The British elections were not good news for New Labour PM Tony Blair. Although New Labour will have a workable majority of 66 seats, the 36% of the popular vote it won is the lowest ever for an incoming British government. Voters abandoned Labour in droves, giving the anti-war Liberal Democrats a substantial increase to 23% of the vote, and 61 seats. The conservatives had a slight increase in the popular vote, and managed to translate it into several more seats.
Most welcome, however, was the strong showing by Respect, the anti-war coalition. Respect's George Galloway, who was expelled by the Labour Party in 2003 for his anti-war stance, was elected as the member for the eastern London seat of Bethnal Green and Bow, with a massive 26% swing against Labour. Respect came second in two other eastern London seats, and averaged 7% over the 26 seats it contested. Galloway released this statement on May 7.
As the sun came up over Brick Lane on Friday a new dawn had truly broken over the East End of London — and over British politics.
The impact of Respect's victory in Bethnal Green and Bow and our spectacular results elsewhere will only fully become apparent in the weeks and months to come.
But already we have some of the measure of it. This is one of the most historic victories in British politics.
Not since 1945 has a party to the left of Labour in England won a seat in parliament. Then it was Phil Piratin, Communist hero of the Jewish East End. Today it is Respect, standing in his old constituency.
Sixty years ago Piratin's victory came as the Labour Party was cementing its hegemony over the British working class.
Today it comes as New Labour is shredding those bonds, leaving in its wake the bitter tears of those it has taken for granted for far too long. The meaning of our victory is that those people can no longer be taken for granted.
With one blow we have shattered the cynical policy of triangulation, which Tony Blair imported from the US Democrats.
According to that strategy he felt free to seek the votes of Tories on Tory terms, while assuming that Labour's core support would have to back him, because there was nowhere else to go.
Our support was concentrated on the housing estates that have been left to rot, their occupants blackmailed by a corrupt council that says no repairs will be made unless tenants vote for their homes to be privatised.
As our battle bus toured east London the waves and cheers of support came in their majority from those who have nothing to sell but their capacity to work and whose work produces everything we see around us and every service we avail ourselves of.
Our vote was particularly strong among the Bengali community and other immigrants.
In Bethnal Green and Bow some 25% of the population are living in overcrowded conditions. Among immigrant communities, the figure is 50%.
The climate of Islamophobia nurtured by New Labour over the last four years has fuelled a 300% increase in the number of young Muslim men stopped and searched.
Then there is Blair's decision to go to war against Iraq, and the support he received in doing that from Oona King [Labour's candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow].
The result in Bethnal Green & Bow should bury the slur that people who have solidly backed Labour in the past, as most immigrants have, suddenly become "communalist" when they feel the sting of betrayal and vote for an alternative.
That was just one of the smears and dirty tricks that formed part of New Labour's campaign against us.
And then there is the conduct of the vote itself. Respect has uncovered ghost voters on the electoral register, people turning up to vote to find that a postal vote has already been cast in their name without their knowledge, and malpractice that would disgrace a banana republic.
This is one thing we intend to clear away at the council elections next May. The campaign to take control of the London boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Newham begins on Monday.
Respect intends to be the stiff new broom that will sweep away those New Labour councils that feel they are above answering to their electors.
We aim to launch a charter for the people of east London, reaching out to those areas where we have only begun to make inroads, and to organise around it to politically lay siege to the seats of power in Westminster and the City of London.
And the impact of our breakthrough is not confined to east London. Salma Yaqoob's breathtaking vote in Birmingham, just 3000 votes short of taking the seat, shows we have the capacity to become a national force.
We have shone out a ray of hope into the corners of Britain long abandoned by New Labour to the darkness Blair and his friend George Bush have cast across the globe.
Respect has dealt Blair a mortal blow. He'd have rather lost another dozen seats to the Tories than just one to us.
For our victory is unambiguously a victory for the anti-war movement and for the real Labour people whom Blair has tried to silence.
It has altered the political landscape and created new possibilities for the left and for progressive people.
For us last Friday morning, bliss was it that dawn to be alive. For Blair's New Labour, it will never be glad confident morning again.
[Green Left Weekly will carry a more extensive report on the British elections, including the results of the Scottish Socialist Party, in our next edition.]
From Green Left Weekly, May 11, 2005.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.