What I witnessed on polling day
— In medieval times the east of London reeked of urine from tanning, boiled bones for soap and other unpleasant trades that would not operate inside the controlled boundaries of the City of London. Today, different but equally unpleasant smells prevail there: allegations of corruption, voter fraud and a stolen election.
There are continuing investigations into such allegations, which will run their course. I was on the ground on election day, as a polling agent for John Biggs, the Labour candidate for mayor of Tower Hamlets. Regularly visiting the polling stations to check turnout, I found that, at each station, there were always far more than the two campaigners permitted from incumbent mayor Lutfur Rahman’s Tower Hamlets First party. Outside the Brick Lane polling station, there were usually about two dozen men (they were almost always men), thrusting leaflets and ‘sample’ ballot papers into voters’ hands as they squeezed past. I am told some of these sample papers actually tumbled out of ballot boxes when they were opened at the count.
I saw a man take a ballot paper off a woman I assumed to be his wife, and move to fill it in for her, until the presiding officer shouted at him to stop. He then stared intently at her, standing, in my view, much too close while she voted. There have been widespread reports of similar behaviour across the borough.
Everyone at the count that night had campaigned hard for weeks, and spent the day getting out the vote. Suddenly, we were locked in a room with no refreshments for hours on end, waiting for the count to commence after an interminable vote verification process. It took eight hours to verify just the votes for the mayoralty, and a further six to count them.
Large numbers of Rahman’s supporters appeared outside, in anticipation of his victory. At about 6pm we were told by the police that we could not leave the building because they could not guarantee our safety. This included the safety of two members of parliament and a member of the shadow cabinet. I personally did not feel threatened: I think the atmosphere for them was one of celebration and excitement. But there were people, including the police, who differed in their assessment.
Five police vans parked outside and officers formed a barrier across the entrance to the art deco Troxy cinema where the count was taking place. The atmosphere became tense, with the police fearing a rush to enter the building when the result was announced. They were also concerned that should Rahman not win in the first round, the crowd might erupt in anger at a result they had been told would be a cakewalk. Announcements were made to stop tweeting sampling or predictions as this was apparently adding to the tension outside.
When Rahman was finally declared the winner, after a second round, at 3am and by a small margin, he was asked by the police to quickly address his supporters and then encourage them to move on. While the mayor did that, a few of us who asked to leave were bundled out of a side door.
The returning officer then chose to commence the council election count just after 3am. Exhausted council staff, who had spent an entire day staffing polling stations and then had counted votes all of the next day, had to try to focus tired eyes on counting votes from some highly marginal wards. Apparently the candidates were asked what they wanted to do. Few trusted that the ballot boxes could be sealed again without the risk of overnight tampering, itself a sad state of affairs.
The issue of race appeared frequently in the campaign. Criticism of Rahman was deflected by the lazy and offensive brush-off that it was a racist attack. Genuine policy differences were dismissed as an attack on the Bengali mayor and his community. It was astonishing to see Biggs, who has fought the extreme right in the East End throughout his career, smeared as a racist.
This hit home to me when I tweeted a picture of the police vans outside the count. Astonishingly, it was retweeted hundreds of times. To my horror it was mainly being done so by the far-right in Tower Hamlets – lots of English Defence League members, saying it was proof of sharia law in the UK and the ‘Bengali-isation’ of the borough. Utter nonsense, of course. But Rahman played with fire and has stoked this community polarisation.
Labour lost the mayoralty and some first-class councillors. Thankfully, some excellent Labour councillors were also returned. Tower Hamlets needs a fiercely strong and capable Labour party and the new leader of the Labour group, Rachael Saunders, and her colleagues will have to work with local members of parliament Rushanara Ali and Jim Fitzpatrick to provide this leadership and hold the re-elected mayor to account for the good of the East End.
———————————
Tom Sleigh is a councillor in the City of London and a member of Tower Hamlets Labour party
———————————
Photo: John Biggs