Tower Hamlets: Mayor Lutfur Rahman will be watched like a hawk - Labour

Lutfur Rahman will be watched "like a hawk", his defeated rival has said.

Mr Rahman, of the Aspire party, took the job of Tower Hamlets mayor from Labour's John Biggs at last week's elections.

The returning mayor launched his own party after he was kicked out of office in 2015 having been found guilty of vote-rigging.

Aspire also stormed to victory over Labour on the borough's council, winning 24 of 45 seats.

Mr Biggs had been mayor since 2015, when Mr Rahman was removed from office by an electoral court. In the 2018 election, Labour won 42 council seats.

Speaking after the loss, which saw Labour support cut to 19 councillors, Mr Biggs told BBC London that Mr Rahman must be given a chance to deliver.

He said: "I suggest people will be watching him like a hawk, but I don't want his administration or the council to be totally dominated by that, though.

"I think people need to assume he has been elected on a manifesto, he has made promises, and he needs to go out and try to deliver them.

"If he can, then great. If that's the change people want, then great."

But Mr Biggs warned of the potential for community division, with the Bangladeshi population targeted by Aspire making up nearly a third of Tower Hamlets residents as the largest ethnic group - slightly higher than the number of "white British" residents.

"We're potentially quite a divided community," he said. "We totally get on quite well together in Tower Hamlets but his [Mr Rahman's] campaign was totally focused on one community. His administration is 25 men, all from one community.

"I guess that's worrying but it shouldn't be worrying because we're in a multicultural community and everyone should stand up for everyone else, which is what we have tried to do in the Labour Party."

In response, a spokesman for Mr Rahman criticised the former mayor's comments.

"These divisive remarks by the previous mayor illustrate why the electorate considered him unfit to lead a multicultural borough in the 21st Century," the spokesman said.

"A worldview in which ethnic minority politicians can only represent ethnic minority constituents belongs in the Stone Age.

"Mayor Rahman's record of measures like university bursaries and free social care benefited everyone in our borough and the 40,000 people who voted for him last Thursday are similarly diverse."

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