One of the under-reported stories of the local elections is the steady growth of Muslim independents. Including Lutfur Rahman’s Aspire in Tower Hamlets, east London, at least 100 such councillors were elected last week, adding to the dozens already in place and the four independent Muslim MPs elected in 2024. What links has this new “Islamopopulist” movement to Islamism and other ideologies hostile to democracy? Or is it actually a sign of belief in democracy, people organising in a normal civic manner to advance their interests like other groups before them?
The two groups have a common fixation with Gaza and Palestine
A new report today for Policy Exchange, co-authored by me, has done a deep dive to try to answer this and other questions, finding some rather disturbing answers. Islamopopulism is a loose alliance of local independent groupings and two national initiatives, The Muslim Vote (TMV) and Vote Palestine. It’s not tightly centrally controlled; most decisions are made locally, rather than at the TMV level. And there’s no suggestion that every Muslim independent signs up to everything that TMV, Vote Palestine or all the others believe. But nor are the independents truly independent; there are clear links between them, and between them, TMV and other national bodies.
TMV, we find, has a “five-election plan spanning 25 years.” It is funded by a body which says society should “honour” and “look up to” Muslims. Senior figures in it compare their work to the Muslim leader Saladin recapturing Jerusalem from the Christians during the Crusades. In a fracturing political system, TMV says Muslims will be able to exercise “real power” as kingmakers. As the organisation’s data chief, Riaz Hassan, puts it: “When you’ve got a close contest between the two political parties then you’ve got a lot of leverage in terms of policymaking…and that’s where you have the real power moving forward.”
What would those policies be? TMV’s demands are overwhelmingly communal, with almost nothing to say on any of the issues which British voters rank as priorities, or on most of the issues which Muslim voters rank as priorities: the cost of living, the economy, health, employment, the environment. Instead, they seek fundamental changes to the UK’s international alliances, and to dismantle key parts of its counter-terrorism and counter-extremism apparatus, above all the Prevent programme.
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One prominent Islamopopulist, Shakeel Afsar, co-leader of the Independent Candidate Alliance which won multiple seats in Birmingham last week, goes even further, demanding that the British government arm Hamas. “As a British taxpayer, I want us to fund the Palestinians,” he said, in a previously unreported interview with Iran’s Press TV. “I want us to give them weapons, guns, missiles and allow them to liberate themselves against their occupiers.”
TMV has links with many extremist or problematic individuals and groups, including supporters of terrorism, leaders of a group now banned as terrorist, and holders of deeply hateful views. Some key Islamopopulists are convicted criminals. Others have been charged with major criminal offences and await trial. Others are under criminal investigation.
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