08 May 2005
What a night
A good second in Newham. Brilliant second in Birmingham for Salma Yaqoob. Third but nearly 20% of the vote in Poplar and Canning Town. And of course a win for George Galloway in Bethnal Green and Bow.
We also picked up very good votes in a number of other places: Preston, Slough, Walsall, Tottenham, Hackney South, Leicester South, Birmingham Perry Barr.
Our results are really historic. George won the seat against all the odds and with everything thrown at him by the Blairites. In Newham, Abdul Khaliq got just over 20% and I got just under 20% _ an incredible achievement for our campaign. I got nearly as many votes as the Tory and Libdem combined. We cut straight into the Labour majorities in a way that has never been done before.
Out of the top ten election swings in the country, Respect had four_ George, Salma, Abdul Khaliq and me. Mine was 19.1%.
None of this has made much news, apart from a middle class revulsion at George's win, epitomised by Jeremy Paxman's low grade and insulting interview with him early on Friday morning. Spoilt dinner parties in Chiswick and Fulham this weekend then.
Our results in Newham have been largely ignored. Yet to achieve these figures over two constituencies should be worthy of comment, especially since there has been much space devoted to BNP votes of 16.9% in Barking.
East Ham and West Ham are next to Barking, we did much better than the BNP (in Dagenham, they got under 10% because they were concentrating on Barking) we stood on a platform of anti racism and in defence of immigrants and asylum seekers _ but nothing.
Even so, these results are making waves in Britain and internationally. The Greens (around for 30 years) neither won nor came second in any seat, although their Brighton candidate got over 20 %, the sectarian left flopped badly, and the SSP had a disappointing result, usually coming behind the Greens and losing their deposit.
We are on the map and are gearing up for next year's local elections. We're also going to challenge postal voting which has clearly been the subject of fraud and disenfranchisement.
Overall, the election result is very good for us. Blair lost over a million votes because of the war and lost a number of seats to anti war parties. The Tories didn't do well, and the LibDems under the appalling Charles Kennedy failed to take advantage of the anti war sentiment to make a real breakthrough.
The anti war movement has done for Blair and Respect is beginning to get the benefit of our role in the movement.
Our people are very happy about the result (catch the lovely picture in Socialist Worker of us at the Newham count) and we know we have a lot of support in Newham.
I'm going to keep posting for a bit to assess the post election fallout. But let me just return here to Ken Livingstone, who had a very bad election. Labour lost to the Tories in west London seats like Putney and Hammersmith, and lost large numbers of votes to us in east London.
Both these things create problems for him come the next mayoral election and he has certainly lost a lot of credibility and dare I say respect among the left. His support for Oona King, flanked by police and sneering at an anti war demo in Brick Lane, will stick in people's memories.
In addition, his protegee Yasmin Qureshi lost his old seat of Brent East to the Libdems, despite his campaigning efforts. Perhaps next election he should stay at home.
We also picked up very good votes in a number of other places: Preston, Slough, Walsall, Tottenham, Hackney South, Leicester South, Birmingham Perry Barr.
Our results are really historic. George won the seat against all the odds and with everything thrown at him by the Blairites. In Newham, Abdul Khaliq got just over 20% and I got just under 20% _ an incredible achievement for our campaign. I got nearly as many votes as the Tory and Libdem combined. We cut straight into the Labour majorities in a way that has never been done before.
Out of the top ten election swings in the country, Respect had four_ George, Salma, Abdul Khaliq and me. Mine was 19.1%.
None of this has made much news, apart from a middle class revulsion at George's win, epitomised by Jeremy Paxman's low grade and insulting interview with him early on Friday morning. Spoilt dinner parties in Chiswick and Fulham this weekend then.
Our results in Newham have been largely ignored. Yet to achieve these figures over two constituencies should be worthy of comment, especially since there has been much space devoted to BNP votes of 16.9% in Barking.
East Ham and West Ham are next to Barking, we did much better than the BNP (in Dagenham, they got under 10% because they were concentrating on Barking) we stood on a platform of anti racism and in defence of immigrants and asylum seekers _ but nothing.
Even so, these results are making waves in Britain and internationally. The Greens (around for 30 years) neither won nor came second in any seat, although their Brighton candidate got over 20 %, the sectarian left flopped badly, and the SSP had a disappointing result, usually coming behind the Greens and losing their deposit.
We are on the map and are gearing up for next year's local elections. We're also going to challenge postal voting which has clearly been the subject of fraud and disenfranchisement.
Overall, the election result is very good for us. Blair lost over a million votes because of the war and lost a number of seats to anti war parties. The Tories didn't do well, and the LibDems under the appalling Charles Kennedy failed to take advantage of the anti war sentiment to make a real breakthrough.
The anti war movement has done for Blair and Respect is beginning to get the benefit of our role in the movement.
Our people are very happy about the result (catch the lovely picture in Socialist Worker of us at the Newham count) and we know we have a lot of support in Newham.
I'm going to keep posting for a bit to assess the post election fallout. But let me just return here to Ken Livingstone, who had a very bad election. Labour lost to the Tories in west London seats like Putney and Hammersmith, and lost large numbers of votes to us in east London.
Both these things create problems for him come the next mayoral election and he has certainly lost a lot of credibility and dare I say respect among the left. His support for Oona King, flanked by police and sneering at an anti war demo in Brick Lane, will stick in people's memories.
In addition, his protegee Yasmin Qureshi lost his old seat of Brent East to the Libdems, despite his campaigning efforts. Perhaps next election he should stay at home.
