The cost of renting in the capital (Newham average rent is 75% of average salary)

Shocking statistics but no surprise. Hat tip @GVKitchen via @HelloHowsy. We need a change of Government, we need this now. Nearly everyone accepts that there is a "Climate Emergency". There is also a "Housing Emergency".

Newham European Election results 23 May 2019

Hat tip post to Martin at ForestGateDotCom

Newham had the highest number of Labour votes of any borough in London and at 51% the largest share of the vote.

The average vote for Labour in London was only 23.8%

Hat tip photo to Newham Young Pioneers at West Ham station on election day.

"The returning officer has released the full results for Newham from last week’s European election:

Party	Votes	Percent
Labour	33,379	51%
Liberal Democrats	9,192	14%
The Brexit Party	7,730	12%
Green Party	5,353	8.2%
Conservative	3,756	5.7%
Change UK	2,234	3.4%
UKIP	1,336	2.0%
UK European Union Party	917	1.4%
Animal Welfare Party	640	1.0%
Women’s Equality Party	572	0.9%
Others (independents)	312	0.5%
Total votes	65,421	100%

Compared to the previous European election in 2014, Labour lost 7 points of vote share and the Conservatives lost 11 points. UKIP also lost share, down over 6%.

The big gainers were the Liberal Democrats, up 12% and the Green Party up 3.6%.

Turnout was down 3%, from 39% to 36%".

"Newham Deselection Was A Sign Of Democratic Change – Not A Power Grab"

Very good article on LabourList by Newham resident Maya Goodfellow

"Ever since Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour leader, a narrative has endured regardless of how well the party’s done at the ballot box or how many new membership cards are issued: he’s capturing the party and his supporters are slowly taking over branches and CLPs.

This makes it sound like a hostile and importantly undemocratic takeover. And pundits say, almost on autopilot, that it spells the end of the Labour party. When Labour’s general secretary Iain McNicol announced he would be standing down, one standard response was riven with this thinking; it was a sign the party “takeover” by Jeremy Corbyn was “almost total”. And when Labour members in East London chose Rokhsana Fiaz as their mayoral candidate over incumbent Robin Wales, one journalist described it as a “coup”. Flip the narrative on its head, and you might find another story altogether.

To understand exactly what I mean, take a closer look where I live, Newham – the site of an ongoing struggle for change. In May, this part of East London will choose who will be its next mayor. Though no position is guaranteed, Labour stand a good chance of winning because this borough, one of the country’s most diverse, is solidly red. Last time around, all sixty of its councillors and its mayor were Labour.

But choosing a mayoral candidate isn’t a straightforward affair. Instead of a process where anyone can run to be Labour’s contender, the party’s internal rule book dictates that there has to be a ballot deciding who can run: wards and affiliates vote on whether there should be an open selection or if the incumbent is automatically the candidate. At the end of 2016 Newham went through this process and, by a slim margin, an open selection was voted down – making Robin Wales, the current mayor who has effectively been in charge for over twenty years, the candidate once again.

All didn’t run smoothly. A group of Labour members got together to question the way the process was run; they claimed procedural rules were “breached” because they were applied differently to different affiliated organisations. Some trade unions with several branches had voted more than once while others with more than one branch believed they only had one vote, which potentially tipped the vote in Wales’ favour.

Opposed by Wales and brushed to one side by officials, up to 30 local party members fought to make their voices heard. After a sustained grassroots campaign and threatening to take the party to court, they were finally successful; the party decided to run another trigger ballot. This wasn’t a Labour party taken over undemocratically by the left, but local members launching sustained resistance for months to get basic democracy.

The rerun decided it: members wanted Wales to be challenged. And the outcome of the trigger ballot saw Rokhsana Fiaz – who promised, among other things, to have a referendum on the mayoral position itself – win with 63 per cent of the vote. It shouldn’t have taken so long to get to this point. Labour has long been, to some extent, a top-down machine. This only got worse in the Blair years, when power-hoarding and leader-led politics were the norm. Newham is a prime example of that; as the Focus E15 grassroots group has shown, Wales has operated a top-down hierarchical operation for years, which appeared to show little regard for some of the borough’s poorest residents.

This should bust the myth that deselection is always some shadowy, unfair process. Fiaz has not become Labour candidate through an undemocratic takeover – quite the opposite. In much the same way, it takes a catastrophic misreading of the past few years to see increased democratic engagement with Labour while it moves to the left as Corbyn surreptitiously taking over the party. Change that involves contestation doesn’t necessarily mean a lack of democracy.

Labour is the biggest left-wing party in Europe. Its members and supporters are not just there to deliver the party’s message on the doorstep or turnout to vote every five years; they are people who can shape those messages and the party itself. After decades of managerial politics being parroted as the only pragmatic way to win elections, the last election showed creating more space for bottom-up politics is both a matter of justice and expediency. What’s happened in Newham is a sign that focussing on the changes in Labour as a Corbyn power grab is not only incorrect, it ignores an interesting, productive struggle over change that’s taking place at the party’s grassroots".

Vote Rokhsana as your Labour candidate for Mayor of Newham

Vote Rokhsana Fiaz as your Labour candidate for Mayor of Newham 

Dear Member,

I’m Rokhsana and I’m asking you to vote for me as your Labour candidate for Mayor of Newham. You can read more about me and the detailed plans for Newham here.


From tomorrow, you'll be receiving details about how to vote from the Labour Party, so keep an eye out for your letter in the post!

This selection is a choice between Newham as it has been, and Newham as it needs to be. It’s time for a fresh start, a new vision, a different way of doing things.

It’s time to put our people at the heart of everything we do as a Labour Council by democratising how we do things for and with them.

As your Labour Mayor, housing will be my top priority. I will embark on the most ambitious programme of building new Council homes at affordable social rents for a generation - so that our residents can stay in Newham. This means:

There will be: 

• A Newham Housing Delivery Plan because there is land to build thousands of genuinely affordable at social rent new homes we need for our people. 

I will start:  

• To build 100 new Council owned homes in my first year let at social rent levels, with a target of at least 1000 over my first term.

I will ensure: 

• That 50 percent of Council and private homes built in Newham over the next four years will be let at social rent levels. 

Read more about my plans for housing below. 

With me as your Labour Mayor we can show what great things Labour in power, working together with its people, can achieve locally.

Please give me that chance to be that Mayor. I will work hard for you, your family and everyone in Newham.

Best wishes,
Rokhsana
e: info@rokhsana.org w: rokhsana.org
Twitter @rokhsanafiaz Facebook @rokhsana4Newham Instagram  rokhsana_fiaz
#RokhsTheVote #NewhamRokhs 

HOMES

There is a housing crisis in Newham and many of our residents cannot afford to live here anymore. Nearly 24,000 people were on Newham’s Housing List and around 4500 households were homeless in September 2017. But Newham has the land to build over 35,000 homes over the next 10 years.
As your Labour Mayor, I will embark on a programme of building new Council homes at affordable social rents so that our residents can stay in Newham.
I will also: 

• start 100 new Council owned homes to be let at social rent levels in my first year with a target of at least 1000 over my first term, which will include homes for residents with disabilities. A Newham Housing Delivery Plan will be produced in my first six months;

• ensure that at least 50 percent of Council and private homes that are built in Newham over the next four years are let at social rents and are owned by the Council. This is a challenging but achievable target;

• terminate the proposed Carpenters Estate Joint Venture scheme and consult directly with residents about producing a resident-led Masterplan for its future. This will include the largest proportion of socially rented Council homes on the estate that is possible, aiming for a minimum of 50 percent;

• let 50 percent of all homes being built or which have planning permission by the Council’s private sector development company Red Door Ventures at social rents on long term tenancies.  I will look at using the other 50 percent of homes for innovative long-term solutions aimed at helping Newham residents to stay in the Borough;

• end the current NewShare scheme, which sells off 250 void Council homes each year, immediately;

• rigorously scrutinise all right to buy applications and campaign for an end to Right to Buy;

• support the creation of at least one Community Land Trust in Newham;

• tackle homelessness with compassion and care, so that people who become homeless are housed within Newham, wherever possible. We will look at Housing First type models and innovative forms of temporary accommodation as well as permanent Council owned homes;

• build on the Council’s Private Landlord Licensing scheme to pursue private landlords more vigorously and fully use the new powers in the Labour sponsored Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Bill.