Muslims in the UK need a parliamentary party

Muslims make up 6.5% of the population of England and Wales and contributed to 33% of the population growth between 2011 and 2021. Not all Muslims will be able to partake in elections, but British Muslims are clearly not a trivial demographic group. We form a small but significant part of the electorate. And yet across the political spectrum there is little interest from the mainstream political parties in those issues that really concern the Muslim population.

And why should there be? Muslims vote tribally for Labour, as many of us know anecdotally and from our own experience. This has also been evidenced by a survey conducted around the time of the 2017 general election, which showed that 85% of Muslims are thought to have voted for Labour. This overwhelming level of support was not manifest in any other religious group recognised by the survey, all of which had less than 50% support for Labour. Furthermore, the results of the 2021 census showed, unsurprisingly, that many of the areas with the largest Muslim populations voted for Labour in 2019. 

If Muslims vote tribally for Labour, such that Labour knows they will win the Muslim vote by default, then what incentive does Labour have to actively appeal to us and not just take us for granted?

Muslims are not clones with the same views, but generally, and admittedly anecdotally, most Muslims tend to desire the same core list of policies: a pro-immigration outlook with a welcoming attitude towards refugees, recognition of a Palestinian state, a foreign policy that is not aggressive and hostile towards Muslim countries, interest-free student loans, cheaper and more widely available Islamic finance such as Islamic mortgages and pensions, freedom to wear the hijab and niqab, etc. Muslims also typically take the conservative stance on socially progressive issues such as the recent Scottish transgender law controversy.

There is no mainstream political party that stands for this unique combination of policy ideas, or anything even resembling it. Labour has some of the key ideas but not nearly all of them. And there’s no incentive for them to take our concerns seriously because we vote for them anyway.

How could we stop the Labour party from taking us for granted? One straightforward solution is coordinated voting. If Muslims across the UK voted Conservative, and turned many of their constituencies blue, that would not only get Labour’s attention but also make the Conservatives think about what they could do to keep us in their camp. But of course, the obvious and most practical issue associated with that plan is that it is unworkable. In practice, coordinating Muslims across the UK to switch sides tactically is probably impossible and many Muslims would not feel comfortable voting for the Conservatives in the first place. A similar solution would be to have Muslims abstain until Labour, or another party, offers us something substantial. But again, that’s likely to be unworkable and impossible to coordinate.

This is why, in my view, a political party that exists specifically to publicise and push for Muslim interests is needed—a British Muslim political party that stands for election in Parliamentary and local elections. The party would not need a comprehensive plan for government, because reaching government would not be its intention, but rather it would need to specialise and focus on the mix of policy ideas that Muslims uniquely find attractive.

This party could campaign firstly for halal tuition fees; a wider availability of Islamic finance; a welcoming immigration policy; commonplace multi-faith rooms in public facilities, shopping centres and motorway service stations; and those quality-of-life ideas that would really make a big, tangible difference to the daily lives of Muslims on the ground. And secondly, they could campaign sensitively for recognition of a Palestinian state, giving parents greater control over the treatment of LGBT ideas in schools, and other mainstream political issues.

The party could then field candidates and focus campaigning in areas with large Muslim communities such as Leicester, Manchester, Luton, Birmingham, London, and so forth. Winning these seats would put pressure on Labour to implement some of the aforementioned policies to win these seats back. But in addition, it would also have the following benefits:

• Electoral success would amplify the Muslim voice in a way that has never been possible before.

• By presenting a Muslim-friendly alternative to voting for Labour, it may be possible to convince Muslims to vote differently. In other words, the campaigning of the party would serve as the means of coordinating Muslims across the UK to change their voting habits that was referenced earlier. Unlike the plans mentioned earlier, however, the decision not to vote for Labour is straightforward, easy to understand, has obvious benefits, and does not involve voting for the Conservative party or not voting at all.

To be successful, the party would have to focus on serving the Muslim community and standing for those issues that unite Muslims. Sectarian and theological controversies should not even be remotely relevant as they would have little, if anything, to do with the party’s purpose and objective. Furthermore, the party would need to understand that its success would not come from reaching high office or anything of the sort. Rather, the success of the party would be in Labour copying some of its policies.

A British Muslim political party is, in my view, the way for Muslims to have their voices heard, to be listened to and catered for, and to be able to vote and campaign for policies they truly believe in.