No great insight was required for me to predict that the May 2026 council elections in Tower Hamlets would be carried out under the shadow of a process begun by Michael Gove and continued by Starmer’s government.

Labour are facing disastrous results everywhere next May. They are encouraging racists to vote for Reform and anti-racists have been walking away in disgust for some time, generally towards the Green Party. In Tower Hamlets they have decided that the most effective way to fight back is to aim to get the sitting Aspire mayor Lutfur Rahman knocked out of the fight.

The Guardian reports that Steve Reed, the Communities Secretary is shocked and appalled that two Aspire councillors are said to be seeking election in Bangladesh. The local Green Party called on Aspire to deny this or withdraw the whip if true a couple of weeks ago. To be fair, the story does seem entirely plausible. I would add that from what I have seen of Aspire councillors in action, they are not an impressive bunch, a conclusion that is apparently also being reached by many of their voters.  

Reed is backed up by probably the most politically sophisticated of Labour’s councillors in the borough who says “Labour councillors continue to have serious concerns about the ‘culture of patronage’ and lack of even-handedness in the town hall and the impact this is having on the services our residents rely on.”

In recent weeks I have had more dealings with the council than I would wish on anyone in a lifetime. Waiting on the phone for ages, multiple trips to the town hall, online portals that waste a morning. I suspect this is not uncommon and I didn’t particularly feel that I was being given personalised inefficient service. This is what bureaucracies are like after an extended period of austerity.

“Cultures of patronage” is dodgy ground for any Labour politician to fight on. This is a party in which senior members considered it normal to have expensive clothes bought for them by utterly disinterested benefactors and to be given seats in the House of Lords when their voters reject them. This will be of some comfort to Labour’s sitting MP in Bethnal Green and Stepney

Labour cabinet members have accepted over £500,000 in donations from lobbyists and hedge funds linked to private healthcare and pharmaceutical companies. At least 41 Labour MPs have accepted over £280,000 in donations or funded trips from pro-Israel lobby groups such as Labour Friends of Israel, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and other affiliated organisations.

You do hear gossip about hapless candidates being given cushy council jobs because they are politically connected in Tower Hamlets and I wouldn’t be surprised if a few strings get pulled to bump someone up a housing list, but compared to the patronage Labour MPs receive this is very small beer.

The only reason this story is breaking now is that Labour is facing a wipeout come May and the party that would happily have seen Apsana Begum in prison rather than have her as an MP has decided that if Rahman can’t be beaten by fair means then they are willing to play dirty.