It is time to stop blindly replicating previously failed attempts to leverage the Muslim vote in the UK, argues Arzu Merali.
Listen to the audio or read the article below.
I: Learning from the Past
“…nations have no permanent friends and no permanent enemies, only permanent interests.”
~ Benjamin Disraeli (maybe, or Lord Palmerston, or both) circa mid 19th Century
“Zionism not only kills people, it kills the soul.”
~ Rabbi Yisroel Weiss, August 2001
Most of this is about the UK…
When I started writing this, it was early in 2024, no election had yet been called although every other week there was intense speculation. Just when we had settled into the idea of an October election, inflation dropped and steadied, and we were looking at 4th July. The following piece and two subsequent ones will be some observations from me based on my thirty plus years [1] of work in the ‘human rights’ field – a field which cuts across different territories: politics, religion, belief, law, policy, sociology. As the elections approach in just over four weeks, I want to ask and generate discussion on how we can and why we should have a revolutionary politics in this time of genocide.
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The genocide in Palestine has galvanised Muslims in particular, and much of the wider communitiy/ies, to push for better political representation. By better, I mean a politics shorn of its current immorality and corruption where almost everyone within established political spaces either fully supports the genocidal machinations of the Israeli regime, or feels they must show some form of qualified understanding and support. A system which arms the genocidaires and demonises those massacred, maimed and displaced. This moment is one of immense possibility (and it does feel different to every other time there has been a genocidal push by the Israelis against the Palestinians in the last 25 years).
Another ‘mobilisation of the Muslim vote’
Somewhere, in the deep recesses of the internet, there is possibly an article, or some anonymous copy from a young Arzu Merali (I forget whether for an IHRC blog or Muslim News or Q-News or other) that references Benjamin Disraeli, one of the 19th century’s British Prime Ministers. Whilst my A-Level history taught me he was the progenitor of the phrase, the internet has offered other authors including the infamous Minister for Foreign Affairs, Lord Palmerston, another 19th century politician. Regardless, I included the quote, because like many I believed that organising and lobbying were the inevitable and only ways Muslims would have a say in society.
The date for this text of mine, would have been 1996 / 97 in anticipation of upcoming UK elections that posed the possibility of getting rid of a Tory government. For some of my age, that government had been a blight on the country for some 17 years at least; a disaster on so many levels, including for what we used to merrily call ‘race relations’.
I can’t find the ‘permanent friends’ article online, just some blurb for the project MuslimElection ‘97, and I am glad. I will probably die of embarrassment reading it now. My contention then was that enfranchised UK based Muslims needed to leverage their vote to ensure that Muslim / Islam friendly MPs were voted in, in the 1997 elections. It was a soft launch for the MuslimElection ’97 project. I have been helping IHRC with their archive on and off for the last couple of years and this needs to be the next tranche. MuslimElection used data compiled by UKACIA (UK Action Committee on Islamic Affairs) on seats where the population of Muslim voters could influence the outcome of elections in that constituency.
The project issued a questionnaire to prospective parliamentary candidates (in the days before political parties had (functioning or any) websites and emails) about: Islamophobia (at the time a taboo word in Muslim civil society), free speech, ‘blasphemy’ laws, Islamic dress in schools, nikab, Palestine, Kashmir, the anti-terrorism laws of 1997 (and in the subsequent election the 2000 Act) and more. Armed with this information, the informed Muslim voter was supposed to (a) make educated choices, and (b) grassroots movements could ensure that politicians took ‘Muslim’ interests seriously for fear else of losing their parliamentary seat. A particular target of this campaign was the Shadow Home Secretary Jack Straw, who refused to respond to the questionnaire, and whose subsequent comments and policies once in power as first Home Secretary and then Foreign Secretary made clear that he couldn’t care less for the wider concerns of Muslims. His example is important, I will bring it up again later.
Oh, to be young again. The project was repeated in 2001 and 2005. Others also sprung up, notably Inminds and MPACUK. Much later when it was formed MEND (following on from the work of iEngage) also joined the fray. Doubtless others too (I confess at some point I lost interest because of what comes below). These are all precursors to Muslim Vote launched in the run up to the announcement of the 2024 election:
‘… focused on seats where the Muslim vote can influence the outcome. We are here for the long term. In 2024, we will lay the foundations for our community’s political future.’
This piece is in no way a criticism of that project, I wish it all power and success. But here is the rub. I don’t see anything substantially different in this project than those outlined above, including the ones I was involved in. I am not sure what, if any, consideration of the past failures of the previous projects (and I think on balance they all failed), has taken place in the creation of this project. It is still the same vision – the idea that x amount of seats can be swayed according to a mobilised Muslim vote, and that in turn will (a) show Muslims to be as important as other minorities (for which read Zionist Jews) and; (b) that the political establishment will realise that Muslims and their interests must be courted.
Lesser Evils and Greater Amnesia
WhatsApp groups are currently raging with debates. Should we vote Labour still? Is there such a thing as a ‘lesser of two evils’ candidate? How do we mobilise for 5 years time? These are important questions, but they are nothing new. Witnessing these debates however, it is clear that for those asking the questions, it is as if there has been no thinking about Muslim political organising before 7 October. It is either extreme amnesia, or once again, no understanding of what has gone before.
We are at a time when the Muslim vote for Labour, which has historically been the party of the Muslim vote, should have collapsed – and it has indeed taken a big hit. If we are honest however, it hasn’t been impacted enough. The fact that it was still until 6th October 2023, the party of choice for Muslims young and old despite the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, the relentless support for both the Israeli settler colonial project and the widening of pro-Israel influence in UK politics under the regime of Tony Blair, the massive expansion of the security state – targeting primarily Muslims; and of course the leveraging of Islamophobia and anti-Palestinianism to crush from within the Jeremy Corbyn movement in the party, are damning of Muslim political organising in the UK and the failure to learn from the past.
Of this I too am guilty. Despite knowing so many of the leading Muslim figures, the elders who came to the UK in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s for whom these questions were not new, I don’t recall seeking their advice when working on MuslimElection ’97. None of us did. We didn’t look in 2001 or 2005 (or any year until he retired from parliament) at why Blackburn kept returning an increasingly problematic Jack Straw to power. Those Muslims in Harrow mobilising to get Gareth Thomas (re)elected as an MP in Harrow West (yes that Gareth Thomas) actually adamantly refused to take on board the concerns of those of us who were now (relatively) veterans of this type of activism. Let’s be honest, we are not even looking at how a Muslim candidate standing in part on a ticket of anti-Islamophobia failed to take the very shaky seat of Boris Johnson in 2019. There are so, so many more examples. That is not even 5 years ago. We seem to be ever credulous (mea culpa) both that the simple ‘leverage your vote’ position doesn’t happen, and that the fault of this lies with Muslims.
Not All Bad News?
Of course there have been victories, then and now. The repeated victories of George Galloway as protest candidate in first 2005 in Bethnal Green & Bow and then in 2012 in Bradford West, and now in Rochdale. The recent win of Sofia Naqvi as an independent councillor in Plaistow North (East London) who is standing as an independent candidate in the upcoming national vote. There is also the rise to power of Aspire in 2018, which is maybe one of the more important case studies that few speak about. Of all of these, the case of Lutfur Rahman and the Aspire Party has something of sustainability about it. Then there are the efforts at creating alternative political parties whether Muslim oriented, friendly or neither: the Greens, Islamic Party of Britain and Respect to name a few.
We need to learn, and we need to also realise that no one project, and importantly no one generation has understood the situation or framed a politics better than before. It doesn’t mean we can’t vehemently disagree and even reject some of the ideas. It does mean though that we can break the cycle of repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Understanding what has driven certain communities to make certain bargains with their local MP is of extreme importance. I will cite two. The first is that of Gareth Thomas and the campaign of 2001 which saw Muslim locals put all their heft behind him in the hope that he would drop his pro-Israel stance. The context of this, by the way, was the second Intifada – the murder of Muhammad al-Durrah, Ariel Sharon’s incursion and threats to Masjid al-Aqsa, and the ever increasing brutality of the Israeli occupiers – were fresh in everyone’s minds. It was also pre-9-11.
Thomas’ failure to vote for the ceasefire motion at the outset of the Gaza genocide speaks volumes to how this model of so-called leveraging the Muslim vote does not work. The other example is that of Jack Straw’s constituency. Muslim activists – myself included – have been excoriating of the Blackburn electorate. How could they possibly keep voting in a man who denies Islamophobia, attacks Muslim women in nikab (many of the British population of whom live in his constituency), presided over the implementation of some of the most draconian security laws, managed a blood-stained foreign policy (he was given the Foreign Secretary brief after the previous incumbent, the late Robin Cook, resigned over the Iraq War) that saw maybe a million killed? Let’s not even get into Palestine.
I and others were quick to judge and decry those voters. It made no sense, particularly as it seemed practising Muslims were a strong support base for Straw. In exuberant mood, campaigners encouraged former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray to stand against Straw on a pro-Palestine ticket in 2005. Murray, who had lost his position due to his stance against the torture of Muslims in that country, was then and even more so now, exactly the type of independent candidate that Muslims should find and get behind – he has shown himself to be a principled person, and he has a(n) (former) insider understanding of the political system[2]. It didn’t work, not by a long chalk. No-one really went to Blackburn and spoke to Muslim voters. Muslim campaigners just parachuted in alongside him and tried to lecture the locals on their betrayal of Muslim interests.
If we had spoken to Muslims there, with due humility, we may have heard a different story. A political ‘success’ story of sorts. In return for help with visa applications, planning applications for mosques, school uniform modifications, prayer rooms and halal meals at school, the list could go on, they returned Jack Straw as MP year after year. These were their identified interests and they made sure they were delivered on. This is actually a textbook example of how UK politics works – insofar as it can do for minoritised and racialised communities. We didn’t learn, just lectured. And worse still that lecturing was based on an idea that the system, if played ‘properly’ would work for ‘us’ Muslims in our ‘foreign policy’ interests. It is the idea that the UK supports Israel because British Zionists have lobbied them to do so. There is no consideration or understanding of how foreign policy works, how international politics works, just a credulous buy-in to the idea that the vote in the UK can be made to work for everyone in the same way.
It is the idea of no permanent friends, only permanent interests motivating us to keep turning the wheels of a system that is created to disenfranchise the majority as well as those minoritized. The second quote I cite at the start is from Rabbi Yisroel Weiss. Campaigners in the UK will know him as a regular visitor and supporter of pro-Palestinian activities. He joined the IHRC team at the UN World Conference against Racism in Durban in 2001. This comment came up as we drove from one venue to another (I forget why). He was explaining his group’s, Neturei Karta’s, opposition to Zionism. It was not simply a case of the killing done in its name. Zionism kills the soul. We need to identify those ideas and systems that are doing the same to us in our quest for a Muslim politics.
Part II of this short series looks at the need to understand the political system. Part III will discuss what we can do, and discuss ideas of how we can get a revolutionary politics.
Arzu Merali is a writer and researcher based in London, UK. Find out more about her on this site or follow her on X and Instagram @arzumerali.
[1] As I stated in January, I will be reviewing old articles and pieces of work. These articles have been informed by my article ‘My Lobby Ran Off With Kilroy, or Why Muslims Shouldn’t Emulate Zionist Politics’ originally written for Q-News in 2001/2 I subsequently reviewed in ‘We made a time machine out of British Muslim election activism’ in 2015. The third piece that is referred to is a piece I wrote for New Politics called ‘Citizen Ali’ from 2006.
[2] Murray appears to be standing in Blackburn again in 2024.
Images: Keir Starmer CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED, Rishi Sunak Number 10 CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED
