By©Muhammad Haque
Organiser,
Khoodeelaar!
The Brick Lane, Whitechapel and Stepney London E1 Area campaign against Crossrail hole Bill
London 0755 Hrs GMT Tuesday 18 September 2007
Khoodeelaar! campaign against Crossrail hole Bill organiser Muhammad Haque reiterated the community's demand to Tower Hamlets ‘full’ Council meeting held on 11 September 2007 to pass the motion against Crossrail hole Bill.
A version of that Question was printed by Tower Hamlets Council in their agenda papers for the meeting.
“
QUESTIONS
The questions which have been submitted are set out below:
1. Question from Muhammad Haque, Khoodeelaar! - The Brick Lane,
Whitechapel and Stepney London E1 Area campaign against Crossrail hole Bill 2007 -
(NB: Questioner has been asked to edit the wording of the question)
[Khoodeelaar! response to this bracketed note under NB: Muhammad Haque gave the Chief Executive, Martin Smith and the Council’s committee section a different version but they decided to keep the draft version on their official agenda papers. Also, the assertion that they had asked the questioner to edit the question is untrue. They NEVER contacted Khoodeelaar! since the draft -test-version was sent to them during the initial conversation that had taken place months earlier. The Council employee - Angus Dixon -who had been communicating with the Khoodeelaar! organiser about the preparation of the agenda for the September 2007 full Council meeting, vanished from the contact line and a new individual came on, without any prior notice to Khoodeelaar! presumably attending to the tasks that were being handled by Angus Dixon. The very first time that Khoodeelaar! even knew about any of the campaign’s texts being included in the ‘full Council’ meeting was when a member of the Council contacted the organiser! just a few days or before the actual meeting! This shows just how careless the ‘democratic services’ of the Council has been. We shall publish more relevant facts about communications with the Council at appropriate times]
Given that the meeting held against the Crossrail hole Bill and the plan and
scheme included in the current ‘Crossrail Bill’ [in the House of Commons] at
the Brady Centre in the Hanbury Street London E1 on Sunday 22 January
2006 clearly and without dissent or departure or alteration or alteration agreed with and approved or and passed the motion put to it by Mr Muhammad Haque, the Khoodeelaar! Campaign organiser, given that the contents of the motion as put and passed were conveyed in exact and express and clear form to Christine Gilbert the then holder of the post of Chief executive in the Council on Wednesday 25 January 2006 and given that the main thrust and the main demand by and from the community to the Tower Hamlets Council as expressed, seen, represented and denoted and connoted in that motion was that the same Council should pass an unequivocal motion saying and meaning NO to the Crossrail hole Bill and given that the same meeting was also attended by a number of Tower Hamlets Borough councillors including at least two who sat on the same Council the name of the area affected by the Crossrail hole directly, namely the Brick Lane part of the Eats End of London and given that all the references to the ‘Crossrail Bill’ published by the same Council since 22 January 2006 have been to the effect that the Council was
‘mitigating the effects’ of the Crossrail hole to the local community and given that the Khoodeelaar! Campaign against Crossrail hole attacks has written and published daily critical examinations of all the relevant assertions and postures of the same Tower Hamlets Council since 22 January 2006, why has the Tower Hamlets Council not passed the motion that the community demanded be passed and the motion that the community wants the Council to pass? What specific evidential, constitutional, legal and lawful record/s is/are there – whether kept in one unit in the LB Tower Hamlets Council or in more than one or whether in the ‘Town Hall’ or elsewhere – and as created by or under the auspices of the entity of the LB Tower Hamlets Council to truthfully, independently verifiably deal with each of the 800 separate questions that Khoodeelaar! has put to the Tower Hamlets Council about the matter since 31 January 2004?
“
The Council did not pass that Motion.
That was not the only time that the Community’s reasonable and lawful demand had been made to Tower Hamlets Council.
This series of reports records and examines the Tower Hamlets Council’s role, over the past 10 years or so, in inviting the Crossrail hole problems onto the East End of London.
The undeniable evidence shows that Tower Hamlets Council has become a most overtly unrepresentative ‘local council’.
It has been acting as a tool for the undermining of the very foundations on which the local population has existed.
When the ‘locally elected’ council acts as an agent of the forces that are actively engaged in taking over the local land and in destroying the local community, then there can be no doubt that this is happening as part of a centrally made policy decision - that not accountable to democratic scrutiny.
Neither the local council nor the UK Parliament has been seen to even acknowledge that under the covers of ‘Crossrail’ a huge take-over strategic is being targeted against the East End of London.
The small businesses that have been trading in the Hanbury Street, Princelet Street and in the middle of the ‘curry lane’ of Brick Lane are threatened with loss of sustainable business environment . Just as the families and individuals who live in the properties and flats nearby. So are the residents and tenants in the streets to the east of the Vallance Road. As do the traders now doing small trades in the Whitechapel Road. The Crossrail hole plan threatens all of these. And more. Noise, dust and pollution will be caused in the area for at least four years while the Crossrail holes digging go on. This will cause new illnesses. And add to the existing ill heath and anxiety felt by residents and occupiers already.
Why is this being done?
Because the local Tower Hamlets Council is being used to let the community down and to make way for Big Business to take over the area.
One by one, the controlling clique that has been in place for the past decade or so on Tower Hamlets Council has been undermining the foundations of East End community, thus exposing the local community to destructions and displacement.
These destructions and dislocations will make the people of the East End poorer, more deprived, more disenfranchised.
Social incohesion will increase.
While it is acknowledged by all reasonably objective and uptodate students of social exclusion and internal deportations that have been taking place against the ordinary people in the East End of London [and against the corresponding social groups and communities elsewhere in the inner cities in the UK today] that the role played by apparently democratically elected councils has been the product of a hidden agenda to reconfigure the social and the cultural demographies in these areas, there has been little concerted political or social action to stop the slide.
The Khoodeelaar! campaign against Crossrail has brought together the essential threads of the deep anxiety being felt by all who are conscious of the systemic destruction project being mounted against the target communities. This campaign against the Crossrail hole plan has identified the technical flaws of Crossrail. Just as much as the economic, social and environmental defects of the plan.
On Tuesday at the ‘full council’ meeting in Tower Hamlets, it became obvious that members of the controlling group were not prepared to speak out in defence of the community.
In fact when the Opposition Respect group’s first ever motion against Crossrail hole plan was being formally presented at full Council on Tuesday 11 September 2007, one councillor [Abdal Ullah] from the controlling group was heard attacking a speaker referring to the community.
Opposition councillor Lutfa Begum was speaking about the Crossrail hole being targeted at the Brick Lane and nearby area, known for its demographic composition. In the absence of a transcript from her speech, the gist of what councillor Lutfa Begum said was that a strong racist element underlay the Crossrail hole plan strategy.
Although she did not use the exact reference, she was spot on.
Because the chief propagandist for Crossrail hole attacks on the East End of London has himself admitted this. It is Matthew Parris who said two years ago that the people in ‘Brick Lane’ [which is in the ‘Bethnal Green and Bow’ constituency] deserved to be punished by the Crossrail hole being dug here because they had voted for George Galloway [at the ay 2005 genera election].
Khoodeelaar! has examined and published our comments on Matthew Parris’s role. We have pointed this out and detailed its implications in dozens of Khoodeelaar! comments and pieces we have published in the past two years since Parris made the racist remark backing the Crossrail hole attack plan.
So when Tower Hamlets councillor Lutfa Begum pointed out [Tuesday 11 September 2007] the race-linked and in effect the racist Crossrail hole plan she was factually correct and politically uptodate.
That ought to have been greeted with words of recognition and support by anyone who felt impelled to interrupt her very short speech. Instead, shouts of ‘shame, shame’ were heard.
Where had the shouts come from?
They came from the side of the Council chamber where the controlling clique sits with its current majority.
The shouts of ‘shame, shame’ were made by Abdal Ullah. He is a councillor from the St Dunstan's and Stepney Green ward.
Indeed, that council ward itself contains a target of Crossrail attacks. But there was no speech or comment against Crossrail from either Abdal Ullah or fro any other member of the council controlling group.
is being done without the active support of the three numerically mainstream, parties that hold most positions on local councils across the UK.
The same is true in Tower Hamlets. Although the
On 22 January 2006, the community supported the Khoodeelaar! campaign against Crossrail hole Bill in a well attended public meeting held at the Brady Centre in Hanbury Street London E1. Hanbury Street is the target of one of the Crossrail holes in the E1 area.
The other is just to the east of Vallance Road [London E1], yards from the Brady Centre. Residents and tenants from the streets [Castlemain Street, Lomas Street, Trahorn Close and Wodeham Gardens] affected by the other Crossrail hole digging plan, have been getting organised to stop the Crossrail hole attacks. They joined the Khoodeelaar! demonstration held just before the full Council meeting in Tower Hamlets on Tuesday 11 September 2007.
Residents and tenants from the area including from Castlemain Street, Lomas Street, Trahorn Close and Wodeham Gardens backed the Khoodeelaar! campaign call on Tower Hamlets Council to pass the Motion saying the unequivocal No to Crossrail hole that had been made since 22 January 2006 [see an updated archived Khoodeelaar! report from 23 January 2006, below]
Four Opposition councillors on Tower Hamlets Council, joined the Khoodeelaar! demonstration on 11 September 2007 outside the Mulberry Place town hall and expressed their commitment to continue to oppose the Crossrail hole attacks on the East End of London. They are the ‘Respect’ group councillors Abjol Miah [group leader], Fozol Miah [from the Council ward that includes the Hanbury Street/Spelman Street/Princelet Street target of Crossrail hole], Lutfa Begum and Rania Khan.
The same councillors also spoke in support of the motion [moved by Fozol Miah] against the Crossrail hole during the full Council meeting that took pace after the Khoodeelaar! demonstration
In their statements against Crossrail hole Bill, councillors Fozol Miah, Abjol Miah and Lutfa Begum echoed the points that Khoodeelaar! had made all along. They said that Crossrail holes would not bring any benefits to the people of the East End. Indeed, councillor Fozol Miah made a detailed plea to all councillors present in the chamber and asked them to vote against Crossrail hole attacks on the community. He said that they should forget about party political differences and vote for the community on this issue.
[More of the statements will be reported din the next parts of this series of Khoodeelaar! reports]
Extracts from the Khoodeelaar! letter to Christine Gilbert then Tower Hamlets Council chief executive, on Monday 23 January 2006. That was the day after the large public meeting held in support f the Khoodeelaar! campaign against Crossrail hole Bill was held at the Brady Centre in the Hanbury Street off Brick Lane, London E1.
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The BRICK LANE [and Whitechapel and Stepney] London E1 Area Campaign against the Crossrail hole Bill [the ‘Crossrail Bill’ in the UK Parliament] was supported by more than a thousand people last night [Sunday 22 January 2006] who turned up to attend the KHOODEELAAR! campaign meeting held in the Hanbury Street to SAY NO TO THE CROSSRAIL HOLE BILL . The Khoodeelaar! campaign against the Crossrail hole Bill gave a most emphatic democratic ultimatum to the controlling group on the local Tower Hamlets Council to represent the community’s opposition to the Crossrail hole scheme.
The community demand was the implementation of the first
part of the KHOODEELAAR MANIFESTO 2006
" To
Christine Gilbert
Chief Executive
LB tower hamlets council
Sent via email between 1200 and 1230 Hrs GMT on Monday 23 January 2006-01-23
Dear Ms Gilbert
Khoodeelaar [ The BRICK LANE [and Whitechapel and Stepney] London E1 Area Campaign against the Crossrail hole Bill] - public meeting held at the Brady centre on Sunday 22 January 2006 - community demand on tower hamlets council to pass unequivocal resolution of the full council to openly oppose the CROSSRAIL TUNNEL/HOLE/SHAFT IN THE BRICK LANE LONDON E1 AREA
This is the first transmission of the demand to you. Further details and background information will follow soon after this.
1. This is a legal and constitutional communication.
2. The key demand was unanimously and emphatically agreed by the meeting on the single motion moved by the keynote speaker Mr Muhammad Haque to say that The London Borough of Tower Hamlets Council must hold a meeting within the next 14 days [from Sunday 22 January 2006] and to pass a full Council resolution demanding the dropping of the Crossrail hole/tunnel/shaft provision from the Crossrail Bill now in the UK Parliament.
3. That the resolution must be passed by the same LBTH Council in such a way and on a such a date and with such wording that leaves no room for equivocation and that it is put to the UK parliament by bearing in mind that the transport select committee set up to ‘scrutinize’ the Crossrail Bill is now sitting for a limited period and that the LBTH Council itself has a petition awaiting the formal consideration of the said transport select committee and that the relevant resolution by LBTH Council opposing the hole scheme/plan must be put in order to ensure that the said select committee and any other constitutional part of the UK parliament takes full account of the resolution and that the resolution is worded in such a way that leaves no room for any constitutional, legal or procedural conflict, contradiction or excuse or pretext to be invoked or used to frustrate or delay or divert or distort the community’s opposition to the Crossrail - hole plan/scheme in the Brick Lane [and Whitechapel and Stepney] London E1 Area - Bill.
4. That the LBTH Council resolution opposing the locating of the hole/tunnel must be put to or presented to or sent to or made constitutionally validly available to the UK parliament and to the Crossrail hole Bill promoters without delay and in any case not later than 13 days after the community unanimously making the demand ....... on Sunday 22 January 2006.
"
[To be continued]
In the Next Khoodeelaar! reports to be published by AADHIKAROnline, the following items of the campaign against Crossrail hole attacks on the East End of London are covered
1. The motion against Crossrail hole to full Council meeting 11 September 2007 as put by the Opposition [Respect group of] councillors
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