Take back our power

In part 4 of our series on the importance of voting, UNITElive spoke to former bus driver Mohammad Taj, the first Asian and first Muslim president of the TUC.

 
Mohammad Taj has been a bus driver in Bradford for more than four decades. The son of a migrant from Kashmir, Taj began his career in buses at the young age of 20, back at a point in time in the country when racism was rife.

 
“The racism that I and other black and ethnic minorities faced was much more overt than it is now,” he explained. “Racism was everywhere – it came from employers, in government, in education, in all manner of institutions, even in trade unions.”

 
“Now, of course, things are much better,” he said. “Trade unions especially have made enormous advances in embracing the BAEM community and supporting the struggles we all face as working people, regardless of race.

 
“But we still have to be on guard,” he added. “Racism hasn’t so much disappeared as it has emerged in different forms. Racism now is much more clever; it’s smarter. It’s embedded in our institutions so deeply and obliquely that we think it no longer exists.”

 
Indeed, institutional racism in important public services still continues unabated, in, for example, the NHS and the police force.

 
Taj believes this invisible racism manifests itself in new voter registration rules, which have come into effect right before this year’s election. Not only does Individual Voter Registration (IER) disproportionately affect young people; it also disenfranchises BAEMs and working-class people.

 
“In my constituency in Bradford, 4500 people were on the electoral register in the last election. Now, with IER, there are 752. That’s a drop-off of more than 3,000 people in an area that’s predominantly BAEM and working-class.

 
“This is a conspiracy by the elite ruling classes who want to take away the most powerful tool we who are disempowered have to bring about change that reflects our interests,” Taj argued, saying the implementation of IER is similar to tactics used in America to disenfranchise ethnic minorities.

 
“I recently checked the electoral register,” he explained. “My wife and my children thought they were registered but they aren’t. No one on my street is, except for two people and myself. It’s nothing short of a scandal – and it isn’t being as heavily publicised as it should be.”

 
Taj, who’s been heavily involved in the trade union movement since he was young, ultimately becoming the first Asian and first Muslim TUC president in 2013, argues that those who may soon be robbed of their power to vote have to take that power back – the stakes in this election are now more important than ever before.

 
“The health service as we know it is at risk of being dismantled before our very eyes, just as is the welfare state and so many other institutions we hold dear,” he said.

 
“I can sympathise with working people and ethnic minorities who don’t feel that voting will make any difference, but the fact of the matter is that it does make a difference,” he added.

 
Taj recalls a local election from many years ago when the election results were effectively tied, and the councillor who won was decided by a coin toss.

 
“If only two or three more people had voted – people who thought it wouldn’t make a difference – the end result would not have been so arbitrary. A true democracy would have been carried out.

 
“This democracy is dependent on us – on doing our duty to get out and vote.”

 
Unite, in conjunction with the Daily Mirror and other campaigning groups such as Hope Not Hate, Operation Black Vote and Bite the Ballot, aims to reverse the mass disenfranchisement through IER that Taj highlighted, with our campaign #NoVoteNoVoice.

 
Find out more here, and be sure to register to vote by the deadline on April 20. You can register online with a simple click of the button; all you’ll need is your National Insurance Number.