Galloway the Ego slithers back to the East End

So Gorgeous George Galloway and his creature Diss-Respect is back in Newham, busy trying to stir up division and discord  in our community.

Jumping on any bandwagon they can, less than 3 years since this unlikely alliance of Muslim religious conservatives and extremist revolutionary atheists  were kicked out of East London, they are back with more of their nonsense.

Diss-Respect is trying to inflame concern about the recent refusal of a planning application for a large mosque in Abbey Mills, E15.

Galloway has taken time off from sucking up to murderous dictators, rape suspects and despotic regimes to claim if it had been a Catholic or Jewish church, then it would have been given permission. The only reason according to him, it was turned down was that it was "by... Muslims".

This is a completely untrue and also in my view a despicable statement to make. Even the worse sort of carpetbagger must realise that such baseless, inflammatory comments are shameful and potentially incite hatred.

Galloway calls for Newham Labour Mayor Robin Wales "to resign" over the turning down of the current application.

Why?  Robin Wales played no part in the planning committee decision. It was made by Newham Councillors. You cannot "whip" Councillors on planning decisions.  They make their own minds up on the merits of the application within planning law.

Robin Wales was re-elected as Newham Mayor in May 2010 with 68% of the vote. One of biggest majorities in the country on the same day that Galloway was humiliated and thrown out as a MP of next door Tower Hamlets.

Boris Johnson, the Tory Mayor of London has also turned down this application. Although I would be more than happy for Boris to resign, why hasn't Galloway called for his resignation as well?

Doesn't Galloway realise how stupid he and anyone else looks calling for anyone to resign when there is no legal or any other basis whatsoever to do so?

Newham is an imperfect but still successful multicultural and diverse community.  One key thing that all right thinking people agree upon and value is the rule of law in this country. I personally fully support the idea of a beautiful, signature mosque and religious facilities for this site, but it must fully comply with planning law. No ifs and no buts.

Galloway has also been spouting on about how he is going to run a petition on a debate in the House of Commons on this issue. Galloway is one maverick MP out of 650. The rest of MPs quite rightly mostly despise him and will not pay the slightest attention to anything he says or does.

Picture above is of the former Newham Respect headquarters "To Let".

No comment.

Christian Bigots Alliance

I received an email via this blog the other day from the creator of a “take-off” site attacking the fundamentalist Political Party in Newham, the (so called) Christian Peoples Alliance (CPA).

This site is modelled on the MegaMosqueNoThanks which was set up by the CPA to attack a proposal to build a large mosque in Newham.

Now, I have had a dig at the CPA, especially their Megalomaniac leader, anti gay, anti pro-choice, Alan Craig, who makes Sarah Palin seem like Richard Dawkins. I think that Alan Craig’s behaviour over the mosque has been an utter disgrace and he has deliberately pandered to islamophobic sentiment to try and gain political support.

The parody site does make some very serious allegations against the CPA and its connection with the BNP, which I don’t totally share, but I do understand why many people in Newham equate the CPA with the BNP.

The CPA appear to have had to change their website design due to the spoof site and on the “real” CPA website, their “Poll” on the building of the mosque now shows a vast majority of people in favour of it. Well...

Newham is in East London, and it is a great place to live and work. It is also one of the most diverse communities in London. There are of course problems, nowhere is perfect. The deliberate stoking up of fear and ignorance by Craig does nothing for Newham. All he has done is to offend and cause division.

This morning I heard a very good “Thought for Day” on the “Today Programme” Radio 4 by Clifford Longley, about US Protestant fundamentalism and the phrase “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars’ and unto God the things that are Gods’”. Now I am probably the last person to quote scriptures but frankly it would be better for everyone if Craig kept his views for his pulpit rather than trying to ignite modern day crusades.

Fanning the Flames of Hatred?

Before we "tut, tut" too loudly about the morons in Sudan who have locked up a volunteer teacher for allowing a teddy bear to be called “Mohammed”, we shouldn’t forget we have more than our own share of home-grown religious berks. I’m not this time referring to Galloway and his Respect Renewal but rather to the new Christian Fundamentalist website “MegaMosqueNoThanks”. This site appears to be run by a certain Newham Councillor, Alan Craig, from the “Christian Peoples Alliance” (CPA). His name and telephone number is on the press release.

In one way I am reluctant to pay any attention to such ignorant and puerile nonsense. However, it’s hard to do nothing and stomach people in your own neighbourhood who simply want to inflame age old religious prejudices by trying to divide our communities.

Religion and race is a sensitive issue in Newham which is probably the most ethically mixed borough in Britain. However, by and large, despite problems, I think that communities in Newham interact and get on much better than elsewhere in Britain, especially when compared to some northern cities. This hasn’t happened by chance, but due to hard work by many local political, community and faith leaders. This is what makes these opportunistic attacks on the proposed mosque so despicable.

The simple facts of the matter are this, a Muslim religious group (Tablighi Jammaat) has been trying for some time to build a large mosque (seating for 12,000 - a little bigger than the East London Mosque in Tower Hamlets) on an isolated Brownfield site in West Ham, Newham.

As well as Craig, a number of others including the British National Party (BNP) have been deliberately provoking tension by spreading lies and misinformation about the mosque.

For example, Craig claims that even more Muslims will move into the area because of the mosque (untrue, but so what?), others have wrongly claimed that £100million of public money will be used to fund the mosque, reports have linked the mosque with the Olympics and deliberately exaggerating the size of the mosque.

There are claims and inferences that in some way Tablighi Jammaat supports terrorism and that there is a “threat” to the Olympic site?

This is irresponsible gutter rabble rousing at its worse.

Sensible decent Christians such as the Newham Christian Socialists Movement CSM have attacked Craig over this issue.

Does anyone seriously imagine that Craig would have opposed the building of similarly sized Christian evangelistic church? No, I don’t either. I really do not know how anyone who calls themselves a religious leader can be so upset and concerned about another faith building a religious centre, regardless of its size? Good luck to them if they can fill it! would be the response of most reasonable people.

By all means you can express your views, but send out press releases, to post videos of your self on YouTube, to pay for and set up a web site on the subject? There are plenty enough real issues of concern in Newham such as poverty, poor housing and gun/knife crime. Why is all of this of secondary interest to the building of some mosque?

I am afraid that I am left with the distinct impression that Craig is using his own followers, his electors and the media purely to stoke up his own ego and sense of importance. He is a squalid, grubby, tin pot politician who will do anything regardless of any cost in order to chase cheap headlines and notoriety.

Now, come to think of it, perhaps this post is about Galloway......?