Bethnal Green and Bow (UK Parliament constituency)
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| Bethnal Green and Bow Borough constituency |
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| Bethnal Green and Bow shown within Greater London | |
| Created: | 1974, 1997 |
| MP: | George Galloway |
| Party: | Respect |
| Type: | House of Commons |
| County: | Greater London |
| EP constituency: | London |
Bethnal Green and Bow is a constituency located in Greater London, represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election. The constituency first existed 1974-1983, and was re-created in 1997.
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[edit] Boundaries
The seat is centred on the northern part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, taking in much of Bethnal Green, Bow and Stepney. It includes much of the traditional East End, the Tower of London and Brick Lane.
The 1974-1983 constituency comprised the then London Borough of Tower Hamlets wards of Bethnal Green Central, Bethnal Green East, Bethnal Green North, Bethnal Green South, Bethnal Green West, Bow North, Bow South, Bromley, Holy Trinity and Spitalfields.
Between the 1983 and 1997 general elections, the equivalent seat was Bethnal Green and Stepney.
[edit] Boundary review
Following the review of parliamentary representation in North London in 2001, the Boundary Commission for England has modified the seat of Bethnal Green and Bow. A name change to "Tower Hamlets North" was rejected. The electoral wards which are used in the re-drawn Bethnal Green and Bow are entirely within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets
- Bethnal Green North, Bethnal Green South, Bow East, Bow West, Mile End and Globe Town, St Dunstan’s and Stepney Green, Spitalfields and Banglatown, Weavers, Whitechapel.
The Tower Hamlets wards of Blackwall and Cubitt Town, Bromley-by-Bow, East India and Lansbury, Limehouse, Mile End East, Millwall, St Katherine’s and Wapping and Shadwell have been moved to the new constituency of Poplar and Limehouse
[edit] History
In 1974 the Bethnal Green constituency was abolished. A new seat was created with the strict official name of Tower Hamlets, Bethnal Green and Bow. However the London Borough prefix is not commonly used for seats in the 1974-1983 redistribution.
The 1974-1983 constituency was a safe Labour seat, with the Liberal Party in a distant second place. Ian Mikardo, a well known back bench Labour MP, represented the area in this period.
Between 1983 and 1997, most of the present constituency formed the seat of Bethnal Green and Stepney.
The borough of Tower Hamlets has a reputation for being a bastion of radical politics, with Communists and more recently the Respect MP George Galloway being elected to Parliament as well as providing massive Labour majorities. Before a recent revival, the Conservative Party last won council seats in the area in 1931. The Liberal Party remained the main challengers to Labour in the Bethnal Green area but the loss of Percy Harris as Bethnal Green South West MP and eventually as London County Councillor too (despite a temporary comeback in 1946) put them out of the running in Parliamentary elections until a Liberal revival began in Bow in the late 1970s. Tower Hamlets was the only London Borough to have had seats held by the Communist Party of Great Britain; they lost their last seats in 1971. Between 1945 and 1950, Mile End provided the CPGB with one of its two parliamentary seats, being represented by Phil Pirratin. Two Communists also won seats on the London County council (LCC) in 1947.
Between 1986 and 1994, the Liberal Democrats controlled Tower Hamlets council, but this proved a deeply controversial period, witnessing splits in the local party and much criticism from outside.
The seat also has a large non-white population, estimated at around 58% of the population. The largest group in this number is the Bengali community (36%) [1].
In the 1997 general election, there was a swing of 5% to the Conservative Party at a time when the national trend was a landslide swing against them. Bethnal Green and Bow was one of only two constituencies in the country to have any sort of pro-Conservative swing. This unusual result was ascribed to problems over the selection of a Labour Party candidate, following the retirement of Peter Shore. Oona King, who won the selection, was not well known and many in the local area would have preferred a candidate from a Bangladeshi background. However the leading Bangladeshi candidates were identified with the left and were excluded from the selection.
Following British participation in the invasion of Iraq, an action deeply unpopular with the Muslim community in the constituency but nevertheless supported by Oona King, the newly formed Respect coalition gained support. They topped the poll in Tower Hamlets in the 2004 European Parliamentary elections and subsequently won their first local council seat in a by-election. In the May 2005 general election, the seat was narrowly won by former Labour MP George Galloway, one of Respect's leading figures. Respect also won seats in the 2006 local council elections although its performance was not as strong as many observers believed it could have been.
George Galloway has attracted criticism for lack of attendance at Parliament, especially when he appeared in the reality TV programme Big Brother. However, he has countered that he has not missed any crucial votes and that the best way for him to advance the interests of his constituents is by general campaigning. Galloway has always said that he only intended to stay in the seat for one Parliament and has announced that he will be standing for a neighbouring constituency at the next election, with Respect to pick another candidate to defend the seat.
In September 2007, the Respect party selected Abjol Miah as their candidate to replace George Galloway in Bethnal Green and Bow. Miah, a stick fighting champion of Bengali origin is to compete with the Labour candidate Rushanara Ali in the notionally safe Labour seat. Miah has worked in the local area as a radio presenter, drugs worker and martial arts trainer. Previously, Miah ousted Council Leader Michael Keith, along with two other cabinet members.
Rusahanara Ali is an Oxford graduate, and worked with former MP Oona King[citation needed] with whom she held a secretarial job during King's term as MP. Ali says she disagreed with her former boss in regards to the Iraq war and that her main aim is to look into local issues affecting people.
[edit] Members of Parliament
| Year | Member | Party | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1974 | Ian Mikardo | Labour Co-operative | |
| 1983 | constituency abolished – see Bethnal Green and Stepney | ||
| 1997 | Oona King | Labour | |
| 2005 | George Galloway | Respect | |
[edit] Election results
| Confirmed candidates for the next UK general election [1] | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
| Labour | Rushanara Ali | ||||
| Respect | Abjol Miah | ||||
At the 2005 election, as per the Electoral Commission[2] the candidate Ejiro Etefia was coded as an "Independent" candidate because his chosen party label - Alliance for Change Restore People's Freedoms! {sic} - did not match a registered political party name.
| General Election 2005: Bethnal Green and Bow | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
| Respect | George Galloway | 15,801 | 35.9 | ||
| Labour | Oona King | 14,978 | 34.0 | -16.5 | |
| Conservative | Shahagir Bakth Faruk | 6,244 | 14.2 | -10.1 | |
| Liberal Democrat | Syed Nurul Islam Dulu | 4,928 | 11.2 | -4.3 | |
| Green | John Foster | 1,950 | 4.4 | +0.1 | |
| Alliance for Change | Ejiro Etefia | 68 | 0.2 | ||
| Communist League | Celia Pugh | 38 | 0.1 | ||
| Majority | 823 | 1.9 | |||
| Turnout | 44,007 | 51.2 | |||
| Respect gain from Labour | Swing | ||||
| General Election 2001: Bethnal Green and Bow | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
| Labour | Oona King | 19,380 | 50.5 | +4.1 | |
| Conservative | Shahagir Bakth Faruk | 9,323 | 24.3 | +3.2 | |
| Liberal Democrat | Janet Ludlow | 5,946 | 15.5 | +3.5 | |
| Green | Anna Bragga | 1,666 | 4.3 | +2.5 | |
| British National Party | Michael Davidson | 1,211 | 3.2 | -4.3 | |
| New Britain | Dennis Delderfield | 888 | 2.3 | N/A | |
| Majority | 10,057 | 26.2 | |||
| Turnout | 38,414 | 50.2 | -10.1 | ||
| Labour hold | Swing | ||||
| General Election 1997: Bethnal Green and Bow | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
| Labour | Oona King | 20,697 | 46.3 | -9.5 | |
| Conservative | Kabir Choudhury | 9,412 | 21.1 | +3.2 | |
| Liberal Democrat | Syed Nurul Islam Dulu | 5,361 | 12.0 | -10.3 | |
| British National Party | David King | 3,350 | 7.5 | +3.9 | |
| Liberal | Terry Milson | 2,963 | 6.6 | ||
| Real Labour | Sheref Osman | 1,117 | 2.5 | ||
| Green | Stephen Petter | 812 | 1.8 | ||
| Referendum Party | Muhammed Abdullah | 557 | 1.2 | ||
| Socialist Labour | Abdul Hamid | 413 | 0.9 | ||
| Majority | 11,285 | 25.3 | |||
| Turnout | 44,682 | 60.3 | -5.2 | ||
- Constituency did not exist between 1983 and 1997 - see Bethnal Green and Stepney
| General Election 1979: Tower Hamlets, Bethnal Green and Bow | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
| Labour | Ian Mikardo | 14,227 | 49.9 | -19.0 | |
| Liberal | Eric Flounders | 6,673 | 23.4 | +10.4 | |
| Conservative | R. Page | 5,567 | 19.5 | +9.0 | |
| National Front | M.G.A. Webster | 1,740 | 6.1 | -1.5 | |
| Workers' Revolutionary | W.C. Colvill | 183 | 0.6 | +0.6 | |
| Socialist Unity | R.J. Varnes | 153 | 0.5 | +0.5 | |
| Majority | 7,554 | 26.5 | -29.4 | ||
| Turnout | 51,436 | 55.5 | +2.5 | ||
| Labour hold | Swing | ||||
| General Election October 1974: Tower Hamlets, Bethnal Green and Bow | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
| Labour | Ian Mikardo | 19,649 | 68.9 | +3.3 | |
| Liberal | Tudor Gates | 3,700 | 13.0 | -6.7 | |
| Conservative | C.P.Y. Murphy | 2,995 | 10.5 | -4.2 | |
| National Front | W.E. Castleton | 2,172 | 7.6 | +7.6 | |
| Majority | 15,949 | 55.9 | +10.0 | ||
| Turnout | 53,753 | 53.0 | -8.0 | ||
| Labour hold | Swing | ||||
| General Election February 1974: Tower Hamlets, Bethnal Green and Bow | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
| Labour | Ian Mikardo | 21,371 | 65.6 | N/A | |
| Liberal | Tudor Gates | 6,417 | 19.7 | N/A | |
| Conservative | C. P. Y. Murphy | 4,787 | 14.7 | N/A | |
| Majority | 14,954 | 45.9 | N/A | ||
| Turnout | 53,427 | 61.0 | N/A | ||
| Labour gain from new seat | Swing | N/A | |||
[edit] External links
- UK Constituency Maps
- BBC Vote 2001 (Incudes 1997 and 2001 results)
- BBC Election 2005 (Includes 2005 candidates)
[edit] References
- ^ Bethnal Green and Bow, UKPollingReport
- ^ http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/files/dms/Generalelection2005_candidates_19333-14260__E__N__S__W__.xls
- Boundaries of Parliamentary Constituencies 1885-1972, compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (Parliamentary Reference Publications 1972)
- British Parliamentary Election Results 1974-1983, compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (Parliamentary Research Services 1984)
- Who's Who of British Members of Parliament, Volume IV 1945-1979, edited by M. Stenton and S. Lees (Harvester Press 1981)
