TMP Online

TMP advisory board member and London Assembly Member, Murad Qureshi AM (pictured on the left with Viendra Sharma MP), explains why it is so important for London’s ethnic minority communities to get out and vote in the May 2008 GLA elections. 

As we approach the London Assembly elections next year, Labour can be proud of its achievements in relation to the representation of ethnic minorities in London and the policy successes we have delivered to date.

On the Assembly, Labour is presently the only party with ethnic minority representation and a majority of female members. 50 per cent of our candidates for the May 2008 London Assembly constituency elections are from an ethnic minority background including Navin Shah in Brent & Harrow, Shafi Khan in Croydon & Sutton, Ranjit Dheer in Ealing & Hillingdon, Balvinder Saund in Havering & Redbridge, Jennette Arnold AM in North East London, Ansuya Sodha in South West London and myself in West Central London.

Since the 2004 elections, ethnic minority London Assembly members on the Labour Group have actively supported the Mayor’s budget to finance the organisation of events such as the Annual Diwali Festival, the Annual London Mela, the Annual Eid Celebration, the Women in London’s Economy Conference, a Black History Month Event, Holocaust Memorial Day and the Rise (London United Against Racism) Festival. We have also represented London’s BME communities on the Assembly by promoting equal opportunities and challenging discrimination in London.

However, all this could be tarnished if our communities do not get out and vote in May 2008. There is a significant chance that the BNP will gain at least one seat this time round. Five percent of the vote will give the far-right party one seat and eight percent will give it two.

And the threat is real. Earlier this year, Nick Griffin claimed that the BNP would win between one and three seats in the next GLA elections. At the last GLA elections, they came within just 0.1% of gaining a GLA seat. Since then the party has gained 12 councillors in Barking and Dagenham and one in each of Havering and Redbridge. There are a further six BNP councillors just over the London border in Loughton. Support for the BNP appears to be concentrated around the outskirts of London, particularly in outer East London and on the fringes of South and South West London.

The one thing that can help prevent the BNP from winning Assembly Seats is a high voter turnout. Searchlight, the anti-racism organisation, has argued that a 45% turnout is needed to prevent the BNP from winning any seats. So if Labour’s achievements in London do not move you to get out and vote, at least do so to keep this odious party out of our City Hall.

Murad Qureshi AM is a London wide member of the London Assembly.  He is also a member of the TMP advisory board.  Check out his website here - http://muradqureshi.com/.

In the first of his monthly columns, Murad Qureshi AM, gives his personal view on remittances. following on from Jon Cruddas MP’s article on the subject last week. 

Surprise surprise, this week we learn that since the G8 nations met in Gleneagles in 2005, the richest nations are backsliding on their promises of aid to Africa, except for the honourable exception of the UK government with record levels of development aid.

Only £1bn of the £ 12.5 bn aid pledged at Gleneagles by 2010 has been given so far; so much for the grand standing of politicians at Gleneagles, the tax dodging of celebs like Bono and business’ erratic investment in the developing world. But, as Jon Cruddas MP pointed out last week, there is one group you can rely on - migrant workers.

Migrants workers send money back to their families, many of whom belong to the UK’s minority ethnic communities and are often the cleaners, mini-cab drivers and waiters serving the developed world’s economies. Many of them are New Commonwealth immigrants - like my parents - who have been sending money back home to Bangladesh for two decades. More recent arrivals from Eastern Europe, like my Polish cleaner, are doing the same. These “remittances” have only recently been acknowledged by the World Bank and the Department for International Development (DfID); they have been ignored by the British international NGOs.

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