By any means necessary?
Exposed: Labour’s dirty tricks campaign against IWCA
New information has recently come to light confirming that local Labour Party activists have been using smear tactics against the IWCA, spreading a number of
serious and totally unfounded rumours in order to discredit the organisation and its representatives. IWCA election agent Shan Sriharan investigates.
Prior to the May 2002 election that delivered our first councillor, New Labour’s strategy for dealing with the IWCA in Oxford appeared to consist of simply ignoring us and hoping we’d go away. We have since discovered that this was only half the story.
We had, it turns out, underestimated the party of government, whose activists had been quietly beavering away with their efforts to undermine the growing support for the IWCA in Blackbird Leys. However, rather than attempt to address the real issues and engage in democratic debate, it appears Labour preferred to take the easier, cynical route of covert black propaganda.
A number of witnesses have now emerged who are willing to talk about the malicious rumours spread about the IWCA and our candidate for Northfield Brook, Stuart Craft, prior to the election. The evidence indicates that these rumours came from within the Labour Party, with one of its locally elected councillors playing a particularly prominent role.
Among the rumours that have been circulating are:
- That Stuart Craft has a conviction and has served a prison term for drug-related offences;
- That the IWCA operates as a front for Ulster paramilitaries;
- That the IWCA is ‘neo-Nazi’ (variously described as National Front and BNP).
Needless to say, there is no truth whatsoever in any of these allegations. In fact anyone who knows Stuart Craft or is familiar at all with the IWCA would find them ludicrous. However, Labour were no doubt relying on the IWCA being a new party (only registered in September 2001) and on the fact that not everyone would know Stuart personally.
Labour councillors may indeed have expected this campaign of lies and malicious rumours to see off the ‘upstart’ IWCA. This would certainly explain why they felt able to sit back smugly during the election night count at the Town Hall, in expectation of victory.
It would also explain the look of horror on their faces when the IWCA took the Northfield Brook seat.
This was slightly puzzling to our activists at the time, as it seemed obvious from our canvassing returns that we were in for a good result. The IWCA had spoken to well over a thousand residents and had been engaged in ongoing community campaigns to tackle the issues of most concern to people—most notably crack-cocaine and heroin dealing. In contrast, Labour had been consistently ignoring these issues and appeared to have done little more than conduct a telephone canvass of their core voters.
Even with Labour’s dirty tricks we still managed to double the turn-out from the previous comparable election (something echoed in other areas of the country where the IWCA has stood). We achieved this by reaching out to those disillusioned with politics who would not otherwise have bothered to vote. These were the people that Labour had no contact with, so were unable to influence. Without a doubt, our heavy canvassing, which allowed us to deliver our common sense, pro-working class message to the widest possible audience, paid off.
Yet in spite of our hard work, the evidence suggests that the efforts of the rumour-mongers may well have had some impact on our results. Considering the closeness of the top four results in Northfield Brook, it’s not unreasonable to think that without Labour’s underhand, and in fact illegal campaign, the IWCA’s second candidate Lee Cole could have taken the other seat for the ward, substantially altering the face of local politics.
Interestingly, when the IWCA stood in a council by-election last January in Bunhill, North London—an area where the NF once had a substantial base of support—the IWCA was depicted by opposition canvassers, on the doorstep, as being ‘far left’. This indicates the calculating nature of smear tactics like this—the rumours are designed to do maximum damage locally rather than in the expectation that they will have any correspondence with the truth.
Hopefully, being forewarned, Blackbird Leys residents will not allow themselves to be taken in by misinformation a second time. If the IWCA has something to say about another organisation or individual then we will come out and say it publicly. In other words, we will continue to be accountable for what we say. If representatives of rival parties wish to make allegations in private they don’t dare repeat in public then it should only serve to confirm the lack of substance in their remarks.
We are currently looking at our legal position in relation to this issue and would encourage anyone to come forward if they know anything more about unfounded rumours being spread about the IWCA.
As always, any information supplied will, if requested, be treated in the strictest confidence.
Leys Independent, issue 19, September 2003
| 
