Watch and listen to the first of three special podcasts looking at the UK General Elections with IHRC media officer and former journalist Faisal Bodi, former IHRC head of research and current co-editor of The Long View, Arzu Merali and IHRC Chair and veteran activist Massoud Shadjareh. In this first podcast, the team look at the purpose and potential of a Muslim Bloc vote given the ongoing genocide in Gaza, come 4th July.

Watch the full podcast here.

Find out more about IHRC’s work on representation and minoritised communities in the UK from the following links:

British Muslims’ Expectations of the Government project

Countering Islamophobic Narratives – UK

Muslim Experiences of Hostility & Discrimination project 

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PODCAST ONE: What should happen on 4th July and why?

In this first podcast, the team look at the purpose and potential of a Muslim Bloc vote given the ongoing genocide in Gaza, come 4th July.

 

Faisal Bodi: Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. The idea of a Muslim vote is nothing new, but it’s been given a huge boost and an increased profile of late because of the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Eight and a half months into a live stream genocide against the people of Gaza, blessed, aided and abetted by the West, Muslims are being asked to punish those MPs who have failed to back a cessation of the unremitting violence being inflicted by Israel.

In this series of three podcasts, the Islamic Human Rights Commission will be bringing its extensive experience and knowledge to bear on efforts to use a Muslim block vote at the upcoming general election and to critically examine the concept, its merits and its limitations. I’m Faisal Bodi, Media Officer at the Islamic Human Rights Commission, a former journalist specializing in Muslim affairs. Joining me today is Masood Shadjareh, a veteran Muslim political activist and the founder and chair of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, who it’s to say has witnessed many elections and has a wealth of experience on the subject. Welcome to you, Massoud.

 

Massoud Shadjareh: It’s pleasure to be here.

 

Faisal Bodi: Also with us is Arzu Merali, a co-founder of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, who was formerly the head of research and is also a prolific writer on Muslim affairs and the co-editor of the Islamic Human Rights Commission journal, The Long View. Welcome to you, too, Arzu.

 

Arzu Merali: Thanks.

 

Faisal Bodi: So, we’re in the closing stages now of the home straights leading to the general election on July the 4th and efforts are being made frantically all around the country to deploy, successfully deploy what’s being termed a strategic Muslim vote or a block vote in order to punish those MPs who have failed to back a ceasefire in Gaza and more broadly who it’s deemed to have failed to represent the needs and the interests of Muslim constituents.

Now, it’s fair to say the concept of the Muslim vote or a block Muslim vote is nothing new. We’ve been here before, ever since the late 90s, there’s been talk and activity in order to sort of galvanize, mobilize Muslims to vote in a way that would further the interest of the whole Muslim community first and foremost. I remember back in the late 90s there were some efforts by the Islamic Human Rights Commission, then followed by the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, just to name two. Ultimately, they came to very little.

But I think if we’re being honest and fair. The seeds were sown at that time for the idea and it’s, you know, every election since it has resurfaced with varying results. Now, you know, being totally honest, it hasn’t really been overly successful and the cynics amongst the community will say, “you know, well, what’s changed in the community and in the political landscape?” to make us think that it will be a bigger success this time around and I’ll let you go first, Arzu.

 

Arzu Merali: What’s changed? So, as you know, I’m one of the pessimistic people. I don’t think that much has changed, but let’s just leave that on the side for a minute.

We are in an interesting moment. It is a moment of possibility because not just Muslims, but I mean, swathes of people in the country and across the world have been galvanized on the issue of Palestine. And this is translating into this kind of frenetic activity that you’ve been talking about and the constituency by constituency level. So, I guess there is something in the water or in the air or how they want to describe it that is a little bit different that makes you feel, “OK, let’s do it. Let’s do something at the ballot box.” Right?

What is it that we want to do? Well, you know, if you’re asking me, I want to give all the main parties a bloody nose. It would be absolutely fantastic if we could get independent candidates or, you know, I don’t know, minority parties or something or the other in or create a real kind of mess when it comes to, you know, who’s getting elected at constituency by constituency. And I think actually, there’s a bit, a little bit of strategy there because it’s not just about the whole tactical voting. Like we’ve got the Tories out in, you know, 97 or whatever, or we ended up with the con-dems in 2010. It is about, you know, let’s also punish the Labour candidates because, you know, we’re punishing Keir Starmer for what he said.

Well, that’s the idea, right? So that would be to my mind, you know, a fantastic thing if they, if we could give a bloody nose basically to these parties on July 5th.

 

Faisal Bodi: Just to probe you a more, so, the aim is purely disruptive and not constructive?

 

Arzu Merali: You know, we’ll talk about this later in a separate podcast, but for me, I don’t know that come July 5^th, what would be the benefit even if we got 100 candidates of quote unquote “our choice” in, right? Because the system will mould those people to it. And we have plenty of examples of that. We can go from Sadiq Khan, can go to Kemi Badenoch, we can go to Rishi Sunak, whatever, right? I don’t know.

 

Faisal Bodi: Well, right from the outset, mean, the first Muslim MP ever to be voted into parliament, Mohammad Sarwar. I mean, he was as institutionalized within Labour as anybody else. And then, you, I mean, you can reel off a whole list of names, know, Khalid Mahmood, know, Shahid Malik. I mean, there’s been loads since.

 

Arzu Merali: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that is of concern to me is the kind of still naivety around the discourse, right? So, I feel like there are a lot of people who are seeing, you know, this political participation, this mobilization as a good thing because then we can make the system work. I think that’s where I’m cautious and somewhat cynical and also worried, if I’m honest. Yeah, I don’t want to see another generation being dragged into this kind of very…what’s the polite way of putting it?

 

Faisal Bodi: Dead end?

 

Arzu Merali: It’s a dead end, but it’s also a fantasy. It’s a fantasy about the British system, which I think most of the actual established political actors, in fact, all of them don’t believe. So, we can unpack that later. But yeah, come July.

 

Faisal Bodi: We’re going to tackle in the third podcast.

 

Arzu Merali: But come July 4th, it would be great that Muslims were also, you know, across community divides people mobilized on the issue of Palestine to teach incumbents at parties a lesson. That’s what I want to see, that whether or not that could happen. I’m not massively hopeful. We’ll talk about it probably a little bit later today, but Blackburn, know, all these fights going on, it’s not looking great.

 

Faisal Bodi: Massoud, is that something that you’re broadly in agreement with? mean, are we aiming just to give Labour a bloody good kick in this election?

 

Massoud Shadjareh: Yes, I do. But let me just try to explain because, you know, the way you put it, it might give a confusion that we just want to disrupt everything for no reason whatsoever. The fact of the matter is that one of the reasons and that sort of ourselves and others weren’t successful. I mean, there was many reasons. Part of it was we were all very naive, probably in some ways.

But also, I think the Muslim community was an awakened the way that we have been awakened because of the very clear genocide that is taking place and the fact that very clearly all political parties ignoring the genocide and supporting the genocide and ignoring the wishes of not just us Muslims but all those who are speaking out and saying we want to end to this. This is a bizarre policy which brings no benefit, national interest or anything else. It really is a policy for genocide.

And so therefore, our response of punishing people and people frustrated so much, we Muslims and others so frustrated that something needs to be done, is punishing because we’ve been excluded from the power. And, you know, it’s been done in our name. We’ve got some, you know, you mentioned sort of historical sort Muslim involvement in Labour Party and other parties, those have been predominantly representing the political parties in our community rather than the other way around.

So, they deserve to be punished. The political parties deserve to be punished. One, because they’re ignoring the wishes of us and others. Two, they have been doing nothing except manipulating our interests rather than addressing our interests and is about time and now with the awakening that is taking place if we can’t punish them now, when can we do it? I mean I think a lot of things converge into a moment that this moment is right to do that and we need to sort of take it exactly for what it is.

Yes it’s a punishment. But it’s not because we are crazy, because of their behaviour in past and their behaviour in currently right now. And the fact that they are giving us no choice other than sort of showing that they can’t behave like this. And for us, continuously sort of being manipulated between these different political parties.

 

Faisal Bodi: Yeah, but the cynic in me will say, we’ve been here before and given the failures of the past, I know the moment at this juncture is different. But in 2003, we saw the illegal invasion of Iraq, which came even after the biggest protest this country has ever seen against the war. We saw Muslims continue to vote for Labour in 2005 in large numbers, even after it was exposed and clearly documented that the invasion had been illegal and cost hundreds of thousands of innocent lives.

It wasn’t live streamed as the genocide in Gaza is being live streamed at the moment. It wasn’t on everybody’s smartphones. But the evidence was there. It was there in abundance. And if Muslims didn’t change their behaviour then, what gives you the confidence to think that they’re going to do it this time around? Even polling of Muslims seems to suggest that Gaza, or genocide in Gaza, is their uppermost consideration in only 20 % of cases. So, what gives us the confidence that Gaza is going to galvanize Muslims in a way that we’ve not seen before? Arzu?

 

Arzu Merali: I’m not confident. I’ll be frank with you, I’m not confident. I think as activists we tend to… We are in a little bit of a bubble. You know, we’re talking to people who think like us. And I think that kind of naïve narrative that I was talking about is a problem in activist circles actually because again, topic to expand later, but we have had a view of the Muslim electorate in this country, which is a bit patronising to be honest, right?

I mean we’re still believing or somehow projecting the idea that we can make the system work using the ballot box, but actually the way it does work if you want it to work at a local level is what a lot of these Muslims that you’re talking about who have been voting for established parties have been doing. They get things from their MP. This is how the system works here. And I mean, at least when I was growing up, we were told over and over again in our political education, both the official political education, but the actual, you know, grassroots organizing, right? Foreign policy has got nothing to do with the electorate of this country. Just focus on the things that’s the only thing you’ve got any input into.

And that’s what people are doing. They are actually the perverse Muslim success story when it comes to politics in this country, because they’re getting certain things delivered to them, you know, visas, mosque extensions, you know, local MPs getting involved in sort of local issues that are important. So yes, of course, we are all feeling the pain of Gaza. And I mean, you said that, you know, that poll, I think we both listened to the same podcast last night, that 20 % are putting Gaza’s top, but you know, more than half are saying it’s one of the top issues, right?

But the thing is, they’re also living in the reality of the political system. They’re like, well, okay, I’m going to have to hedge my bets here. Because ultimately we can talk about, okay, let’s leverage our vote, let’s vote for this candidate, that candidate. It just doesn’t work. We are not supplying people who are savvy enough to understand how the system works to be meaningful as a choice.

I think we have to also stop being quite as patronising as we have been to Muslims who have elected Labour MPs in the past and who probably will elect them again. I mean, I’m angry, of course I’m angry, but at the same time, I’ve got to walk in their shoes, I’ve got to think why are they doing it? I can’t just assume that I’m better than them. And I think this has been a mistake in all the organising that we’ve done. We have been very, very detached from the grassroots of Muslims in this country and we’ve talked down to them. We haven’t listened to them and we’re in the same boat again this election time. We’re telling you more. What a critical choice.

 

Faisal Bodi: This is one of those rare instances. I’m going to come to you in a minute, Massoud, but this is one of those rare instances where the grassroots is leading the activists, right? And, you know, we’ve got organisations like them, mostly in votes, bringing up to sort of try and give, you know, some sort of coordination and provide some resources to the grassroots. Essentially has been a grassroots effort, you know, all around the country and, know, in many ways not linked. Each constituency has had its own sort of mobilisation and is making its own efforts independently of everybody else.

 

Arzu Merali: It has and that to me has been actually quite interesting and inspiring but at the same time it’s an immense task, right? It’s not easy. That activist culture, whatever you want to call it, is very small and you know, how are going to galvanize people to actually go, yeah, that vote, I’m going to make that vote count. Yes, it happened in Rochdale. That was fantastic. But that was also a by-election. That issue was, you know, a hot one issue election. What’s the other word I’m looking for? I don’t know. And I think it’s quite real considering all the issues that everybody’s got in this country, cost of living, NHS, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that you can make that the hot issue for the entire country or even for 100 seats, right?

And yes, we’ve all been thrown off, of course, because this election has been called about at least six months earlier than we were expecting. But will we actually even organizing that much thinking deeply about this, thinking about how we can make this a relevant election issue in a general election? I don’t think so. I mean, yes, definitely at local levels, people have been thinking about it, but we’re not connecting the dots. And what we’re seeing, which, you know, everybody’s quite aware of the fact that we have multiple independent candidates or alternative candidates in different constituencies where actually a block vote could have meaning, therefore splitting the vote. It’s already a case of we’ve already been divided and conquered, right? And we’ve been actually helping ourselves to be divided and conquered as usual.

So we have got a lot of, a lot of failures of not learning from the past on our doorstep already pre-July 4th. So I’m praying for it. I want it. It’s not like I don’t wish all of these success. I’m just not holding my breath.

 

Faisal Bodi: Turning to you, Massoud, are you a glass half full? Is this an opportunity that we can and should seize? And you know, you know, what would be a say an acceptable or a respectable outcome for the Muslim community at the end of these elections?

 

Massoud Shadjareh: I’m the oldest among you, so I have more right to be the old cynical bloke here. And indeed I am. And that is because of sort of the experience we have had in past of how the Muslim community are indeed. I think we need to be fair. It’s not just Muslim community being manipulated by the political structure and political parties. The whole nation goes down that route. And they are quite expert in that.

But I have to say, but also I think we need to be fair to realize that there are some differences. I don’t think in my sort of lifetime it has never been as clear of sort of the political elite, all political parties, sort of behaviour, so clearly, sort of, against the interest of the majority. They’re not even hiding it anymore.

I mean, if you remember at the time of the Iraq war, they were justifying it, “but we have to get rid of these haram Saddam Hussein.” Suddenly overnight he became, you know, the devil created on earth and, you know, all the support that they were giving to Saddam Hussein until the day before that, it sort of went out of the window and, you know, they put this show on that they’re doing it for the sake of humanity and “if this devil is not dealt with, the whole world is going to have a crisis.”

All that sort of spins. And they were at least playing those games, know, weapons of mass destruction.

 

Faisal Bodi: Yeah, but my point is, Massoud, that if Muslims weren’t prepared in 2000… I know there was a gap between 2003 and 2005 when naturally people lose interest and the issue falls off the agenda somewhat. But if people weren’t prepared in 2005 on the back of what was going on in Iraq and then later on in Afghanistan, sorry, before that in Afghanistan. Then what makes you think that, you know, this time is going to be any different? I mean, surely isn’t the lesson that have to learn as Muslims, isn’t the lesson that we to learn as Muslims? There is no monolithic Muslim block vote. We’ve tried and tried and we failed. Is it time we tried something else?

 

Massoud Shadjareh: No, I mean, there is difference. mean, I understand that you’re saying that, you know, it was so clear even then. It was so clear then to us activists, you know, we, you know, we were, we were seen beyond the lies and the cheating and the spin. But masses, they bought into it. You know, they were being conned. mean, you know, I remember several times being in meetings when Tony Blair was speaking. I mean, the guy was lying and you know, I know he was lying. I knew that he was putting his spin. He was doing it so beautifully that I was saying, know, part of him was saying, you know, believe in him.

We don’t have that situation now. I mean, you know, neither Conservative Party or the Labour, I mean, you know, and others are, you know, so obvious, so clearly, you know, he comes on air and sort of supports sort of all these genocidal behaviour. So, there is a difference there. But I think if that difference, you’re saying that it still is not enough, it might be the case.

But I think there is also another aspect which is different between now and what happened in Iraq war. In the Iraq war, the activists like ourselves were trying to lead the communities that direction. And as you said earlier on, now the grassroots are really awakened to this. Is this enough to do it? I think I take a rain check on that to see what happens on 5th of July. But the point is that I think it has never been this level of awakening among the masses. But then in same time as Arzu said, you know, look at the behaviour of Muslims and Muslim organisations and how we can’t even organise, you know. I suppose the Islamic thing is we cannot organize the Jama’a prayers in the masjid.

And, you know, we’ve got people standing against each other for their little glory and, you know, what, you know, they’re never going to get any glory. They’re never going to be elected. You know, the way they’re behaving, they’re not going to achieve anything. So, we’ve got all that on one side. And then we have awakening of masses that we should not ignore. It never happened to this level before in Britain.

 

Faisal Bodi: I want to address this question now Arzu. I want to move on now. I want to address this question of where Muslims, the future of Muslims and the Labour Party lies now. Do you see this as the beginning of the end of the historic ties that Muslims have had with labour? Or is it just another fly-by-night disaffection which shall blow over and we will sort of revert to type again within a few years?

 

Arzu Merali: You know, the reason I was just looking down at my phone while Massoud was talking was not because I was checking my messages, I was checking what was the turnout in 2005 because I remembered that it was kind of low. And it  was one of the lowest in history. I actually think, you know, one of the things that we haven’t done as activists, communities, whatever has got together and kind of analysed data and actually understood what’s been happening.

I think a lot of people, including a lot of Muslims just didn’t vote in 2005. I mean, it was understood that, you know, people were not voting that year because they knew Labour was going to win anyway and a lot of people didn’t want to vote for them. And also in 2005, there were quite a lot of respect party candidates. And I think we’re forgetting that a lot of Muslims and actually other activists, because respect was not just a kind of a Muslim protest party, were voting for these candidates, even though they didn’t have a hope of winning.

So, to go back to tie that to your question about the Labour Party, I think, you know, this has been a kind of a marriage slowly rotting away for a good long time. I’d like to think there’d be a really nice acrimonious divorce and a big kind of public fight where we could actually see all the issues, all the dirty washing being hung out to dry. I think that would be highly positive. And I know Massoud is kind of thinking I’ve become an anarchist and I’m just disrupting everything. But I think we do need to have that kind of disruption because actually as part of the conversations we’ve been having,

I’ve been going away and kind of like actually going to talk to people about who they’re going to vote for, et cetera, not just Muslims. And one of the things I found, which was really, really concerning to me was that there’s a very shy reform vote. It’s not just what we would call white English voters, but also even ethnic minority voters, right? Because even I’m, I mean, I’m talking, listening to people saying, “I don’t like Nigel Farage, I think he’s a liar. You know, I think reform are a bunch of racists, but they’re disrupting everything.” You know, people want disruption. And right now, the only disruption they’re getting is from Nigel Farage and crew. You know, we actually need to have some disruption of our own to shake things up because we can’t make the system work. We’ve got to rebuild it from something. And at the moment, it’s not broken enough for there to be rebuilding, right?

So, yeah, I do think it is kind of, know, whether it’s a slow wane still or whether it’s going to be that acrimonious divorce I was talking about, I think we are kind of getting to the end of that. The problem we have is that we don’t really have sustainable alternatives.

And I think, you know, it’s important what you said about the Muslim block vote. Why should it vote as a block? Why should it be leveraged that way? It’s not really an ethical way of working, right? I mean, yes, if we want ourselves as Muslims to express an ethical voice, that is important, but we have nowhere to put that hope in value and morality in political systems. We’ve just got to pick at a local level, right?

 

Faisal Bodi: Why do you say that is not a proper or an ethical way to vote? Because we see other communities voting along communal or self-interest lines. That’s not to say that you discount everything else or dismiss other wider concerns, shared concerns with the rest of the country. But why shouldn’t any community put their needs first?

 

Arzu Merali: Because all the successful examples we’ve had in this country, we have, you know, what is perceived to be the Zionist Jewish community and hindered by Hindutva communities. These self-interests are not self-interests that I want to replicate at Muslim level. I don’t want a chauvinistic Muslim politics to be another lobby, right? I want there to be a Muslim politics which is about justice for everyone because, you know, it’s not about us as a minority having extra rights. It’s about equality and justice across the board.

And that doesn’t have to be a flattening of identities or even what it is that we need to have a resolution of our state as citizens of this country, or as communities in this country. We are living in a de facto plural country, but we have a very monolithic, oppressive political structure on top of us. We need to be making that political structure somehow reflective of what the country is.

It goes back to this question that we’ll talk about later. Can you make the system work? And I think, no, we can’t. I think we can only get, you know, modelled system. And right now I’m thinking, OK, what was wrong with me 25, 30 years ago that I thought we could have Muslim polity and a Muslim interest in the political system? I don’t want to be that part of that anymore. I think we have to think again. It doesn’t mean I don’t want everyone to go and vote for alternative parties or not vote or anything. got someone you can vote for, go and vote for them. But come July 5th, don’t, even if you’re elected in, don’t somehow now become part of the system. It’s going to, the system’s going to go into you, not the other way around. You’re not going to bring value into the system.

 

Faisal Bodi: Anything to add, Massoud?

 

Massoud Shadjareh: Yeah, I mean, I agree. I think the point is this, that the Reform Party, it’s a brilliant idea because this is exactly what is needed. We need the reform, the system, the political system, not just in Britain, but in sort of democracy, is not fit for purpose.

We are getting sort of political parties becoming so arrogant, so clearly undermining the wishes of the majority. They’re just playing people off. And a reform is indeed needed. But, and so reform is one way of saying it, the other way of saying it is we need to punish political parties who so clearly, so openly are undermining the needs and aspiration of not just us Muslims, but everybody else. Look, we’ve got a situation that, and you know, we should probably go across the pond, you know, because that is usually a direction where we are heading. Look at what we’ve got in United States, the biggest nation, biggest economy, biggest military power and so forth and so on, could only sort of present Biden and Trump, you know, I mean, it is pathetic.

What it means, it means that the masses are being conned, you know, to have someone like Biden say that he could run, you know, with his mental state and his memory and everything else. He can’t even be trusted to run a corner shop. But there are, you know, going to turn around the whole nation to him to run. Why? Because of this corrupted political system. It’s not the benefit of US. It’s not the benefit of anyone else. And currently, we’ve got a similar situation in Britain. How could Keir or Sunak address the needs and aspirations of all of us? They have failed us, they failed us in every level. They have failed us in being even a nationalist. The policy of Gaza does not serve the interests of Britain. And these guys are following certain policies which is neither legal or ethical or interests of the nation.

So, we as Muslims and others, If we don’t punish and change the direction that the political system and establishment is going right now, we are in trouble. It’s not just the interests of us as a pressure group or as a religious group. It actually goes far beyond that. The whole system is failing, all of us. And this is why reform party is popular, as Arzu was saying, even with some ethnic minority because it’s recognizing the disease or the problem that this system is broken and it needs to be fixed.

The problem with us as Muslims is that even once we recognize that, some of us will take an opportunity of just becoming candidates. meaning we got candidates coming out like weeds, you know in the grass and people are putting it forward not because it will achieve anything just because to take advantage of the Environment of current environment and that is very damaging.

We need to be focused that these political parties need to be punished for what they are doing to us and to others and how they’re manipulating us rather than addressing our needs and aspirations.

 

Faisal Bodi: Arzu, you mentioned the need for an authentic and a relevant Muslim political discourse. You’ve also talked about efforts at grassroots level to try and at least in very basic terms articulate that. And he warned against assimilating or flattening out of identities where, you know, the Muslim community dissolves, or the identity of the Muslim community dissolves into sort of the mainstream or wider discourse. Now, obviously that’s a challenge in itself, but when you look at some of the alliances that we have been forming, in different parts of the country. Again, Deja Vu, George Galloway, previously with respect, now head of the Workers’ Party, other leftist candidates who we are throwing our weight behind.

I mean, are we still flirting with the left? Is this a marriage of convenience? Is it something deeper? Has it hindered us or does it help us? Is it something that we should reappraise in the light of events over the last 20 to 25 years?

 

Arzu Merali: I think this is the question also, the issue of the Labour Party and that’s Muslims on the left. Because I think I see a lot of the next generation coming up and the only kind of critical narrative that they’ve got access to.

It’s a really like old fashioned socialist one from which I’m describing from when you and I were youngsters, right? Trying to get rid of Thatcher. That was kind of also jettisoned actually as a narrative because we couldn’t get rid of Thatcher with that. And it wasn’t making sense in terms, at least to the grassroots of their lived experience.

So, I’m actually, you know, it is my concern that we are, you know, more than just flirting with the left, especially the youngsters, if you like, being, you know, I don’t want to say groomed, but I’ll certainly, you know, looking at the left is the bad boy that, you know, they want to hang with, who’s going to, you know, somehow save them despite all his, despite all his, you know, problems. And also, you know, we think, I think somehow we think we can save the left as well. And I think that masks these kind of expectations, masks the reality, which is that we’re in a power relationship with the left, which is completely lopsided and always have been. We’ve always been kind of sucked into it and been used to the left in different ways, right.

Now it remains to be seen how that works with the Workers’ Party come July 4th. So, I don’t want to kind of presuppose too much there. at the same time…

 

Faisal Bodi: It’s not just the Workers’ Party, there are independent leftist candidates standing around the country as well.

 

Arzu Merali: But in terms of actually an idea of some kind of you know, connected opposition. That’s, mean, I think the Workers’ Party itself is kind of a little bit of a potch-potch of candidates as a board of…

 

Faisal Bodi: I’m actually with you on that. I’ve always felt that the Muslim community is the poor relation, very much the poor relation in this marriage. And I mean, just from personal experience, I live in a small city called Preston up in Lancashire. And we do like to think that we punch above our weight when it comes to Middle East issues, particularly Palestine. We have a chap here, Michael Lavallet, who is now standing as the independent candidate in the upcoming general election. And he’s done a lot over the last couple of decades to instil a culture of, a pro-Palestine culture and a culture of protest and activism in the town.

But the price we’ve had to pay for me is that the left, because he’s very much an animal of the left, is that the left have been leading on everything with the Muslim community, very much in the background. this is very evident when we have protests, for example. Even at the biggest protest, we’ll have 3-4,000 people turning up. And there’ll be seven or eight speakers but four of them will be from the left, from trade unions, you know, when you put these trade unions in a room and they have a meeting, they can’t get more than half a dozen people together.

So, my beef has always been, you know, our numerical preponderance hasn’t really been reflected in, you know, the power that we have or the influence that we have in this relationship. Anything you’d like to say on that, Massoud?

 

Massoud Shadjareh: Yeah, I think, you know, I think we need to sort of separate two things. One is what we should do until sort of for the 5th of July. You know, we got very few days left. What is our goal?

 

Faisal Bodi: Are you thinking about the day after already? It’s the 4th of July isn’t it?

 

Massoud Shadjareh: 4th of July, no, sorry.

 

Faisal Bodi: Is it the day you dare not mention? No, I think there is a limited time of what we could achieve or what goal we should have as a goal and if we could achieve it or not. And I think the consensus when we were discussing it is that we need to punish the political systems and the political parties for the way that they have behaved in the last so many years and especially since the 7th of October vis-a-vis the situation and genocide in Gaza.

This cannot be mixed up with what should be our aspiration of achieving something beyond this particular election. Ss the political system fit for purpose? How we could have ethical policy or political mapping for our community and indeed beyond? Would, you know, these sort of alternative, independent candidate going to address our aspiration for the political future of us as Muslims and others? I don’t think that should be mixed up with this task in hand right now. The task in hand is to punish these political parties and these political structures, and if not, face the consequences, which is going to be very great.

If the Labour Party gets in with the overwhelming majority after what they’ve done over the issue of Gaza and everything else they’ve done. And let us not forget what they did to Jeremy Corbyn and everything else. And to the sort of other ethnic minority sort of candidates and the Jewish candidates were anti-Zionist. All that behaviour, if it could result in them coming in with a huge majority, then really we are in trouble.

So, the task in hand is to make sure not only that doesn’t happen, but also they will feel and understand that there is empowerment in people, including Muslim community, that they are able to make a difference when it comes to embalming and the number of votes that they could get. I think this is really the crunches right now.

But does this address the whole thing of participation in political system? It doesn’t. I hope and I believe we’re going to address that in a future podcast. But I think we shouldn’t take eye off our immediate responsibility. And also, we should not forget our long-term strategy.

 

Faisal Bodi: Yeah, that seems like a nice optimistic note on which to end this podcast. We’ll be making three of these podcasts before the general election on July the 4th, and the second of which is going to drill down into the various local campaigns, the issues that have arisen therein, and what lessons we can derive from what’s going on.

So, thank you very much for taking part in this Massoud and you too, Arzu, and look forward to picking your brains on the next one. Thank you very much. Thank you.