East Ham Euro Canvass

Yesterday evening I helped out with some door knocking in East Ham. We had the support of some of our London Labour Euro-candidates and staff. I saw Claude and Anne.

It was another overwhelmingly positive canvass for Labour which does make me suspicious of national polls. I also had a number of very constructive conversations with residents who on the whole seemed really pleased that we were personally canvassing them and asking for their votes. I only had only one voter who said he was definitely not voting for Labour because of the expenses Parliamentary issue and even he said he would vote for us in the Council and General election next year. He just wanted to punish all the Political Parties by withdrawing his vote. Which I hope he will change his mind about.

There was a nasty motor bike accident outside our meeting point and the Police closed off the main road as a potential crime scene so it took us a while to get out of the area.

Picture is of my ace canvass team that evening which comprised of mo!, Cllr Ayub Korom Ali, Councillor Ayesha Chowdhury and Giampi Alhadeff who is the General Secretary of the European Parliamentary Labour Party.

TULO Parliamentary Reception for Claude Moraes MEP and Anne Fairweather

Just back from this TULO meeting at the House of Commons which was sponsored by Islington South & Finsbury MP, Emily Thornberry.

Emily is on the left of the photo addressing the meeting while Claude and Anne are standing on the right.

Claude is defending his seat with with fellow MEP Mary Honeyball. While Anne Fairweather is trying to be elected for the first time as a London MEP. Anne is in 3rd place in the Labour Party list for London (its a PR election). At the moment Labour holds 3 out of 9 MEPs but the number of London MEPs is decreasing at the June election to 8 (due to new countries joining the EU).

Claude spoke about the importance of ensuring that enough Labour MEPs are elected in order to help their fellow socialists in the European parliament continue to pass progressive policies such as the new rights for agency workers and ending the opt out from the Working Time Directive. Also they have passed much needed social legislation such as European Works Councils and the landmark proposal for an EU wide ban on discrimination in the provision of goods and services. Labour MEPs are also fighting the threats to trade union collective agreements following the adverse legal judgments of Viking, Lavall & Ruffert.

The message is don’t let anyone (or any Tory tabloid) tell you that the elections in June are not important.

I had a chat afterwards with Claude and Emily about attending possible Worker Memorial Day (WMD) events. Which I will see if I can organise via TULO. While Anne accepted an invitation to help out in the Newham Royal Docks by-election.