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| From left to right:- Cllr Nirmal Singh Gill Secretary, Cllr Hardial Singh Rai, Cllr Amardeep Singh Jamu, Cllr Inder Singh Jamu (former mayor 1998 and Chairman of Race Equality Council), Cllr Sukhninder Singh Gill. |
London, a capital of England cosists of 32 Boroughs (Municipalities.) Barking & Dagenham is one of them. Four yearly election and Parliamentary election were held on 6th May 2010. The British National Party (BNP) won 12 seats in year 2006 by default and shocked all the political parties thoughout Britain due to Racist activities. The BNP fielded 34 candidates for 51 Council seats to take political control of the Town Hall.
The General and local Elections on 6th May 2010 resulted in all BNP candidates failing to win the seats contested.
Across Barking and Dagenham in the local council elections the BNP not only failed to add to the 12 seats they had held in the borough since 2006, but every one of their record high number of 34 candidates slumped to defeat.
Approx. 1/3 of newly elected Councilors are of ethnic minority origin.
In the Council election of Barking and Dagenham, 5 Punjabi Sikhs have been successful.
We believe the results show that the voters of the Borough realized that they had been lied to and misled earlier by those who played on people’s concerns and worries about our evolving community and the economic situation. They endorse our multi-racial, multi-cultural community of which we should all be proud.
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The Chair of Barking and Dagenham Racial Equality Council, Inder Singh Jamu said “In the past there were local residents who felt that some Councilors were not listening to their concerns and had failed to connect properly with the community and voted BNP as a form of protest, rather than because they were necessarily supporting the underlying policies of the BNP. On behalf of B & D REC, I congratulate voters for showing confidence in Community cohesion”.
The electorate have shown that they reject such divisive policies based on fear and prejudice. The REC is hopeful that the newly elected Council will work to show people that it is determined to overcome that earlier failure to connect with the whole community. People have given the new council a golden opportunity to work as closely as possible with all of the local communities – we hope that this opportunity will be grasped!