Turn Again

When George Galloway and I disagree, then we really do disagree. But that does not happen very often, and I still wish that he had contested Birmingham Yardley last year. He would have won, and so would we all. Still, he is now quite openly standing for Mayor of London at next year's election, and who knows? 

This site predicted George's victory at Bradford West in 2012, and I also did so in much-derided comments elsewhere, but everyone who was on a salary for it predicted that he would lose his deposit and that the whole thing would be his last hurrah. Well, it turns out that at 23 years his junior, I have retired from electoral politics before he has.

As George won Bradford West, so he could win London. Although Imran Hussain has since gone on to be a good MP for Bradford East, the Labour shortlist had been designed to placate the various factions of the Pakistani baradari system, which is in fact the carrying over of ancestral caste into Indo-Islam. Caste itself also persists even among Sikhs, founded though they were in a rejection of it, and among people whose families have been Christian for many generations, even centuries. 

Baradari, however, just did not interest second or third generation Bradfordians whose first language was English and who easily passed any cricket test, but who were far more interested in football. Moreover, the concentration on it alienated everyone else. In 2012, George topped the poll in every ward of Bradford West, including those which were more than 90 per cent white. The seat itself had been a Conservative target only two years earlier.

The franchise for the London Mayoral Election is the local government franchise, which is significantly broader than the parliamentary franchise. As George bypassed the baradari in Bradford, so he could bypass it and everything like it in reaching a BAME London that was young, increasingly mixed-race, often in its second or subsequent generation to have been born in Britain, and connected to every inhabited territory on the planet. It should be said that that is now BAME Britain in general, which is already found in every town, and which is well on the way to being found in every village.

330 registered electors have to sign a London Mayoral candidate's nomination papers, 10 from each of the 32 London Boroughs and 10 from the City. George managed that last time, and when he manages it again this time then it will be clear that a formidable movement was already in existence, waiting to be activated. Even seats on the City of London Corporation will be within reach.

Meanwhile, candidates for Mayor of London must be, "registered to vote in London, or have lived, worked, rented or owned property in London for the past 12 months." Oliver Kamm, that means you. Or if somehow it did not, and you certainly send letters on Times headed notepaper that suggests that you do indeed work in London, then it would be over to Nick Cohen. Put up or shut up. Virus or no virus, the next 13 months just got very interesting indeed.