Respect leader George Galloway yesterday urged the Black community to elect “the new Bernie Grant” by getting behind race equality campaigner Lee Jasper in the Croydon North byelection.
Speaking at the second Black Men in the Community conference in Lewisham yesterday the Galloway predicted that Jasper would follow in the footsteps of the late Tottenham MP, who was honoured last week with a blue plaque.
The byelection, caused by the death of the Labour MP Malcolm Wicks, hotted up yesterday as Labour announced that Lambeth leader Steve Reed would contest one of the most diverse seats in the capital.
Reed was picked ahead of the London assembly member and former Croydon council leader Val Shawcross. The immediate reaction of Respect supporters was to relish the challenge of taking on Reed and predicted that his record cutting services in Lambeth would count against Labour when voters go to the polls on 29th November.
Liberal Democrats have chosen former Islington councillor Marisha Ray while the Greens will be represented by Sasha Khan – who has contested the seat twice before. The UKIP candidate is Winston McKenzie, a former boxing promoter and community activist who is well-known in Croydon, and the Conservatives have gone with charity worker Andy Stranack.
The constituency, which includes South Norwood and Thornton Heath, has been regarded as a Labour safe seat but the Lib Dems are hopeful their candidate can make an impact in what promises to be a lively contest.
The debate is likely to be dominated by a heavyweight fight between two old foes from Brixton, Jasper and Reed. The slugfest has already begin with a fight between Respect and the Croydon Advertiser after the newspaper criticised Galloway for promising to “target” Black and Muslim voters.
Jasper hit back on Twitter challenging the journalist Gareth Davies to confirm how many Black journalists worked for the paper. He has yet to receive a reply.
Galloway is particularly irked that the paper quoted a Labour figure, Faz Hakim, as saying: “I’ve known Lee Jasper for 20 years. The world has changed in that time but he hasn’t.”
Speaking yesterday, Galloway hit back: “Now we hear that the people who challenge racism are responsible for racism. The world has got worse so why should he move in the opposite direction?” Jasper added: “We’ve not come to whip up racism. No, we’ve come to say we need equal opportunities.”
Jasper was boosted by several prominent figures, including Viv Ahmun and David Weaver, publicly backing him at the Black Men in the Community conference. Croydon North has the second largest African-Caribbean population in London behind the newly-formed Brent Central seat.
In a barnstorming speech Jasper went through a spectrum of issues where race discrimination was rife, including disproportionate Black unemployment, stop and search, the criminal justice system, media and politics.
Contrasting affirmative action policies which, radically improved the situation for Catholics in Northern Ireland over a decade, with the low priority racism gets on the mainland he said: “If we continue to do the things we’ve always done we will keep getting the same results.”
Jasper, who was the race advisor to the former London mayor Ken Livingstone, warned that racism increases when the economy declines citing the example of Berlin, which was one of the world’s most cosmopolitan cities before the Great Depression and the rise of Adolf Hitler.
Referring to figures showing that Black youth unemployment, which at 56 percent is running at similar levels to youth unemployment in Greece, he said the best role models young people can have are a mother and father with a job.
“We need to wake up otherwise we will bequeath a society to our children less equal than the previous generation. The most radical generation were the Windrush generation; they stuck together and helped each other out. They fought hard to make sure that our generation didn’t face the racism they faced.
“I don’t want to bequeath to my kids a society where they are fighting the same battles I was fighting 20 or 30 years ago.”
Although the headlines look set to be dominated by Jasper and Galloway over the coming four weeks, Lib Dems believe they have made a solid start to their campaign on the ground and will hope they can run Labour close in the constituency.
By Lester Holloway @brolezholloway
