by
Les May
THE
extract
from Rochdale Cllr. Faisal Rana’s
blog published recently
in the article at
the link below
must surely be one of the most brazen attempts to ‘play
the race card’
that we have seen in Rochdale.
In a few lines he effectively accuses the Labour
Party
of playing host to people who are prejudiced towards non-white
candidates and organising selection meetings which are designed to
discriminate against and
so exclude non-white
candidates. With friends like that
the Labour Party does not need enemies. At
this point I should say that I live in a ward which has re-elected a
councillor from the group which Faisal Rana claims to champion and
I am entirely happy with the situation.
As
for his claim that ‘The
selection process and selection meetings are poorly run… ‘
we
can assume he has some knowledge of this. In February 2019 Northern
Voices
published a piece drawing attention to the strange goings on at a
selection meeting held in the ward he represents.
Of
course, just as with his Tweet 'Too
few BAME councillors
leads to bad decisions',
he
provides not a scrap of evidence to substantiate his claims and
before repeating them he should do so.
His use of the acronym ‘BAME’
suggests that he is trying to ride on the coat tails of the protests
against the murder of George
Floyd
and
is trying to draw some sort
of moral
equivalence between that and his claims.
Not
content with trying to make an issue out of ‘race’
he
throws religion into the pot as well, implying that Labour also
turns
a blind eye to discrimination against Muslims. Whether
someone will make a formal complaint to the Labour Party about Faisal
Rana’s insinuations is a matter for the future, but what we can say
with certainty is that some
people reading his comments will not take kindly to them. If
these
are
not
a claims
which brings the Labour party into disrepute, what is?
Of
course his blog and his Tweet aren’t meant to influence the
people he is attacking.
They
are directed towards the people who some would view as his ‘natural
constituency’.
There’s
a not altogether subtle hint here that he is ambitious to become an
MP and looking to be seen as the ‘BAME’
champion, and that if he fails to be selected for a safe seat it
will be because of prejudice. It
is not altogether clear to me were the community of interest lies
between say, Asian Muslims and African Christians.
What
Faisal Rana fails to grasp is that respect for other people’s
culture and views is a two way street. His
comments about meetings being held on licensed premises looks like a
classic
case of the
tail trying
to
wag the dog. The Labour movement has a long history and there may be
good reasons why this is the case, and
why a lot of people feel entirely comfortable with it.
Being
in the presence of alcoholic drink does not mean that one has to
indulge in it oneself.
Couching his comment in terms of ‘discouraging
Muslims’
just ends up looking like a demand for exceptionalism of the type we
are familiar with hearing from a certain US president.
I
judge people on the basis of their behaviour not their skin colour.
If I feel uncomfortable that Councillor
Rana
is in a position to influence planning decisions and looks to be
being groomed to handle the Finance
Portfolio
it is because he violated the basic principle of our democratic
system, ‘one
person, one vote’.
If he fails to make further progress in the Labour party he should
look to that as the cause not institutionalised
discrimination.
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