Politics: out in the open

By Richard North - May 7, 2024

There should have been only one response from Starmer to the 18 “demands” of the Muslim Vote sectarian pressure group, addressed specifically to him.

Essentially, he should have told them that the political party led by him, aspiring as it is to provide the next government, must represent the whole nation and will not be held hostage by a narrow minority group making demands which favour its own group to the detriment of others.

He should have pointed out that some of those demands are incompatible with the functioning of a liberal democracy while others are tantamount to requiring a future government to determine foreign policy on a partisan basis to suit the membership of a minority.

High up in his response, he should also have made it clear that, if adopted, the 18 demands would confer on the Muslim minority special privileges and status, exclusive to that group, which would enshrine permanent advantages to the detriment of the rest of the population, and therefore could not be tolerated.

And, without prejudice to any other matters, he should have been robust in rejecting any idea that any policy of a British government, applying to the population as a whole, should be constrained or determined by sectarian demands.

Since, in a quite blatant attempt to exercise undue political leverage from the application of a block vote, the Muslim Vote organisation went on to threaten a transfer of votes to the Green Party or the Lib-Dems, the leaders of those two parties should also have spoken out to distance themselves from the organisation.

Yet, despite this blatant attempt by a religious group to pervert the democratic process, Starmer and the other political leaders have made no direct response to it, much less issuing any criticism of it.

Instead, within hours of Muslim Vote demands being circulated on Twitter, we had Starmer issuing his own tweet declaring that “With more than a million Palestinian civilians sheltering in Rafah, an Israeli offensive must not go ahead”.

Going back on his previous, carefully crafted policy statements, he then said: “There must be an immediate ceasefire, the immediate release of all hostages, and unimpeded aid into Gaza that can be delivered regularly, quickly and safely”.

Starmer was also joined by newly-elected West Midlands mayor, Richard Parker, who had so nearly lost the election because of the intervention of Akhmed Yakoob on a pro-Palestinian platform.

In very similar terms to those of Starmer, he said: “The situation in Rafah is very worrying. An Israeli offensive must not go ahead. There must be an end to the loss of innocent lives. There should immediately be a ceasefire, the release of hostages and aid should be allowed into Gaza”.

Neither statement can have had any impact whatsoever on the Israelis, witnessed by the fact that the IDF is reported to have taken control of the Rafah Border Crossing between Egypt and Southern Gaza, after the breakdown of ceasefire talks.

There can, therefore, have been no other reason for these statements other than their authors playing to the domestic Muslim electorate in the hope of appeasing its voters and currying favour.

But it is not only the politicians who have been mute over this abuse of the democratic process. Remarkably, aside from the Mail, general coverage of the 18 demands has been low-key, with The Times confining itself to a largely factual account.

Latterly, the Mail is rallying opposition, citing Tory MP Andrew Percy, who had previously said in the Commons that he felt safer in Israel than Britain. His view is that: “Some of these demands are outright dangerous for the security of the UK and the future of our democratic values”.

“Starmer has a choice to make”, he says. “He can either be on the side of the liberal mainstream majority in this country or he can lean into sectarian identity-based politics”. He adds: “If Keir Starmer really has changed the Labour Party and moved on from the anti-Semitism scandal that plagued it, he should show leadership by rejecting calls that specifically target the world’s only Jewish state”.

Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith is also cited, telling the Mail: “This is shaping up to become a very big issue. It is a threat to our democracy and this amounts to nothing more or less than political blackmail. The threat is that they won’t vote for Labour”. But, he says, “If you give in to blackmail it never stops and others will see you are weak”.

In the opposite corner is the disgusting Guardian, which hands over column space to Miqdaad Versi, a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, writing under the heading: “There is a way for Starmer’s Labour to fix the big rift with Muslim voters – if it has the will”.

Versi argues that the wrong narrative to follow is that advanced by “the far right and other divisive naysayers”, who cite the local election results to demonise Muslims, “suggesting the vote shows we only care about foreign issues”.

He complains that faceless voices within the [Labour] party echo these “racist” views and treat Muslim voters as foreigners without the right to choose who they vote for. There was, he splutters, the “senior Labour source” who was quoted as describing the resignation of councillors on the issue of Gaza as “shaking off the fleas”.

Shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, is applauded for condemning that view as “a disgraceful thing to say”, but Versi goes on to say that the Labour leadership needs to combat such narratives and reset its understanding of British Muslim voters “as active and ultimately rational actors”. Like other groups, he declares, they “cannot be taken for granted and are looking for parties who advocate policies they care about”.

What he does not say, though, is that the Muslims tend to congregate in high density ghettos where their religious leaders and mosques are used to coordinate voting, while the postal vote system is exploited to deprive women of their votes, enabling them to be cast by their male relatives.

With the deindustrialisation of Britain, and the dispersion of traditional working-class communities, there is no longer the indigenous block Labour vote – which is part of the reason why so-called “Red Wall” seats have voted Tory. Thus, the Muslim block vote yields disproportionate political power, and the exploitation of a weakness in our system to promote sectarian issues is an unhealthy development.

There is no ambiguity in Versi’s piece thought. He calls for Labour to “offer an apology for errors”, a domestic policy “centred on fairness, not favours (but which actually favour Muslims), and a “progressive realism” foreign policy based on justice, human rights and equality.

In other words, the Muslims intend to use their leverage to shape UK foreign policy, which includes the recognition of a Palestinian state, travel bans on Israeli politicians and ending military ties with Israel.

They also want removal of the Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill (the BDS Bill, currently going through the Lords, a Bill hated by the Left and the pro-Palestinian lobby.

Domestically, Muslim Vote is continuing to push for the adoption of the APPG definition of Islamophobia, which would effectively create a de facto blasphemy law to shield Islam from hostile comment and also make it very difficult (if not hazardous) to criticise political Islam.

They would also seek to reverse the court ruling on the prayer ban in schools, and force “sharia compliant pensions” at every workplace, while a demand to implement in full the Royal Charter on media regulation can only be intended as a means to tighten press censorship.

Reviewing the full span of the 18 demands, it is inconceivable that these could be adopted by any based political system, but with Starmer needing the Muslim vote to get him over the line at the general election, they have him over a barrel.

Furthermore, Muslim Vote makes it very clear that there are more demands waiting in the wings and that the 18 will “do for starters”. The website sets out an expanded “wish list”, with substantially more detail.

That we are not getting expressions of outrage at this attempt to subvert our already stressed democracy is an indication of just how far the rot has spread, with Starmer prepared to throw the rest of the electorate under a bus in order to curry favour with the Muslims, while other political leaders are just as compromised.

There is one upside of this affair though. The Muslims have declared their hand, making the threat of political Islam more visible – perhaps prematurely as people are warned ahead of the general election.

But if cowardly and self-interested politicians don’t react to this threat, and the media don’t provide a lead, individual voters will have to make their views known by boycotting Muslim candidates. They need to know that sectarian voting works both ways.