Bethnal Green and Bow (UK Parliament constituency)

Bethnal Green and Bow
Borough constituency
for the House of Commons
Outline map
Boundary of Bethnal Green and Bow in Greater London.
County Greater London
Population 125,351 (2011 census)[1]
Electorate 79,581 (December 2010)[2]
Current constituency
Created 1997
Member of parliament Rushanara Ali (Labour)
Number of members One
Created from Bethnal Green and Stepney
1974–1983
Number of members One
Replaced by Bethnal Green & Stepney and Bow & Poplar[3]
Created from Bethnal Green
Overlaps
European Parliament constituency London

Bethnal Green and Bow (Contemp. RP) /ˈbɛθnl̩ ɡɹiːn ənd bəʊ/, (Cons. RP) /ˈbeθ-/, (Est. Eng.) /ˈbɛfnəw ɡɹiːn ən bəʊ/ is a constituency[n 1] in Greater London represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Rushanara Ali of the Labour Party.[n 2]

Boundaries

Since the 2014 boundary changes, the constituency has contained the following electoral wards:

  • Weavers, Spitalfields and Banglatown, Whitechapel, St. Peter's, Bethnal Green, Stepney Green, St. Dunstan's, Bow West, Bow East.[4]

History of boundaries

The 1974–83 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.

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 were before 2010 under the national Boundary Commission for England review which identified a need for London representation changes based on electorate estimates moved to the new constituency of Poplar and Limehouse. In this review a name change to "Tower Hamlets North" was publicly consulted on and rejected.

From 2010 to 2014 the seat had electoral wards:

Constituency profile

Brick Lane

The seat is centred on the northern part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, taking in much of Bethnal Green, Bow and Stepney, most of Cambridge Heath and a fragment of Haggerston. It includes much of the traditional East End and Brick Lane. The seat has a large Muslim community – one of the largest proportion of Muslim voters in the country. Whereas the seat has many small conservation areas,[6] it measures overall as among the poorest by income in London and is one of the most ethnically diverse, there is no majority ethnic group — large ethnic groups are British Bangladeshi, White British, other White European and Black British.

Workless claimants who were registered jobseekers were in November 2012 higher than the national average of 3.8%, at 6% of the population based on a statistical compilation by The Guardian.[7]

History

Political history

Bethnal Green and Bow is, based on results in local and national elections, traditionally a very safe Labour seat, its predecessor seats being held by Labour since prior to World War II. However, the 2005 Respect victory in this constituency showed that a moderate Labour candidate may not always have been radical enough for the electorate who voted for expelled Labour MP, George Galloway, generally considered to be far-left, who mounted a campaign focussed on two seats (see Poplar and Shoreditch and see, as to council representation, the London Borough of Tower Hamlets).

1970s–1994

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, historically with a minority of Communists on its council and more recently with Respect forming the largest opponents to the quite frequent large Labour majorities on the council level. Before a recent revival, the Conservative Party were absent from the council from 1931 until 2006 – and all of its revival has been in the two riverside wards which does not apply to any of this seat.[8] 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 Piratin. Two Communists also won seats on the London County council (LCC) in 1947.

Between 1986 and 1994, the Liberal Democrats controlled Tower Hamlets London Borough Council, this proved a successful but controversial period. The delivery of major infrastructure projects, including many schools and school housing projects, was balanced by alleged corruption.

1997–2010

At 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 (of which there were more than 630) to have any sort of pro-Conservative swing—the other constituency was Bradford West. The Labour Party, broadsheets and local newspapers ascribed this unusual result 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 in the local Labour Party were excluded from the selection.

Following British participation in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, an action deeply unpopular with the Muslim community in the constituency but nevertheless supported by their MP 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 at a by-election. In the May 2005 general election, the seat was a narrow victory for ex-Labour MP George Galloway, one of Respect's leading figures. Respect also won seats at the 2006 local council elections although its performance was not as strong as many observers believed it could have been.

Galloway attracted criticism for lack of attendance at Parliament, especially when he appeared in the reality TV programme Big Brother. He said that he had not missed any crucial votes, and that the best way for him to advance the interests of his constituents was by general campaigning. Galloway had always said that he only intended to stay in the seat for one parliament, and in 2010 stood for the neighbouring constituency of Poplar and Limehouse. However, he lost to the Labour incumbent Jim Fitzpatrick.

General election 2010

In September 2007, the Respect party selected Abjol Miah, the leader of the Respect Group on Tower Hamlets Council, as their candidate to replace George Galloway in Bethnal Green and Bow. He had worked in the local area as a radio presenter, drugs worker and martial arts trainer. The Labour Party selected Rushanara Ali, an Oxford graduate who had previously worked as Parliamentary Assistant to former MP Oona King,[9] then working for local charity The Young Foundation. Ajmal Masroor, a television presenter on political debates and an imam,[10] was the Liberal Democrat candidate. Zakir Khan was selected by the Conservative Party from an open primary. He was the head of Public Affairs for the Canary Wharf Group based in Tower Hamlets, and a former sports manager.

The election result was a clear win for Labour, this constituency being one of only three that Labour gained in the 2010 election, and represented a major setback for Respect (which thereby lost its sole seat in Parliament). Ali won with 21,784 votes (42.9%, up 8.4% for Labour); Masroor came in second with 10,210 (20.1%, up 7.8% for the Liberal Democrats); Miah received 8,532 votes, 16.8% of the total, representing a 19.8% fall in the Respect vote; and Khan received 7,071 (13.9%, a 2.0% increase in the Conservative vote). However, after George Galloway lost his seat in the constituency in 2010, he went on to win the Bradford West constituency at a by-election held on 29 March 2012.

Members of Parliament

ElectionMember[11] Party
Feb 1974 Ian Mikardo Labour Co-operative
1983 constituency abolished: see Bethnal Green and Stepney
1997 constituency recreated
1997 Oona King Labour
2005 George Galloway Respect
2010 Rushanara Ali Labour

Election results

Elections in the 2010s

General Election 2017: Bethnal Green and Bow[12][13]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Labour Rushanara Ali 42,969 71.8 +10.6
Conservative Charlotte Chirico 7,576 12.7 -2.6
Independent Ajmal Masroor 3,888 6.5 +6.5
Liberal Democrat Will Dyer 2,982 5.0 +0.5
Green Alistair Polson 1,516 2.5 -6.7
UKIP Ian de Wulverton 894 1.5 -4.6
Majority 35,393 59.2 +13.3
Turnout 59,825 69.5 +5.2
Registered electors 86,075
Labour hold Swing +6.6
General Election 2015: Bethnal Green and Bow[14][15][16]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Labour Rushanara Ali 32,387 61.2 +18.3
Conservative Matthew Smith 8,070 15.2 +1.3
Green Alistair Polson 4,906 9.3 +7.6
UKIP Pauline McQueen 3,219 6.1 N/A
Liberal Democrat Teena Lashmore 2,395 4.5 -15.6
TUSC Glyn Robbins 949 1.8 N/A
Communities United M Rowshan Ali 356 0.7 N/A
CISTA Jonathan Dewey 303 0.6 N/A
Whig Alasdair Henderson[17] 203 0.4 N/A
The 30–50 Coalition Elliot Ball 78 0.1 N/A
Red Flag Anti-Corruption Jason Pavlou 58 0.1 N/A
Majority 24,317 45.9 +23.1
Turnout 52,924 64.0 +1.6
Registered electors 82,727
Labour hold Swing +8.5
General Election 2010: Bethnal Green and Bow[18]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Labour Rushanara Ali 21,784 42.9 +8.4
Liberal Democrat Ajmal Masroor 10,210 20.1 +7.8
Respect Abjol Miah 8,532 16.8 -19.8
Conservative Zakir Khan 7,071 13.9 +2.0
BNP Jeffrey Marshall 1,405 2.8 N/A
Green Farid Bakht 856 1.7 -2.8
Independent Patrick Brooks 277 0.5 N/A
Pirate Alexander van Terheyden 213 0.4 N/A
Independent Hasib Hikmat 213 0.4 N/A
Independent Haji Choudhury 100 0.2 N/A
Independent Ahmed Abdul Malik 71 0.1 N/A
Majority 11,574 22.8 N/A
Turnout 50,728 62.4 +10.9
Registered electors 81,243
Labour gain from Respect Swing +14.1

Elections in the 2000s

General Election 2005: Bethnal Green and Bow[19]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Respect George Galloway 15,801 35.9 N/A
Labour Oona King 14,978 34.0 -16.5
Conservative Shahagir Faruk 6,244 14.2 -10.1
Liberal Democrat Syed Dulu 4,928 11.2 -4.3
Green John Foster 1,950 4.4 +0.1
Independent Ejiro Etefia 68 0.2 N/A
Communist League Celia Pugh 38 0.1 N/A
Majority 823 1.9 N/A
Turnout 44,007 51.2 +1.0
Registered electors 82,599
Respect gain from Labour Swing +26.2
General Election 2001: Bethnal Green and Bow[20]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Labour Oona King 19,380 50.5 +4.1
Conservative Shahagir 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
BNP Michael Davidson 1,211 3.2 -4.3
New Britain Dennis Delderfield 888 2.3 N/A
Majority 10,057 26.2 +0.9
Turnout 38,414 50.2 -10.1
Registered electors 79,192
Labour hold Swing -0.5

Elections in the 1990s

General Election 1997: Bethnal Green and Bow[21]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Labour Oona King 20,697 46.3 N/A
Conservative Kabir Choudhury 9,412 21.1 N/A
Liberal Democrat Syed Dulu 5,361 12.0 N/A
BNP David King 3,350 7.5 N/A
Liberal Terry Milson 2,963 1,117 N/A
Independent Sheref Osman 1,117 2.5 N/A
Green Stephen Petter 812 1.8 N/A
Referendum Muhammed Abdullah 557 1.2 N/A
Socialist Labour Abdul Hamid 413 0.9 N/A
Majority 11,285 25.3 N/A
Turnout 44,682 60.3 N/A
Registered electors 73,008
Labour win (new seat)

Elections in the 1970s

General Election, 1979: 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 Robin Page 5,567 19.5 +9.0
National Front Martin Webster 1,740 6.1 -1.5
Workers Revolutionary W.C. Colvill 183 0.6 N/A
Socialist Unity R.J. Varnes 153 0.5 N/A
Majority 7,554 26.5 -29.4
Turnout 28,543 55.5 +2.5
Registered electors 51,436
Labour hold Swing
General Election, October 1974: 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 Christopher Murphy 2,995 10.5 -4.2
National Front W.E. Castleton 2,172 7.6 N/A
Majority 15,949 55.9 +10.0
Turnout 28,516 53.0 -8.0
Registered electors 53,763
Labour hold Swing
General Election, February 1974: 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 Christopher Murphy 4,787 14.7 N/A
Majority 14,954 45.9 N/A
Turnout 32,575 61.0 N/A
Registered electors 53,410
Labour win (new seat)

Demography

The 2011 census recorded a population of 125,351 people. The constituency has recently become one of the most ethnically diverse areas in the UK, 3.11% of the population were of mixed race, the largest non-mixed ethnic group was white at 41.9 per cent of the population (and of the total: 33.6% of British ethnicity), the second largest ethnic group was Bangladeshi which formed 33.4 per cent of the population, other Asians 6.59 per cent (comprises British Indians, British Pakistanis and other Asians), those of Black race constituted 4.9 per cent (see British African-Caribbean community), Chinese 1.81 per cent, and other ethnic groups, including Arab heritage 2.24 per cent. Statistics from the census recorded 35.4 per cent of people are Muslims, among the highest ten seats by Islamic proportion of the population in the UK.[22]

In 2001 the largest two groups were in the same order, but constituted 46.4% and 35.7% of the population, respectively.[22]

Notes and references

Notes
  1. ↑ A borough constituency (for the purposes of election expenses and type of returning officer)
  2. ↑ As with all constituencies, the constituency elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election at least every five years.
References
  1. ↑ "Bethnal Green and Bow: Usual Resident Population, 2011". Neighbourhood Statistics. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 29 January 2015.
  2. ↑ "Electorate Figures – Boundary Commission for England". 2011 Electorate Figures. Boundary Commission for England. 4 March 2011. Archived from the original on 6 November 2010. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
  3. ↑ "'Bethnal Green and Bow', Feb 1974 - May 1983". ElectionWeb Project. Cognitive Computing Limited. Archived from the original on 3 April 2016. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  4. ↑ "Report of Local Government Boundary Commission for England on Tower Hamlets council website". Archived from the original on 2014-07-17.
  5. ↑ 2010 post-revision map Greater London and metropolitan areas of England
  6. ↑ London Borough Tower Hamlets – Conservation Areas Archived 2009-07-01 at the Wayback Machine. detailed map showing majority of the 58 in the borough are in this area.
  7. ↑ Unemployment claimants by constituency The Guardian
  8. ↑ "Election results – London Borough of Tower Hamlets". Archived from the original on 2013-11-03.
  9. ↑ "Commission to tackle child poverty in London". London Councils. 2006-02-20. Retrieved 2008-09-18.
  10. ↑ Ajmal For London Archived January 6, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
  11. ↑ Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "B" (part 3)
  12. ↑ "Election Data 2017". Electoral Calculus. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  13. ↑ House Of Commons Library 2017 Election report http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7979/CBP-7979.pdf] House Of Commons Library 2017 Election report Check |url= value (help). Missing or empty |title= (help)
  14. ↑ "Election Data 2015". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 17 October 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
  15. ↑ "Election results for Bethnal Green & Bow, 7 May 2015". 7 May 2015.
  16. ↑ In 2015, the Class War Party announced Duncan Disorderly as its candidate (see "Candidates". Class War. Archived from the original on 14 April 2014. Retrieved 30 January 2015. ), but he failed to stand.
  17. ↑ "Bethnal Green and Bow". Whig Party. Retrieved 24 March 2015.
  18. ↑ "Election Data 2010". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 26 July 2013. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
  19. ↑ "Election Data 2005". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  20. ↑ "Election Data 2001". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  21. ↑ "Election Data 1997". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  22. 1 2 2011 Census statistics – Neighbourhood Statistics. Table: QS201EW

Bibliography

  • 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)
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.