In a move that will shock Newham Labour, Cllr Zuber Gulamussen resigned from the Labour Party two days before the by-election. First elected in 2014 (to East Ham North), Gulamussen resigned citing two main themes. The first was the appalling state of the roads etc. He makes clear that he is dissatisfied with the way in which Mayor Fiaz has failed the borough.

It does appear that the candidate blamed the mayor’s £20 charge for increasing rubbish on the streets. He may be right, but it is not the sort of candid statement you expect to hear from a candidate about his future boss.

This article is published before the results of the Plaistow North by-election are known. If Labour storms through with a substantial victory, we’ll have egg on our collective faces. We suspect that this will not be the case and that the best Labour can hope for is to hold on with a massively reduced share of the vote.

Some 19 mosques and Islamic centres have combined to demand that Newham councillors back calls for Keir Starmer to resign.

The Plaistow North byelection campaign has been conducted on social media in a way that no other election has seen in Newham. The use of social media has been spearheaded by the Independent group supporting Naqvi. The election has allowed other players to get in on the act.

Before Gaza began to dominate the byelection, Mirza’s Independents actively highlighted the problems faced by Newham Council. Residents experienced increasing costs and lower standards of service.

Naqvi has been active over the past week, appearing on Islam TV, (hosted by a familiar face) and joining the protest for Gaza. A number of memes have surfaced supporting her campaign as have a number of old-fashioned posters and placards.

In what appears to be a spin off from the by-election, Cllr Nate Higgins notes that Mayor Fiaz has enrolled a senior council officer in her publicity celebrating the “Achievement of manifesto commitments”. The post celebrating this has now been deleted.

The internet, being the internet of course, means that we do have a copy.

In what must be one of the more unusual twists in a local byelection, Mehmood Mirza has called upon Labour councillors to resign from the Labour Party because of their disagreements over Gaza.

Despite the feelings aroused in Plaistow North, the events stemming from the October 7th attack are not central to issues affecting the delivery of services from the council in Newham.

We said that we would wait until after the election, but the public demand for the memes has been significant, so, we have changed our minds. Below we show some of the memes adopted by the campaign to support Sophia Naqvi.

We concluded the report on the connections between Labour and quasi-independent candidate Anas Khan, with the remark, “It seems that every party represented in the byelection is required to hold some sort of event for Gaza. “

In a letter to residents, Labour candidate felt the need to open his appeal with his involvement in organising “Eid Prayer in the Park” over the last four years and let it be known that the proceeds were donated to local mosques.

Newham Independents have suggested that all is not true in this letter (see below) and,

News leaking out of the campaign suggests that the battle for Plaistow North will not be won on the doorstep, but in the mosques.

Various community leaders are making comments along the lines of “it's time for a change”, and repeating the line from Naqvi’s election material, “Labour isn’t working”.

The Mirza/Naqvi team put out the following. Oh, the irony!

The Mirza camp has been generating some amusing memes during the by-election campaign. We made a decision to compile and publish them all, but only after the campaign.

We learn that the mayor and some 30 Newham councillors have signed a letter to the Leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer. The inclusion of some names suggests a desire of some parliamentary hopefuls to burnish their credentials in advance of the West Ham and Beckton selection.

When Open Newham charted the influence of Tablighi Jamaat in the selection of Rokhsana Fiaz as the Labour candidate for mayor, we noted that one of the key organisers of the youth faction within the Tablighis, (Anas Khan) was also the key individual within Newham People’s Alliance.

The race begins in earnest and the candidates are announced.

Amid allegations that four shadow cabinet members are threatening to resign, eight (or maybe nine), Newham councillors joined some 150 Muslim councillors from across the UK with a view to getting Keir Starmer to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. (For some reason Salim Patel is recorded twice, but this may be a mistake and the second should have been Miraj Patel).

The battle lines for Newham Independents have been drawn.

In a two-pronged assault, Mirza’s Independents assert that Labour is failing the people of the borough locally and that Labour nationally is supporting Israel over Palestine.