 2005 Conservative general election campaign and the personal attacks on Ed Miliband and his family. The latter was sadly successful, even in the capital where Labour, despite having won the popular vote, was denied low-hanging fruit target seats. We cannot let this be a success again.
It is no secret that Khan was not Progress’ first choice as Labour’s candidate. He is, however, an exceptional one. His policy platform is genuinely big tent, he has new ideas of his own as well as the Homes for Londoners plan developed by Tessa Jowell and Skills for Londoners borrowed from New York’s mayor Bill De Blasio.
More importantly, while the left generally, and too many of Labour’s hard-left, have a problem with antisemitism, Khan never has. His work as the community cohesion minister is not talked about enough but was of real importance. His voting record on equality, not just for the black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, but women, disabled and the LGBT community too, speaks for itself. His personal ethics said all Britons are equal and he never faltered in his support for equal marriage, for example. Unlike his opponent, Khan is a proud European and the only one to do best by their city, not their father, when it comes to the United Kingdom’s continued membership of the European Union.
The Progress campaign days in every corner of London have been an important mobilisation tool for Labour in the capital. But there is still more to do in the last few days. Labour members, new and old, have a duty to rally round our mayor of London candidate. Losing would not just be a gift for Cameron and George Osborne but a boost for the politics of hate that everyone in the Labour party abhors. Defeating Crosby and co shows to the world London is worthy of its place as the most brilliant city on earth.
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Join us this Sunday campaigning for Sadiq Khan and local assembly member Onkar Sahota in Ealing and Hillingdon on a three seats challenge – details here
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Photo: Moyan Brenn
You really are absurd bullies. Khan supported and propagandised for Babar Ahmad a convicted al Qaeda Jihadi terrorist recruiter. He lobbied alongside Islamist groups in doing so. Today, Ahmad is basking in his association with Khan, engaging in a soft jihadi PR campaign. Ahmad was one of the most important people in the rise of British jihadism, the ‘godfather of internet Jihad’. He groomed and mentored actual Jihadi terrorists like Sajid Badat. And you dare to say that for being concerened about this we engage in the ‘politics of Hate’? The politics of Hate is what you are engaging in. Hate of people’s free conscience, hate of people to resist being bullied into voting for people on the basis of their religion (the message being ‘vote for Khan or you’re a racist’) — this is the message Khan has been peddling since the beginning. We have also seen how Khan peddles a narrative that ‘we’ are to blame for jihadism and extremism by ‘alienating’ people, a loathsome and hateful narrative that easily segues into apologetics for bigotry, hate and terrorism.
Imagine if a Tory candidate had lobbied for a neo-nazi equivalent of a terrorist recruiter analogous with Babar Ahmad. And all I can see now is you saying people who don’t vote for him are motivated by ‘hate’. What a disgusting, evil game to play. Watch out, bullies, because you may find it backfires badly on you. Labour has been fishing in the waters of divisive religious and racist waters for so long. Khan played the divisive race and religion card from the beginning, even saying that a vote against him is a vote for ISIS, because his election would ‘send a message’ to ISIS, as if London owes those evil people anything.
And now that you’ve announced everyone who doesn’t vote for Khan to be an evil racist scum, (which even if Khan wins will be close to 50% of London’s voters) how can you govern in good faith? What a marvellous way to show your absolute contempt and hate, yes hate, for the people of London that don’t share your views. What disgusting and horrible attitudes. Khan is a bully boy, playing the sectarian, racial and religious card, and Labour is fully on board with this, showing contempt for the people of London who don’t support you. This is your game now, pitting people against each other on account of race or religion. What a disgrace. Yours are the politics of hate.
“Khan supported and propagandised for Babar Ahmad a convicted al Qaeda Jihadi terrorist recruiter. ”
I can’t find details of Babar Ahmad’s conviction on his Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babar_Ahmad
And your point is? The police are violent, ask anyone from the white working class about that, and what was done by the Met to this man is what has always been done to white anti fascist activists and trades unionists for years starting from trades unionists from Tollpuddle to WatTyler.
Sadiq Khan kept Ahmed in this country because his firm was earning mega bucks from legal aid .Khan is also a terrorist sympathiser who appears on platforms with people who want to kill Jews and Gays and he has done so for the Islamist vote.
He has also appeared on a platform with serial crooks Simon Wooley and Lee Jasper well known white and Jew haters. They are both vocal supporters of the entry into this country of banned racist Louis Farrakhan.
Jasper gave Wooley and others of his friends £320 000 through a fraud called Black Londoners Forum. This is all a matter of record and I would really like your comments on what I have written.
“serial crooks… Lee Jasper”
Lee_Jasper: Funding_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Jasper#Funding_controversy
Yes, the world agrees with you that he is a convicted terrorist recruiter because he stood up in court and admitted he was. Is there anything about that you don’t understand?
“The first duty of a government is to keep its people safe”
— Sadiq Khan was following two Jihadi apologist twitter accounts until LBC asked him why he was following them recently. He claimed someone else followed them. He can’t even keep his twitter safe.
“The second is to bring people together”
— What would Khan or you know about that, so fully divisive and steeped in racial and religious politics, Khan calling people ‘Islamophobes’ for being concerned about his judgement for promoting Babar Ahmad and associating with extremists, and then bullying people for their concern. Shame on Labour, you hold the people in contempt. You may win London but the country is going to reject you. You have nothing to offer but contempt and hate.
All true Billo, unfortunately.
So back on Planet Earth, I have had some really depressing conversations with Muslim friends recently. One of them, a Cambridge don no less, married to a white English man, said that she was frightened to put down on a form that she was a Muslim when she went into hospital for the birth of her second child, in case her care was compromised. Islamophobia is – sadly – alive and kicking.
Which is one of the reasons I think it would be fantastic if the biggest and richest city in Europe could elect a Muslim as its leader. Sadiq Khan, who is an impeccable social liberal with such a good record of combating anti-Semitism that the Jewish Chronicle has endorsed him over Goldsmith, would confound many of the stereotypes that people have about Muslims. And at the same time I hope it would send a message to the isolationists in the Muslim community that there is nothing incompatible between being a practising Muslim, a loyal Briton and achieving high political office – as the extremists would like everyone to believe.
Your claims that your Muslim friend was scared to go into hospital because her ” care” might be compromised is farcical and either she or you has clearly invented it. He is a supporter of terrorists and is anti white as is proven by his demands two years ago before he was candidate that in order to eradicate supposed racial inequalities in our society ethnic minorities must be given preference over whites in all aspects of our lives. I’ll send the link.
Would you like to deal with what I have posted about you or do accept that you are a liar?
Hello Dave Roberts. I had better things to do over the weekend (such as take my mother out for her birthday, ride my bike, go out to dinner with friends etc.) than reply to your bizarre accusations . Now I am back, I can absolutely confirm that I am not a liar, and I doubt very much my friend – who I have known for 29 years and is a fellow at Pembroke College, Cambridge – is a liar.
I am told from sources with the Khan campaign that if elected he intends to create the kind of racial fiefdom that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have in inner city America. This will be done by reverting to the tactics of massively subsidising ethnic minority groups at the expense of white people as in the previous two Livingstone administrations.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/05/sadiq-khan-declares-war-on-race-inequality He sugars the pill by saying that equality is good for everyone but the reality is that if there are limited resources for just about everything, which is what the situation is, then he is going to have to discriminate against the white population of London, there is no other way.
We have been here before. http://www.standard.co.uk/news/suspended-aide-what-the-police-are-already investigating-665858844.html as well as http://www.standard.co.uk/news/kens-aide-and-lost-millions-6687051.html
What will happen this time will be the same thing writ large because while Jasper and co were inefficient and lazy this time the regime will have massive resources in terms of abilities and skills.
Looks like The New Statesman have removed the link, Operation Black Vote certainly has so try http://www.sadiqkhan.org.uk/speeches and you will find the one about halfway down 2014. For the rest google Andrew Gilligan and Lee Jasper and you will find the whole rotten story.
Where have all the comments gone?