Newham is Plagued With “Working Class Privilege”. Rokhsana Fiaz

We wonder about the reading habits of some of our correspondents! Recently, one of them was kind enough to refer us to the website of The Socialist Party; you know, they used to be known as Militant. And as part of the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) they regularly pick up 2% of the vote.

Anyway, back in February when Newham Council was discussing how to cut costs without telling how they would cut services, the comrades of the Socialist Party were in the gallery. Protesting.

For some inexplicable reason, when they supported her for mayor against Wales, and she mouthed the contemporary Corbynista twaddle, they thought that she was ‘one-of-them’. Not any longer it seems.

“Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz, moving the budget, insisted the council had defended “people of colour” against “middle-class privilege and working-class privilege.” Newham’s austerity has devastated the whole working class – but hits black, Asian and minority ethnic workers hardest. And what is ‘working-class privilege’?”

We have some sympathy for the question the comrades raise. If the working class are part of the oppressor class, just who are you fighting for? Is Labour now against the working class? 

It’s a fair guess, that most working-class people in Newham are from minority communities. So is this code for something else? The mayor apparently defends “people of colour”. Are we supposed to infer then, that working class means white working class?

We wanted to verify the statement from The Socialist Party (even if it meant listening to every interminable word from the mayor), and we duly looked up the meeting on video.

This is what we found.

This was somewhat surprising. This post is being written on the evening of 11th July. 

On 9th July this post was written and it includes stills from the council meeting of 28th February 2022. The post was uploaded on the morning of 11th July. By the evening, it was no longer accessible.

Funny that.

So, we cannot confirm that Mayor Fiaz in a fit of intersectional excess actually condemned Working Class Privilege. Nor do we know what she meant if she said it.

As to whether she said it? 

A verbatim statement of a witness says she did.

Against this, none of the 64 Labour councillors seems to have been concerned. Surely, they would have questioned her meaning if not her whole statement. Wouldn’t they? 

But then, it is not impossible that they were all sleeping through the mayor’s verbal incontinence and they all failed to notice what she said. We understand that this is the only way that many of them can get through council meetings nowadays.