such a vitriolic hate campaign incited by the Daily Mail that they had to seek police protection.
The NCADC have now been told that they will get their grant, although the Community Fund has made it conditional on their keeping their website free of "doctrinaire language".
Asylum seekers face appalling odds in their fight to stay here, as shown by the suffering of the Ahmadi and Ay families, Afghans and Kurds respectively.
At present although asylum seekers are bravely continuing to resist because they have no option, and along with their supporters are scoring some victories, the anti-deportation movement in this country desperately needs far more support from the left, the labour movement and the anti-capitalist movement.
This problem cannot be solved easily, but we need to try to find ways of raising the profile and increasing the strength of the movement. Update on Ahmadi family.
The family have won an appeal before an adjudicator on 1 November, though they have not won the right to return to this country from Germany to attend the hearing. They will only be able to participate by video-link.
The fear that they will be sent back to Afghanistan and the long-drawn out nature of the proceedings, as well as the bad conditions they are being held in in Germany are taking their toll.
Mrs Ahmadi is very depressed and suicidal at times, her husband has become depressed, and both the children are very stressed. Money is urgently needed to help with expenses (phone calls and travel to Germany, legal expenses and so on). Money and messages of support should be sent to CDAS. Will McMahon, Chair, Foot For Mayor Campaign Committee (in a personal capacity)
The Foot for Mayor campaign culminated in the Hackney Socialist Alliance coming within 311 votes off being in the Mayoral run-off against New Labour. This, without doubt, is a significant result; it maintains the upward curve in the SA vote in Hackney since the 2001 General Election. But what does it tell us?
The Hackney Socialist Alliance is more than a new electoral machine. For more than two years it has slowly built up a layer of support through engaging in a wide number of single issue, but interconnected, campaigns.
Campaigns around the closure of the Huddleston disabled children's centre, the attempts to close numerous nurseries, attacks on the council workforce's pay and conditions; in defence of children's playgrounds, old people's day centres and service provision; in activities to stop the closure of community centres and to keep schools, libraries and swimming pools open.
In between all of this we have tried to give this movement an electoral voice by standing in four elections in two years (Ward, Borough, General, Mayor). The voice we heard was much louder than ! expected.
My final post to the campaign committee list was an expectation of a vote between 6.5 and 7%. If pushed to be less eDo cautious I would have suggested up to, but not reaching double figures.
In the end the mixture of ongoing campaign work and an electoral presence delivered a major warning to New Labour; 4|87 votes (12.7 %).
It also delivered a major blow to the Hackney Green Party which had up until then been seen as the main alternative vote. It is significant that in its final comment to the Hackney Gazette the Green Party chose to focus on two things. First, that only they could defeat New Labour as they had got more votes than the SA in the 2002 local elections. Second noting that they had not, like the SA, traveled around the borough in an 'environmentally unfriendly battle bus - a rather sectarian sideswipe that revealed late in the day their view of the SA as the main enemy.
My first thought on reading this was that they had missed the fact that most people in Hackney traveled by bus to get about the place, in a borough where car ownership is low, rail unreliable and there is no tube.
However, more broadly, their tactic of moving rightwards on a 'commonsense management message to defeat the Liberals whilst trying to hold on to their left wing vote in order to finish second
STOP privotsabion Civil service union leader Mark Serwotka was among those joining campaign platforms in support of Paul Foot (right of platform) was disastrous, and did not fool the radical working class of the borough; they voted for the SA. They did not want the Truman show.
There are self-evidently things that we could have done better and at the October members meeting will discuss these points.
However, more important is the issue of how we bring together the leading forces that we assembled electorally right into the Socialist Alliance and how to deepen our roots in the borough.
Orientation to the war and the firefighters is key, but also central must be a commitment to add a third tactic to our campaigns/election strategy, and that is to build an ongoing presence in local communiFREEDOM DEFEND PALESTINE
SEEKERS ties. It is this work, alongside a strategy in the trade unions, that will play a key part in undermining the foundations of the New Labour edifice in the long run.
Generations of people who had voted Labour in Hackney broke with them in this election and many did not vote Labour as a second preference.
They have family members, friends and work colleagues who may not have bro ken this time but may next.
The upcoming attack on Iraq and the firefighters' dispute will lead to many more political activists leaving the Labour Party.
It is essential that we now make the Socialist Alliance a home for them and for many working class communities who Labour is now attacking on a daily basis.