Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Amina Ali (front right) with Bradford West members after her selection as Labour candidate. Photograph: PA
The Labour candidate chosen to fight George Galloway in the general election in Bradford has resigned after just three days.
Amina Ali, a councillor in Tower Hamlets, east London, was selected by Labour in a meeting of the Bradford West Labour party on Saturday night.
But within 72 hours of her selection Ali tweeted: “I would like to stop the rumour mill, I have stepped down.” The tweet was subsequently deleted.
She later released a statement saying: “It is an honour and privilege to have been selected by members of Bradford West as the Labour candidate for the general election. In all the years I have been a member, being chosen to fight a seat for the party I love has been my dream.
“However, I am the mother of two children and despite my best efforts to make arrangements to bring them to Bradford for the next 70 days, particularly as one of them is doing her GCSEs, this would have caused massive disruption at a critical time. I would not be able to do justice to the members of Bradford West CLP and the people of Bradford.
“Bradford West needs a candidate who is going to live in Bradford and be involved in the campaign for every moment of every day and I am unable to fulfil this commitment despite a strong wish to support the Labour party to victory. The decision taken now will enable a new candidate to be selected for Bradford West to win the seat back for Labour.
“I remain very proud that I was the first British Somali woman ever selected to contest a target seat and I will continue to work within the Labour party in the future and during the campaign. I am sure everyone will understand I need to put my children first.”
The only outside candidate to make it to the final vote, Ali easily beat the two locals on the all-women-shortlist - councillor Naveeda Ikram, who was the first Muslim woman lord mayor in Bradford, and campaigner Naz Shah. Of the 238 votes cast, Ikram got less than 75, and Shah just 13, according to one member present.
Though Ali is of Somali background and has no profile in Bradford, her selection was mired in controversy amid allegations of so called biraderi interference - a system of Asian family and tribal patronage harking back to clans in the Kashmiri villages where most of Bradford’s Pakistanis have their roots.
In 2012 when Galloway won Bradford West with a majority of more than 10,000 on a huge 36.6% swing, he claimed he had smashed the biraderi system in which members of Kashmiri clans controlled the votes in different parts of the city.
But many well-placed local observers insist biraderi continues to maintain a stranglehold over the city’s Labour politics. Recently, various claims were made on social media alleging that some of the most powerful figures in the Bradford West constituency Labour party (CLP) met at Pachas, a shisha bar in Bradford, a week before the selection to discuss a voting strategy.
It was claimed the clan elders were unhappy that their favoured candidate, Bradford Labour councillor Shakeela Lal, had not made the shortlist. The allegation is that they then agreed to back Ali rather than give their votes to Shah or Ikram.
Ali is not thought to have known or wanted this patronage. Sean Dolat, a member of the Bradford West Labour party, said on Twitter that Ali received the only “spontaneous applause” during Saturday’s hustings with her answer to the question: “How are you going to tackle the issue of biraderi in Bradford?” Her response: “Poverty has no clans”
Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation and a presenter on the Muslim Ummah TV Channel, described Ali’s selection as a huge blunder and said clan voting was alive and well in Bradford.