Humiliation for Fiaz
We suggested that Wall End was a shoe-in for Labour, but that they might face some competition in Boleyn.
The only candidate who actually wanted to challenge Labour was a former party member, Mehmood Mirza who was mixing a strong record of community action, particularly, but not exclusively on the appalling state of litter and rubbish on the streets with a thinly veiled sectarian appeal to the Muslim community.
He has stood before.
In 2022 he came within 200 votes of being elected in Plashet Ward.
In the last byelection in Boleyn, Moniba Khan took 1725 votes to win the seat for Labour, over 1000 votes more than all of the other candidates combined. This time Mirza managed 1153 votes to Labour’s 871. Not sure yet what the swing was, but it was sizeable. We have suggested that we are beginning to see a swing away from Labour. The Greens must be pleased with a creditable 572 votes.
This is nothing less than a bombshell for Newham Labour. They have taken the electorate for granted and assumed that simply by flooding the campaign with election workers they can dominate every election. It seems that they can’t.
Fiaz and the London Labour machine hand picked the candidates for the 2022 election. Before polling day Labour had suspended one of these “outstanding” hand-picked candidates for antisemitism. Another was to leave the borough within a month of being elected and she went on to join a group that had stood against Labour in her new home district. And then two more of these “outstanding” candidates announced that they were resigning.
This is an indictment on Mayor Fiaz. In five years, she has taken Labour from a seemingly impenetrable position to one in which Labour appears vulnerable; she has alienated her colleagues on the council; and faces serious accusations of bullying of staff and colleagues.
The two constituency parties remain suspended by the Labour Party. There is a real doubt that Fiaz would have been reselected if the members had been allowed to choose in 2022.
The election of Mehmood Mirza will not mean that the voting arithmetic on the council has significantly altered. It will mean that there is a consistent and hostile, independent opposition voice who will seek to hold the mayor to account. If Fiaz experienced some discomfort at council meetings before, we can only anticipate that this will increase in the future.
The election of Mr Mirza is obviously the main item of this post, but we should recall that there was a second byelection on the same date. Our congratulations to Stephanie Garfield on an impressive victory in Wallend Ward and our commiserations to all of those who stood. Our democracy requires that people are willing to put themselves forward to the scrutiny of the public and for this we would like to thank all of them for the part that they played.
Byelection Winners; Mehmood Mirza and Stephanie Garfield.
