Two divisive pro-Gaza candidates recently unseat two long-serving members of the mainstream Labour Party in a little English town north of Manchester. In the May 1 municipal elections, both contenders were running on an independent platform.
County councillor for the Nelson East ward was Azhar Ali, while 18-year-old Maheen Kamran was elected to represent Burnley Central East in Lancashire. After a number of pro-Gaza politicians, including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, won seats in last year’s general election, their results might be seen as part of a rising trend, according to the Telegraph.
Following last year’s election, Ali was accused of antisemitism and subsequently suspended from the Labour Party. The party also withdrew its support for him. The BBC reports that Ali’s assertion that Israel “allowed” the Oct. 7 slaughter by Hamas to take place as a pretext to attack Gaza garnered Ali the backing of the Labour Party at first. He expressed regret for the “deeply offensive, ignorant and false” assertion he had made and then issued an apology. In the end, Labour decided not to back Ali and even suspended him from the party.
Despite Ali’s apologies, the Board of Deputies of British Jews deemed his remarks “disgraceful and unforgivable.”
We can see that Mr. Ali is not apologizing since he truly feels bad about it. We do not see any way we can deal with him right now, regardless of what he says in his apology, and we think other prominent Jewish communal groups will feel the same way,” the organization stated in 2024.
At the same time, Kamran has adopted equally extremist positions. She was one of the few who voted to ban Muslim men and women from “free mixing” in public places.
Muslim women often avoid romantic relationships with Muslim males. Kamran assured PoliticsHome that separate spaces and gyms could be created so Muslim women could maintain their health without discrimination.
Kamran stated in the same interview that her belief in a “genocide” in Gaza is the reason she became involved in politics. Opponents of Israel’s military activities use the term “genocide,” while proponents of the Jewish state typically counter that Israel could have eliminated the Gazan population but decided not to. This makes them question the genocide charge.
As a result of Ali and Kamran’s successes, conventional parties are seeing their power erode in the municipal elections. The most recent election yielded significant victories for the right-wing populist Reform UK Party, as reported by the Telegraph. Amidst its grip on the prime ministership, Labour lost ground in the most recent municipal elections.
