Like Michael Gove, Starmer is treating Tower Hamlets as a colonial outpost
Michael Gove was education secretary in early 2014 when the first allegations of an Islamist conspiracy to take over schools in Birmingham became public. He responded by instigating, in alliance with Britain’s deeply Islamophobic media, a state-sponsored attack on Muslim schools.
The careers of numerous teachers were ruined, while irreparable damage was done to educational standards. The prospects of thousands of schoolchildren were damaged.
The so-called Trojan Horse plot to infiltrate Birmingham schools was, as has now been established beyond reasonable doubt, a fabrication.
Fast forward 10 years. This past February, in one of his last significant acts in government, Gove struck against another Muslim target, dispatching inspectors to report on Lutfur Rahman’s record as mayor of Tower Hamlets, which has the largest concentration of Muslims in Britain.
The report was published last week. The findings were devastating for Rahman, with inspectors citing a “toxic” council culture involving a “suspicious and defensive” administration, amid concerns over patronage.
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In a further humiliation for Rahman, the Starmer government has ordered “ministerial envoys” into Tower Hamlets to monitor management decisions.
Almost every detail of this attack on an elected and popular Muslim politician stinks. The first problem is glaring: Sir John Jenkins, former British ambassador to Saudi Arabia, was a member of the inspection team. Jenkins, a distinguished diplomat, has zero knowledge of local government.
Secret agenda
Last week, Middle East Eye revealed the explanation for the bizarre choice of Jenkins: Gove had a secret agenda.
As my colleague Imran Mulla brilliantly exposed, Gove wanted Jenkins because of his “specialist knowledge of extremism”. According to a leaked government legal letter, Gove was concerned about “evidence of the existence of extremism” within the council and the “effect that may have on its ability to deliver best value in the areas within which he ordered it to be inspected”.
No “extremism” was found. We can be sure of that because, given Gove’s record of reckless leaking to the media, it would have made national headlines if it had been.
The choice of Jenkins recalls Gove’s nightmare appointment of the Metropolitan Police counterterrorism chief, Peter Clarke, to investigate Trojan Horse. Clarke’s report was a catalogue of errors and omissions, the most serious of which flowed from an apparent ignorance of how British schools worked.
Clarke’s negligence and ineptitude (I have asked him to explain himself, but he refuses to engage) was laid bare in excruciating detail in John Holmwood and Therese O’Toole’s magisterial Countering Extremism in British Schools?: The Truth about the Birmingham Trojan Horse Affair. Anybody who seriously wants to understand the background to Gove’s involvement in Tower Hamlets needs to read it.
The second major problem relates to the charges laid against Tower Hamlets council. Some are indeed troubling.
The inspectors note: “We observed a full Council meeting in which female opposition councillors felt unsafe.” This is clearly a serious problem that needs to be dealt with - though not, I would have thought, sufficient to justify the unprecedented decision to send in ministerial envoys. After all, no envoys were sent to Birmingham after the council went bust. Nor to Kensington and Chelsea after the Grenfell Tower tragedy.
Other charges relate to patronage and nepotism, allegations so shameless that it’s hard to take them seriously. Gove’s Conservative government was a cesspit of patronage and cronyism. Early indications suggest that the Starmer administration will not be much better.
This alarm about patronage in Tower Hamlets, for which no evidence has so far been provided, feels at best insincere - and at worst an alibi.
Treated as foreigners
The decision to send ministerial envoys to monitor Rahman as he goes about his business sets off further alarm bells. In 30 years as a political reporter, I have never once come across this term in connection with local government. My dictionary defines envoy as “a messenger or representative, especially one on a diplomatic mission, as in the UN special envoy to Yugoslavia”.
In other words, British Muslims in Tower Hamlets are being treated as foreigners. This should not surprise anyone. One Tory cabinet minister notoriously described concerns about Islamophobia in the party as a matter for the foreign office.
Nobody forced Keir Starmer's Labour government to share Gove's interpretation of British Islam. It could have dumped the report
Tower Hamlets possesses the highest concentration of Muslims of any borough in Britain. To a certain cast of mind, it therefore makes perfect sense to treat the borough as if it were a foreign country, with a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia (where more appropriate!) awarded quasi-plenipotentiary status to investigate and pass judgement, and envoys subsequently appointed.
To my mind, this is racism, pure and simple.
It stands to reason that the last Tory government should have set this investigation in motion. Former Conservative cabinet minister Sayeeda Warsi has been warning for ages that her party is full to the brim of Muslim-hating bigots. Warsi has been an especially eloquent critic of Gove, saying: “I think Michael’s view is there is no such thing as a non-problematic Muslim.”
But nobody forced Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government to share Gove’s interpretation of British Islam. It could have dumped the report. This would have sent out a strong and welcome message, and done something to repair Labour’s damaged relationship with British Muslims.
Instead, like Gove, Starmer has chosen to treat Tower Hamlets as a colonial outpost.
There were early signs that Labour was heading in this direction. During the election campaign, Starmer made inflammatory dog-whistle comments about Britain’s proud and thriving Bangladeshi community. In an event organised by the Sun shortly before election day, he spoke of sending migrants “back to the countries where they come from”, before going on to single out Bangladeshis in Britain.
It is well known that many Bangladeshis live in Tower Hamlets. Starmer’s remarks look like part of a Labour strategy to gain support among racist voters. Last week’s report only makes sense in that context.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
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