These are the moments that define us

By Ralph Baldwin

Many people in history have been recorded for doing extraordinary things in difficult and very challenging circumstances. As Labour heads forward toward the general election in Barking and Dagenham, we know we face a test.

I walk down the Dagenham Heathway I see a little boy in a pram waving at an object in the distance as his mother pushes him along. His eyes are bright and his little smile is a winning one. Across the road by the Wetherspoon’s pub there’s an elderly man slowly walking by, leaning on his walking stick. Directly in front of me a stranger is helping a women lift her pram.

The little boy and his mother are of Asian descent. The old man wore a turban; it was a white chap helping an Asian women struggling with her pram.

The idea of these people living in fear of verbal abuse and violent intimidation sends my heart alight. I have never been able to accept bullies pushing around those who cannot easily support themselves and these are decent people who need to be supported.

While still in South Korea earlier this year I asked the frequent contributors on LabourList how fascism should be dealt with. It was my first and favourite article. Tories, Liberals, disenchanted Labour minded, Labour, all people contributed. That is what I am witnessing here in Barking and Dagenham: everyone coming together from the churches and the businesses to the ordinary people in the street.

The brave people who have put themselves potentially in harm’s way to campaign for the Labour Party during such awful times, against those extremists who worship hate and whose only pleasure is to bring sadistic harm to those who cannot protect themselves, should be treated with great respect. Those Councillors who have taken a place on the Council should also be applauded for enduring the filth and garbage in the form of verbal abuse cast their way by the BNP councillors. It creates quite the contrast when we compare these brave Labour people with the cowards who frequent Parliament.

Whether or not I am successful in my own bid for office, I shall campaign the Party for a special something to be given to these very brave activists, volunteers and community workers who are risking much, devoting tremendous energy in cleaning up a mess left by neglect and Parliamentary corruption.

Yes, Labour still has its heroes and all of the Labour Party in Barking and Dagenham should be applauded, along with the very brave and tough local community.

I consider it a singular honour comparable to serving my country to be permitted to work alongside these great people who will use their strength to make a mark in history that will resound across the United Kingdom. They say no to political corruption and neglect and most of all no to Nick Griffin and his thugs.

The threat is real and our Muslims, our Christians, our Bhuddists, our Jews and our Hindus shall stand together as brothers and sisters, to volunteer, to campaign and to bring light where ignorance and anger might hold sway.

There can be no defeat; the people here cannot afford it and in my view neither can the country.

So I toast the people of Barking and Dagenham, of whichever mainstream politics or religion, who unite in the face of evil because everyone one of them that chooses to campaign peacefully against the BNP, or more importantly for their community, are my heroes and heroines and I applaud them as I applaud LabourList and those who contributed to that article as their ideas take flight and become substance here.