A nasty smell in Birmingham

Even Roy Hattersley, in the Guardian, said "It stinks". Raghib Ahsan, a councillor in Sparkhill, Birmingham, for six years and the main challenger to Roger Godsiff in the recent Parliamentary selection, has been denied the Labour nomination to stand again as a councillor. Our correspondent reports.

Three Birmingham CLPs have been suspended for over three years, so a regional panel selects councillors for these mainly inner city, safe Labour wards. Raghib Ahsan's removal sparked an enormous outcry locally -- three thousand residents signed a petition, 65 Labour councillors signed a letter of protest. The leadership's tactic has been to say as little as possible in reply.

Ahsan is pursuing a case against the Party under the Race Relations Act, maintaining discrimination when a white man was chosen as his replacement, and also that the suspensions are discriminatory as membership rights have been withheld only from wards with a majority black membership.

Race is a vital factor. Inner Birmingham has a large ethnic minority population, the biggest single group being of Pakistani origin. As well as consistently voting Labour, they have recently been joining Labour and, unsurprisingly, selecting members of their own communities to represent them.

Rather than welcoming this, elements within the Labour Party panicked. Sitting MPs Clare Short, Jeff Rooker and Roger Godsiff all faced reselection challenges. The number of Pakistani councillors was also growing and threatening to become an effective bloc within the Labour Group. The introduction of OMOV was likely to give ethnic minority communities greater influence.

The suspensions -- based on vague allegations of "membership abuse" -- are about control of the unpredictable Asian membership. Similar events have occurred in other constituencies in Bradford, Manchester and Nottingham where the Asian community has been influential. Instead of a likely growth in the number of Pakistani councillors, they will be reduced from 13 to ten.

Donations for Raghib Ahsan's court case should be sent to to Sparkhill Voice c/o Birmingham Trades Union Council, 723 Pershore Road, Selly Oak, Birmingham B29.

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