Can the political power of Muslims stand in Britain?

November 08, 2023
The recent Palestine issue in Britain has left the country's large Muslim community frustrated with the two major parties, Labor and the Conservatives. After the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Muslims of Britain are disappointed with the Palestine issue of the two big parties. In this country with a large Muslim population, the need for a separate political party for Muslims is being felt by the people of the community at different levels. Many people see the possibility of success of the new party if a leader capable of leadership emerges in the Muslim community divided into different sects and factions. Although there are acceptable leaders like Lutfur Rahman former Deputy Mayor Ohid Ahmed in Tower Hamlets, they are busy with the internal politics of Tower Hamlets. Similarly, outside the Labor Conservatives, the Bangladeshi, Indian, Pakistani, and Somali communities have a diverse mix of generations across Britain. The leaders of the Muslim community believe that good things are possible if clean and educated Muslim leaders come out of the country-based community, not controversial. If the new generation of Muslims growing up in this country can be activated, if there is a good manifesto and ideology, many people are not blowing the possibility of a new party. In the past, people like become MPs in Bangladeshi and Muslim-majority areas of Britain outside of the parties that have capitalized on Muslim sentiments. Analysts say there is a possibility of a united political power of Muslims in Britain if they get a divisive and acceptable uncontroversial leadership. But the big teams won't make it that easily. If there is a new party and if that party is successful, the supporters of Labor Conservatives will also flock to that party. Very naturally the big parties will not give that opportunity. The Muslim Party UK will soon be launched. With its strange combination of the Islamic crescent and multiple Union Jack crosses, the amateur logo looks like a strange end-of-year project for a graphic design student – ​​but the party is clearly real. Nor is it alone. In recent weeks, the Islamic Party also attempted to register with the Electoral Commission, but the application was rejected on the grounds that it did not fully describe the party's structure and finances. The description provided by the proposed party: "We are a party established to give all ethnic minorities in the UK a voice" that will "ensure that any remaining issues (sic) in the great country". England is defeated” – showing that their enthusiasm for England was incomparable to their mastery of the language. The apparent driver of these efforts is the Labor Party's handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in recent weeks, with Starmer trying to maintain a line of acknowledging Palestinian suffering while reminding Israel's right to act against Hamas after the atrocities committed by this organization. It was suggested that he had to sneak out the door after making these comments, only to find himself facing a crowd shouting "shame" on him. Traditionally, the Labor Party has been the party of voting Muslims, with polls showing around 85% of them vote for the Labor Party. In many seats, Muslims are a key demographic, leading to notable intra-party clashes in places such as Batley and Birmingham, where Labour's socially liberal views clashed with small-scale social conservatism among many Muslim voters. But foreign policy has the greatest potential to test party loyalties. The Iraq War was the first sign of this, with activists Salma Yaqoob and George Monbiot forming the Respect Party in protest. Although Monbiot left the party the following year, he was replaced by George Galloway, who was elected MP for the Muslim-majority Bethnal Green & Bow party, amid backlash over his decision to join Labor Party war. Although this was its peak, the party had been struggling for about a decade. Galloway then founded the Workers' Party of Great Britain, modeling a fusion of leftism and Islam, which came third in the 2021 Batley-and-Spen by-election. One of the key issues was the A Muslim woman's community anger towards a local teacher she considered blasphemous. A more successful example can be found in London, where Lutfur Rahman was the Labor Party candidate for mayor of Tower Hamlets. After accusations of recruiting fake members to win the nomination, he was dismissed but launched an independent campaign and won easily. A Panorama documentary claims that he funneled millions of pounds in funding to Bangladeshi and Somali charities in return for votes, and that he funded local media in return Get favorable coverage. Only when four locals opposed his re-election, using an election petition, was he held accountable. The court found that he and his supporters used religious intimidation, vote fraud and false accusations that his Labor Party opponents were racist to win. Rahman went on to form the Aspire party, regaining the mayor's office after the election ban expired. His electoral success relied heavily on the Bangladeshi community, many of whom lived in social housing, with Tower Hamlets' cabinet made up exclusively of South Asian men. Thus, although a party may win through broad ethnic or religious appeal, this has so far not translated into national success. Decades of high immigration could change this, with the number of Muslims in Britain more than doubling between 2001 and 2021. There have been signs of this in support protests Recent Palestine has been largely dominated by ethnic minorities, in a way that the protests against the war in Iraq in 2003 were not. There are also other signs, such as the growing influence of Islam in Britain. This includes the Scottish First Minister and his Scottish Labor counterpart, both of whom are Muslims who feel the need to intervene openly in Palestine; to the rise of Muslim street activists, such as Shakeel Afsar, who hired an advertising van to display images of every Muslim councilor in Birmingham who had not yet come out support the Palestinian cause. It is likely that, at least in the short term, that pressure will increase on Labour. Demographics really have a lot to do with destiny, and for Labor they have changed, which has caught the party's attention. The size of the Anglo-Pakistani community is large enough to prompt it to make public statements on the Kashmir issue, although Starmer has tried to balance this against concerns that Labor will lose as a result Anglo-Indian vote. Labor finds itself competing for ethnic votes on foreign policy, showing how immigration has distorted politics. This becomes clear when looking at the Labor Party's relationship with Israel. For many years he was a supporter, largely due to the large number of Jewish delegates he had, although he was not the only one to support him. From 38 Jews elected as Labor MPs in 1966, this number has dropped to just five in 2019. At the same time, the number of Muslims elected as Labor MPs has increased significantly. In recent years, many (but not all) of them have been particularly supportive of the Palestinians. There is some truth in Lee Kuan Yew's assertion that "in multiracial societies, you don't vote based on your economic and social interests, you vote based on race and religion", even if this may be unfairly reductive. Social change in the West, first in the 1960s and more recently in 2020, has changed attitudes. Israel is now considered a Western or white colony, while Palestine represents oppressed minorities. This is especially evident in elite organizations, where supporters of Israel are hounded in public by those who are likely to find themselves at the top economically, culturally and politically. The main impact of immigration on politics is therefore not the emergence of new parties, but the way existing parties have reshaped our politics, both to win votes The election has just come under pressure from elite ideologies. The British state largely embraced the multiculturalism outlined in the Parekh Report, with its vision of a community of communities. The problem starts when the community disagrees. Criticizing the police for removing posters depicting kidnapped Israeli children or shutting down the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism ignores the police preventing community unrest - which is what they are required ask to do.