The early years of Lutfur Rahman and the road to the council leadership

 

By Shafiqul Haque:

 

When I look back at May 2002, I remember it as a very important time in my life.

It was the year when Lutfur Rahman and I were both elected as councillors in Tower Hamlets. We were both members of the Labour Party.

At that time, we were simply two new councillors starting our political journey. We did not know what was going to happen in the future. We did not know that Lutfur would become Leader of Tower Hamlets Council. We certainly did not know that he would later become Mayor.

We also did not know about the difficult political times that would come later.

At that time, we were just trying to do our job and serve the people who had elected us.

When you first become a councillor, there is a lot to learn. There are council meetings, committees, reports to read and many rules and procedures to understand.

But the most important part is meeting residents.

People come to you because they have a problem. It can be a housing problem. It can be about jobs or education. It can be about planning, rubbish collection or something happening in their local area.

You soon learn that being a councillor is not only about politics.

It is about people.

I think this was one of the biggest lessons I learned in my first few years as a councillor.

Lutfur was also learning about the council and developing his own political experience. Before he became a councillor, he had studied law and worked as a solicitor. He had his own professional experience and his own understanding of the issues affecting people.

He had also grown up in Tower Hamlets.

This was important.

Tower Hamlets was not just somewhere he represented. It was the place where he had grown up and where he knew many people and communities.

Tower Hamlets has always been a borough of many different communities. It is also a borough of big differences. There are areas with great wealth and major businesses, but there are also areas where people face poverty, poor housing and unemployment.

You can see these differences when you walk around the borough.

For people who live here, these are not just numbers or statistics. They are part of everyday life.

Lutfur knew this from his own experience of growing up in Tower Hamlets. I believe this connection with the borough was one of the things that influenced his political career.

During our first few years as councillors, we were both becoming more involved in council work. We were learning how local government worked. We were also learning about the people we were working with.

At that time, I did not think that our political relationship would become as close as it later did.

We were simply colleagues.

In 2006, four years after we were elected, I became Civic Mayor of Tower Hamlets.

This was a proud moment for me.

The role gave me the chance to represent the whole borough and meet many different people. I attended community events and civic occasions. I met residents, community leaders and organisations.

It gave me a wider view of Tower Hamlets.

As a ward councillor, you spend most of your time dealing with the people and issues in your own ward. As Civic Mayor, you see more of the whole borough.

You meet people from different communities and hear about different problems.

It made me understand even more how important local government is.

A council can make a real difference to people’s lives.

At the same time, Lutfur was continuing to build his political experience. We had already known each other for four years. We were both becoming more experienced councillors.

But I could not know then that 2008 would change our political relationship.

For me, 2008 was a very important year.

Lutfur decided to stand for Leader of Tower Hamlets Council.

I supported another candidate. I believed that candidate was the right person to lead the council, and I supported them.

Lutfur won.

After the result, the situation became complicated.

Some councillors who had been expected to support Lutfur did not stay with him. There was uncertainty about whether he would be able to form his administration.

I then had to make a decision.

I had supported the other candidate.

That was clear.

But Lutfur had won.

I thought about what I believed was the right thing to do.

For me, the important point was that Lutfur had won the leadership election. I believed he should be given the opportunity to lead the council.

So I decided to support him.

Two other colleagues joined me.

This decision changed my relationship with Lutfur.

Before this, we were fellow councillors.

After this, I became part of his administration.

I would now work with him much more closely.

Looking back, this was one of the important decisions I made during my political career.

After I supported Lutfur, I became part of his administration.

I had responsibilities for jobs and employment and culture. I also chaired the planning and strategic planning committees.

These were important areas for Tower Hamlets.

Jobs and employment was important to me because work can make a big difference to people’s lives. If somebody gets a job, it can change the situation for the whole family.

Culture was also important because Tower Hamlets has many different communities, with their own cultures and traditions.

Planning was another area where there were many difficult issues.

Tower Hamlets was changing quickly. There was new development and investment.

This could bring new opportunities, but it also brought concerns from residents.

People wanted to know what development would mean for their homes and their neighbourhoods. They wanted to know whether local people would benefit from new jobs and investment.

These were not always easy questions.

As part of the administration, I was involved in these discussions.

This also meant that I was working closely with Lutfur.

Working with someone closely gives you a different understanding of that person.

Before 2008, I knew Lutfur as a fellow councillor.

After 2008, I saw him working as Leader.

I saw the pressure that came with the job. I saw the meetings and the difficult decisions. I saw how he dealt with disagreements.

I also saw that he was very determined.

When Lutfur believed something was right, he did not easily change his position.

There were difficult times. There were political disagreements. There were decisions that were criticised.

Not everybody agreed with him or with the administration.

But he continued.

From my experience, I found him to be resilient.

I know that other people may have a different view of Lutfur. That is normal in politics. People see events differently.

My account is based on what I saw and experienced while working with him.

The period after 2008 brought another major change to Tower Hamlets politics. There was a move towards a directly elected mayoral system. In 2010, residents voted in a referendum on whether the borough should introduce a directly elected Mayor. The first mayoral election was held in October 2010.

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This changed the way the council’s executive leadership would be chosen.

Instead of the Leader being chosen through the council’s political system, residents would directly elect the Mayor.

For Lutfur, this was going to be a very important moment.

He had been a councillor since 2002.

He had become Leader of the council in 2008.

Now there was a completely different political challenge ahead.

At the time, I did not know how the election would turn out.

I only knew that our political journey had already changed a lot since 2002.

We had started as two Labour councillors.

Six years later, I had supported Lutfur after he won the leadership contest and had joined his administration.

That was not something I could have predicted when we were first elected.

The next few years would be very different.

The first mayoral election would bring a new kind of politics to Tower Hamlets. It would also bring new political relationships, new disagreements and some very difficult times.

For Lutfur, it would be another major step in his political career.

When we were first elected in 2002, I never imagined that our political journey would take us this far.

Six years later, Lutfur had become Leader of the council and I was working alongside him in his administration.

But this was only the beginning.

A new chapter was about to start in Tower Hamlets politics.

I did not know at the time how the next election would shape Lutfur’s political journey.

To be continued…

 

Advocate Shafiqul Haque
Retd. Solicitor, Senior Courts of England
Ex Mayor, London Borough of Tower Hamlets
Political Analyst | Researcher | Author