One Year On, and Another Broken Promise

Gone are the days when simple councillor, Fiaz could side with any protest group and lament the awful goings on under Mayor Wales. All that was needed was a change of mayor and all would be well. Councillor R Fiaz was clearly an ally of protesters and the Focus E15 Campaign in particular.

The Focus E15 Campaign welcomed the deselection of Wales and her ascension.

Well, we got the change of mayor. And then reality struck. There was more, it seems, to solving a problem than wishful thinking.

A little put out that after four years, not much had happened, in June 2022 the E15 campaign members attended a meeting of the council. They were a little more boisterous than the general body of the audience and the mayor suspended the meeting.

She met with the protesters and without consulting her Director of Housing nor her cabinet members for Housing or Finance, and she promised to rehouse EVERY family. We covered this in an earlier article.

The protesters were pleased. What better guarantee could you have than a cast iron promise from the lips of the mayor herself? Mayor Fiaz can be seen confirming this to the full council on 20th June 2022, (at 26 minutes).

Alas, it seems that the promises from the mayor are not all that reliable. The families have not been moved. Moreover, it seems, they won’t be.

So, the protesters returned, and in a display that has embarrassed sitting councillors, they were manhandled out of the room.

The pictures come from the Twitter account of her former ally and former opponent in the mayoral race, Mehmood Mirza.

This is the statement from the Focus E15 Campaign Group.

Rokhsana Fiaz, Mayor of Newham, stated at a council meeting one year ago that by May 2023 “I will be making sure all of those families with children will be moved out of Victoria Street and no other families will be placed there.” However, this has not happened, adding to the remaining families’ sense of ‘moral injustice’ and growing anger. We will not stop campaigning until all the families are moved out of Victoria Street into suitable accommodation.

To misquote Disraeli, “There are lies, damned lies and political promises”.