Muslims are organised and motivated like never before to impact the General Election

UK Labour MPs ‘could lose seats’ in areas with high Muslim populations

July’s election might throw up some ‘interesting’ results. I’m hoping Reform will do well, but there’s also a down side.  From Middle East Eye, The Sunday Telegraph and 5 Pillars

Senior UK Labour MPs in constituencies with high Muslim populations could lose their seats due to the party’s stance on Israel’s war on Gaza, according to a new report.

Citing Labour insiders, the Daily Mail reported that several opposition lawmakers were at risk in the upcoming general election, which Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced would take place on 4 July.

In several areas with large Muslim populations, pro-Palestinian independent candidates are running to challenge incumbent Labour politicians.

That includes British-Palestinian activist Leanne Mohamad (not a nice lady, to be honest not even a lady, she was an unpleasant little girl) standing against shadow health secretary Wes Streeting in Ilford North, and former South African MP Andrew Feinstein standing against Labour leader Keir Starmer in Holborn and St Pancras.

The British Muslim community is making an unprecedented attempt to organise ahead of the General Election on July 4 with the intention of punishing the traditional parties, and especially Labour, through their bloc vote, writes Roshan Muhammed Salih.

Over the past few months the momentum within the Muslim community has been growing to ensure that Muslim voices are heard at the highest levels of politics.

It all started with George Galloway’s extraordinary March win in the Rochdale by-election which was thanks to local Muslims self-organising in alliance with Galloway’s own political know-how.

This was followed by a number of independent Muslim candidates around the country, such as Akhmed Yakoob in Birmingham, Muhammad Akunjee and Leanne Mohamad in London, and many others, announcing that they would stand for parliament in seats occupied by problematic incumbents or appeasers of genocide.

And then we have seen the launch of The Muslim Vote organisation which held an event in Birmingham on Saturday (left – where are the women?) which I attended. Around 200 people from all around the nation were present, many of whom were influential figures within their own local communities.

As in the Rochdale by-election, they were all mainly motivated by the desire to organise a Muslim bloc vote essentially to punish the Tories and Labour (especially Labour) for supporting Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

And most attendees I spoke to seemed to have a steely determination to make sure that the four million strong Muslim community in the UK makes its voice heard like never before.

That said, many obstacles lie in our way – some out of our control and some self-inflicted.

Firstly, there are still many Labour loyalists in our community who would probably keep supporting Labour even if a Keir Starmer government invaded Kashmir. Clear and direct conversations need to be had with these people with the aim of cutting our community’s umbilical cord with this genocide-supporting party.

In the Sunday Telegraph

The frontman for The Muslim Vote campaign group suggested Britain helped to “create racism” through colonisation, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

Abubakr Nanabawa is the co-ordinator, spokesman and sole director of the group, which will create a list of approved candidates for Muslims to vote for in the general election on July 4.

While a student Labour activist at Birmingham University, Mr Nanabawa suggested there was a link between the British Empire and the prevailing attitude towards the races it colonised.

The campaign was established in response to the war in Gaza and the Labour Party’s decision not to oppose Israel’s military response to Oct 7 from the start.

It is aiming to make sure Britain’s 3.9 million Muslims turn out on polling day and vote against Labour candidates, putting pressure on Keir Starmer to adopt The Muslim Vote’s 18 demands. These include immediately recognising Palestine as a state, cutting military ties with Israel and investing seven per cent of public pensions in “ethical and Islamic funds”. (and cheaper car insurance for anybody named Mohammed – honestly – Alexander Orlov missed a trick there) 

A number of prominent Muslim radicals are involved in the campaign, prompting concerns about its leadership. Those involved include the ex-leader of now-proscribed Hizb ut-Tahrir and a man who has dismissed allegations of hostage rape against Hamas as a “lie”.

Prof Nigel Biggar CBE, the author of Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, disputed Mr Nanabawa’s reading of imperial history, saying: “Group prejudice is a normal human phenomenon. The Brahmins despised Untouchables in India long before Britons arrived,” he said. “Medieval Arab Muslims explained the natural inferiority of white Europeans and black Africans as an effect of a climate, respectively, too cold and too hot. And when the Irish novelist, Gerald Hanley, was serving in the British Army in Somaliland during the Second World War, he found he couldn’t persuade his Somali troops to obey their Bantu sergeant, because they regarded the Bantu as natural slaves.”

The Sunday Telegraph can reveal that another figure involved in the campaign is Anas Altikriti, who said in an interview with Mr Nanabawa on April 17 that he was acting as an “adviser” to the organisation. Mr Altikriti has previously said the taking of hostages was a “very important part” of any “act of resistance”, that Israel was “mimicking” Nazis and that allegations of hostage rape against Hamas were a “lie”.

Concluding with 5 Pillars

The stakes are high and we cannot fail. If we don’t succeed this time when Gaza is the ultimate motivation we will be a laughing stock and will never be taken seriously at high political levels again. So in short, the entire community needs to mobilise around this campaign. No excuses.