General Election 2005

So, Labour is back in power as expected for an 'historic third term' but with a greatly reduced majority of 67, down from a massive 167 (one seat will be re-run in a by-election because a candidate died). There was never any doubt the Labour Party would return to power: the question had always been how large their margin would have been and how much Blair's unpopularity would have cost them. I don't think the Tories had any chance of winning, but I did feel that the Blair Witch Project would come to a grinding halt with traditional Tory areas (especially in the South East) becoming blue, as either traditional Tory voters decided voting twice for Labour was enough; or as the Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems), smaller parties and single-issue candidates picked up disaffected Labour votes. It appears at first glance that the Lib Dems have failed to make inroads into Tory areas and pick up the anti-war vote from Labour supporters: they can't have it both ways! And with a first past the post (FPTP) system in this country, the odds are always stacked in favour of the sitting government, especially one that had a huge majority. Further, the Tories are still viewed with suspicion, mainly because they keep recycling old names. They seem to be where Labour were in the early 80s: obsessed by a few small issues ridiculed and marginalised.

There was much talk of the "Muslim vote" and how it would play out given Tony Blair's support for Bush's war. Muslims, largely of Pakistani or Bengali origin who were either born here or arrived in the wave during the 1970s and 1980s, have traditionally supported Labour. Though there was much in the wider media, as well as the Muslim media about our voting power, I suspect our turn out will again have been very low (as much due to laziness and ignorance as to believing 'voting is haram'). Various Pakistani digital channels gave extensive coverage, bringing on various Muslim candidates and candidates for areas where there are considerable Muslim voters. But I don't think we, as Muslims, did enough to suggest what we stand for. Iraq is an important issue. But so are global poverty and the environment, local housing and social exclusion. We will not only be asked what we did for people in Iraq or Palestine but also about what we did for our people in Mali or the poor old lay who lived next to us, but died alone because no one bothered to knock to find out how she is. It is easy for educated, middle-class, Muslims to preach about how the next election will 'change the perceptions of Muslims' and how we must use them to 'aid our communities'. But try getting this message across to Muslims living in run-down housing estates in inner-city districts, or in areas of high unemployment with poor education facilities. It isn't that easy.

I live in the Leyton & Wanstead constituency, a strange cobbling together of a solid Tory vote (the Wanstead area, which was Winston Churchill's seat under the old boundaries) and Leyton, a 'working class' Labour stronghold with a large, very mixed, ethnic minority population. Harry Cohen, who campaigned and voted against the war, has been our MP for some two decades and he won again with a comfortable, if greatly reduced, majority. Meher Khan, standing for the Liberal Democracts (Lib Dems), pushed ahead of the Tory candidate into second place, polling just over 8300 votes (a swing to the Lib Dems of 10.7%). The next local elections here might be interesting.

But the most high profile seat being contested on a supposedly "Muslim issue" (i.e. Iraq) was not by a Muslim, but by George Galloway (of the Respect coalition) in Bethnal Green and Bow (BG&B), where Oona King was the sitting MP. King had outraged large sections of her constituency by voting for the war on Iraq. Being a career politician, this was her only option I suspect; but reasons for her choice can be spun to suit your stance. And in the end she appears to have paid for that decision, losing her seat to Galloway. Before and after the actual voting, there has been much muck-raking, especially by opponents of Galloway. Many people, especially in the print media, dislike Galloway, and I don't see how anyone can explain his slobbering over Saddam Hussein in the infamous clip where he salutes Saddam's "courage" and "indefatigability". He is not known for being a 'good constituency MP' and has a pathetic voting record. Certainly, there can be no denying that he has used BG&B to return to Parliament after he lost his seat as an independent for Glasgow Kelvin due to boundary changes. Maybe he would have been more courageous standing against Blair in Sedgefield, where Reg Keys, who lost his son in Iraq, stood against the Prime Minister. King, regardless of her decision on the war, has helped a very poor and backward area where many Muslims live in squalid housing and attend some of the worst schools in Britain. Galloway will not be as successful in tackling social deprivation and exclusion, and I would not be surprised to see Labour return with a comfortable lead in the next General Election; that is if there are no more adventures like Iraq. If Respect contests the next council elections, the reaction will be interesting. But being a single-issue party, I think they'll struggle. I  expect King will be sent to another safe seat to help her return to Parliament.

Galloway has been accused of appealing to "communalism" and of using King's racial background (she is mixed Jewish and black), as a way of winning the "Muslim vote". But I have not seen a quote from him suggesting this. Perhaps someone else has? I don't understand the complaint against "communalism". Why is voting for someone to represent the "Muslim community" -- who form a section of BG&B -- any worse than people who vote to represent other "communities", where "communities" needn't be reduced to some common ethnicity or religion? People make all sorts of appeals to various ideals and modes of thought, and maybe even various practices. But this isn't considered 'wrong' or 'bad'. I can certainly understand if someone suggests they are standing to represent only one "community" (a la the BNP). But I don't think anyone is suggesting Muslims support these kind of candidates -- Galloway ran on an anti-war ticket, and anti-war feelings are high amongst Muslims. (Then again, Nick Cohen, the pro-war 'liberal imperialist', who wrote the article on communalism, is trying to point out other peoples' strange alliances in the hope that his own strange marriage with the American Right, a motley collection of free-marketeers, anti-abortionists, anti-gay activists, and evangelical fundamentalists, is overlooked. Trots in burkas appear to be no more odd than left-wing imperialists.) In any case Galloway is not a Bengali or a Muslim; so how real could he have seemed if he was running on the 'communalist' ticket?

What I found digusting was the claim by Tony Banks, a former Labour MP in Newham, made live on the BBC early on Friday morning, that King had lost because she was "Jewish" or "Black or "Female" (Banks was hedging his bets, I guess, by picking as many reasons as he could) and that "Muslims don't like that [King is Jewish or Black or Female]". This stupid claim was repeated by another Neo-Labour Blairite, David Lammy, again on the BBC. These claims were made in front of a panel being interviewed by Jeremy Paxman. This is the same Paxman who is reknowned for his aggressive style of questioning and finding holes in politicians arguments. But perhaps he agreed with this claim. Afterall, he asked a question, with an equally stupid point, to Galloway: "[A]re you proud of having got rid of one of the very few black women in Parliament?" (You can see the 'clash' here.) I suppose, now that anti-Semitism is unfashionable among European politicos, Muslim-baiting will gradually become the new sport. Similar suggestions were made in the run up to the election. Labour posters appeared showing the heads of now ex-Tory leader, Michael Howard, and his Shadow Chancellor, Oliver Letwin, attached to flying pigs (in case you didn't know they are both of Jewish origin). Some were silly enough to suggest that this was done to make sure Muslims stick to voting Labour, an appeal to 'Muslim anti-Semitism'.

Perhaps it is worth scratching the suface of the results to question these scurrilous claims. For a start, Oona King had won the previous two General Elections with a large majority (around 10,000), where her nearest rivals have both been Bengali Muslims for the Tory Party (and men to boot!). If these Muslims don't like Jewish Black Females, how did she sail home in the 1997 and 2001 General Elections, especially up against Muslim men? Secondly, take a look at the figures for this election. Galloway polled 15,801 votes, while King received 14,978 votes. This is a lead of only 832. What are the chances of all 15,801 votes for Galloway coming from Muslims and all 14,978 for King being cast by those who are not Muslims (BG&B being home to a considerable white working-class vote)? I am not a psephologist with a PhD in advanced probability theory, but even I can tell you that the chances of this are remote. I have no doubt Muslims did vote for her; that's why she received close to 15,000 votes. Thirdly, if Muslims were rejecting her 'because she is Jewish', then why vote for Galloway's own collection, which includes Jewish members? Why note for the Lib Dem or Tory candidate, both Bengalis, both Muslims and both men?

Moving away from the results, when King approached the local mosques, the only issue that seemed to be brought up was her support for the war. No one mentioned her race or gender, as far as I am aware (I still visit the area a lot as many of my closest friends live in and around Spitalfields, plus my father still owns a business in the area). Certainly, some Muslims are obssesed, to the point of neurosis, by The Jews Who Control The World™ and the state of Israel, the two being instrincally linked in the minds of these people (Freud would have had a field day). And I don't think it's beyond reason to suggest some Muslims might have been driven to vote against her because of her ethnicity or gender -- but then this occurs elsewhere and against people other than Jews, and appears a human failing rather than a specific 'Muslim problem'. In fact, if anything I only witnessed King, in a couple of a television interviews, accuse Respect of using the race card against her. Further, King has been a campaigner for Palestinian rights and boycotting Israeli goods (often drawn up as a "Muslim-Jewish" affair). Her own website lauds this as one of her achievements and she is on record comparing the conditions of the Palestinians with the Warsaw ghetto (something that annoys uber-Zionists like Melanie Phillips). So, I don't think it is that credible to claim she lost because of some form of 'essentialism'. She lost because she voted for the war and because Galloway did a better job (just about!) of getting his anti-war message across. Neo-Labour clones like Lammy, and unthking idiots like Banks, are really just spreading slurs.

Salma Yaqoob, another Respect candidate, who stood in Birmingham Sparkbrook and Small Heath, finished second reducing the sitting Labour MP's majority to just over 3,000 votes, with a huge 24.4% swing. Her Respect colleagues, Lindsay German, Abdul Haq Mian and Oliur Rahman all fighting in East London (and areas which have sizeable Muslim populations) faired less well, finishing a distant second or third.

The other prominent seat targetted as an anti-war protest vote, was that of the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw. His Blackburn constituency is home to around 27,000 Muslims. He fended off a challenge from anti-war candidates for the Tories and the Lib Dems, winning with a comfortable majority. Craig Murray, the former diplomat to Uzbekistan who was sacked for exposing human rights abuses in the country, failed to make an impression. It is more than likely that Straw's strong door-to-door campaign and strong links within the Muslim community, helped stave off a backlash from Muslim Labour voters. But there were claims that the local Labour Party had used the local mosque committees to shore up its support amonst Muslims. There were also claims of voting fraud. I don't know if these claims are true (it wouldn't surprise me if they were, but God knows best). Clanish politics still play a part in many areas where Muslims from the subcontinent make up a sizeable portion.

But next door to Straw's seat, Labour lost the Rochdale. Lorna Fitzsimmons was ousted by the Lib Dem's Paul Rowen. Fitzsimmons was at the centre of the controversy involving the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC), an often boisterous group which campaigns to expose people who work against 'Muslim interests'. MPAC was accused of being anti-Semitic for allowing leaflets, which described Fitzsimmons as Jewish, to be handed out in their name (something for which they apologised). Nonetheless, she lost with a 8% swing against Labour, in what appears to have been part of the wider anti-war feeling (Rochdale has around 17,000 Muslims).

There was an interesting battle in Dewsbury. The only Muslim member of the Labour's NEC, Sahid Malik, held the seat for Labour with a reduced majority, against a campaign by local Muslim woman, Sayeeda Warsi (but perhaps, according to the theory propounded by Banks and Lammy (2005), Warsi lost because she is a she and not a he?). Warsi was standing for the Tories. Sadiq Khan held the Labour safe seat of Tooting with a reduced majority, while Khalid Mahmood held his Birmingham Perry Barr seat very comfortabley. North of the border, long-serving MP for Glasgow Central, Mohammad Sarwar, was returned with another large majority.

Elsewhere, away from the war, Marsha Singh was returned in Bradford West. His Muslim challanger Haroon Rashid, standing for the Tory Party, failed to make any real inroads, though it appears the Muslim candidate for the Lib Dems divided the anti-Labour vote. Bradford West is the place where the race riots took place several years ago. Many local people, who happen to be Pakistanis, are aggrieved at the unfair handling of the situation. They are angry at Singh for doing nothing about police behaviour and the subsequent convictions of local Pakistani youths, which they claim was uneven.

And lastly, this is stupefyingly bad (read the claim at the bottom of the post).

Comments

[Ikram]

Thanks for the summary. Is 'stupefyingly bad' a comment on the argument Forsythe makes?

[thabet]

Yes, it relates to Forsythe's conclusion that 'there is expected to be the feeling that Muslims are threatening Britain's liberal political culture' because George Galloway (a white, middle-class, male) won a seat in a deprived, working-class and ethnically mixed area.

I've noticed that many Americans portray Muslims in Europe as a mass of babaric hoardes ready to tear down it down. Truth is, Muslims of Europe are, by and large, politically, socially and economically inept, either by our own doing or by various forms of prejudice.