Last weeks UK local elections were quite interesting. Lutfur Rahman's Aspire giving the Tower Hamlet's Labour Party a bloody nose, the Green Party not losing so many deposits and Forest Green Rovers getting promoted to Division One of the English Football league were delicious Eid presents, which may have cause Mother Earth to smile. The Project for the decolonisation of Northern Ireland issue is also slowly edging forward, though perhaps more due to English Brexit Idiocracy.
We must not sell ourselves to (re)Colonial Labour, at least not so cheaply , neither should we labour for figures and cliques that mean us harm. Of course plenty will, a cursory glance at Muslamicate vote winners reminds us of this, however this is opportunity too, to watch them like Sabre Toothed Tigers.
Lutfur Rahman's comeback and (re)endorsement from the electorate was surprising, but probably only because I've been more anti-social than usual in recent months and years. I would also like to think that, post Trojan Horse podcast, a wider circle of people were bothered enough to see through the bitter personal jealousy ( with Helal Abbas in the [alleged] role of Rizwana Dar) furnishing the powerful and racist establishment stitch up operation which forced him out last time. The prejudice and injustice of the UK courts system was instructive to watch as always.
It has been more than 15 years since Tower Hamlets became politically so liquid, with the then Blairite war mongering MP Oona King being felled by a public revulsed at the British state's role in the murder of so many Iraq and Afghanistan. And then it went Galloway, Respect, Lutfur1, Coup, Corbynjaan1, ChickenCoup, Corbynjaan2, Covid, Lutfur2. Khaldunian up-down arcs all inclusive
Though inspiring, we shouldn't take the wrong lessons from TH's political liquidity and expect snap transformations amongst the politically marginalised, atomised, tribalised subjects of Other London Boroughs.
Independent Network candidates have begun to stand up and organise, especially in urban areas where Labour Parties have taken people for granted. They are a great opportunity to expand scrutiny of the corrupt and colonial shenanigans of the Labour Right in the interlocked fields of housing, education, health, planning and environment. They achieved several hundred votes in several places, which is a perceptible demonstration of joint agency, which will only grow as people wise up to the snakiness that is business as usual and business as usual with redder branding.
I look forward to political local media productions of increasing dialogical learning power over the coming years.
