https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97N7HSVOtIs#t=2086
The second issue is that the tally of Muslim MPs is likely to double in the next administration from seven or eight to 15 or sixteen. Now the question which arises is how effective have Muslim elected members been and dare refer to our friend Brother Lasharie as a councillor. Have they actually represented the Muslim community and the wider community.
And then there is the whole issue of the economic crisis that we have been facing for the last eight years with the financial system coming to meltdown. The tension between those who want one big government and those who want a reduced role for the government has dominated the political debate in the UK as far as I can remember. Whether it is the Conservative Party or the Labour Party or even the Social Democratic they have all been saying that they want to reduce government.
But the more worrying feature is the disparity between the poor, the unemployed and those enjoying higher incomes and bigger profits. A recent report says that our wonderful city of London has 80 billionaires. The number has increased by 20. The richest is the Hindujar family. We see that kind of disparity.
Muslims are not immune from that either. We have the Muslim poor living not far from here in Tower Hamlets while we have very rich wealthy Muslims living in Mayfair and St John’s Wood. There is a huge disparity. And dare I say that kind of disparity is also visible at hajj. Those who go from London and New York stay in five-star hotels while Indians and Pakistanis share a room where five or six are sleeping. The rich have a completely different experience.
So we have huge issues to deal with. I had the privilege of being involved with the Muslim Manifesto which was launched a couple of months ago. It is a different manifesto from that of the Muslim Council of Britain but obviously everyone is working together to achieve the same thing.
As Muslims we have the opportunity of moving forward the ethical agenda. One may ask what the ethical agenda may mean. But at the same time one understands ethics more than ‘sharia compliance ‘or ‘Islamic. ‘ I think these two words have become very toxic and they have a totally different meaning. But people understand ethics. If we talk about economic justice that is ethical. If we talk about the housing crisis that the poor should have proper housing that is ethical. If we move the agenda of discussion in politics to an ethical domain than a lot can be achieved. What affects Muslims affects the wider community and what affects the wider community affects us whether it is the National Health Service, housing, unemployment, the disparity in income. I don’t want to take too much for your time. I just wanted to lay the framework.
Miqdaad Versi Miqdaad Assistant Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB): I will start by giving a brief overview of the Muslim community, to understand who they are and what type of Muslims we have in our country. I will then move on to talk about a brief understanding of the political positioning of the Muslim community in the last couple of years and what has happened in the last five years. We will then try and understand what the parties have done to the Muslim community or for the Muslim community when it comes to their manifestos and what needs to happen.
Starting with the Muslim community there is the landmark report of Muslim numbers published by the MCB. It really breaks down the community and explains who we are. We have about 2.7m Muslims in the UK. A third of them are under the age of 15. It is a very young community. About 2m at this election will be over the age of 18 and potential voters.
On one hand we realise that the Muslim community is not homogenous. It is not just one group . It is very diverse. On one hand we have over 100,000 who are in higher managerial professions. They are very highly paid. The wealth of the Muslim community can be shown by the fact that the economic clout of the Muslim community is £31bn. So there is a significant wealth associated with the Muslim community.
But we also see that 46% of the Muslim community is in the ten percent most deprived areas. Inequality is a major concern. We have 28% living in social housing compared to 17% of the national population. Only 15% own houses compared to 30% of the broader population. And 20% of those of working age have never worked before compared to 4% of the broad population.
So what you see is great disparity in the Muslim community from those who are very wealthy to a significant number who are very poor. That diversity is seen not only when it comes to wealth. It also comes to geography although Muslims are concentrated in a few areas but they are still across the country.
The Muslim community is also ethnically diverse. Ninety percent of Muslims will consider themselves to be black or minority ethnic. Such a big part of the BME population (33%) is Muslim. So any concern that affects general minorities also affects the Muslim community.
So that is the basic positioning of where we are as a community. Lord Ashcroft has done significant polling on this issue. He did a landmark report in 2012 when he went to the minority community. He saw that 47% of Muslims affiliate themselves directly to the Labour Party and 5% to the Conservatives. That is just affiliation. I am not saying that they vote this way. There would be more voting each way. We see about 60% voting Labour and 10 – 15% voting Conservative.
That is a big disparity. This was after the Iraq war. From an ICM poll many of you may have seen that after the Iraq War polling suggested that half the Muslim vote moved away from Labour. That was just one poll after one vote. We don’t know what happened afterwards but what we see is that there has been a movement away from Labour since 2003 – 4. But there is still a significant bloc voting for Labour. There has still been a protest vote, where has it gone?
In the previous election a lot have gone to the Liberal Democrats. Have they gone to the Liberal Democrats in a sticky way. Are they staying with the Liberal Democrats? The Ashcroft Poll suggests that only 5 – 6 % affiliate themselves to the Liberal Democrats. So very few are actually affiliating to the Liberal Democrats but they are voting that way.
So the question comes in this election is will this vote for the Liberal Democrats as a protest vote still hold up? What we have seen in sample polling (not Ashcroft polling) is that a lot in the Liberal Democrats and Labour voters are moving to the Greens in the UK and to the SNP in Scotland. It is quite a sea change. What you see is the Labour vote is still staying quite strong but the protest vote is splitting up and going to other parties. We expect the Liberal Democrat Muslim vote to fall quite a lot in the upcoming elections.
So then the question is what about the Muslim vote? Is there a Muslim vote? What do Muslims care about? And then we will come onto the final topic of what the elections will look like and what the parties are doing.
The Muslim community has a fear about the economy. We have just talked about the economic inequality facing the country and the Muslim community. We know the Muslims care about education. Eight percent of all children in education are Muslim. It is clear that there are a lot of smaller issues Muslims care about which we can talk about in the Q & A. I have already piled on some statistics I won’t go further.
Education is a key concern. Thirteen percent of the Muslim population is under 15. This is a real concern as is health. When it comes to self reporting on health in the Muslim community when you ask ‘are you feeling healthy?’ the Muslims community self identifies as having not so high health outcomes as everyone else. We know that what we want is a situation where the government works more closely with all communities to try and deal with issues which are specific to those communities. We know that diabetes affects the Asina population more than anyone else. So those issues need to be dealt with.
We also know that in the minority communities vaccination is much lower than anywhere else. What does that mean? We have to find ways to overcome these issues and the way that this needs to happen is through engagement with the Muslim community – the same as engagement with other communities.
Those are the broad ideas: health, economics and education. There are specific concerns of the Muslim community far more so than other community. I would like to list a few of them. First of all Islamophobia. A lot of people worry about this idea of Islamophobia and ask is this something that actually exists. Is it something that actually happens?
Let us talk about facts on the ground. Thirty seven percent of the British population would support policies to reduce the number of Muslims in the UK. This is huge. These types of polls have been done many times and I can give you the sources. These polls show that Islamophobia has reached levels of social acceptance. It has passed the dinner table test. In other words in polite conversation, people are talking about Islamaphobia and people are willing to talk in Islamaphobic terms without anybody saying anything against them. Islamaphobia is just rampant even in schools. Child line has said that the number of children who have been calling due to Islamaphobia and Islamaphobic bullying went up by 70% in the last couple of years. Children are facing this issue.
Personally I know of three examples. A young boy went home and asked his father: “Are you a terrorist?” Why? Because he had a big beard. This is what is happening to children in our schools. We have a situation where a governor came to a friend of mine and said: What is happening. Islamaphobia is rampant in Year 5. What should I do.
We have another case where a school headmaster came to a friend of mine and asked what is happening? Parents are moving their children from RE classes because Islam is being taught. This is what is happening in our society and Islamaphobia is such a great concern. We have a situation where every couple of weeks a mosque or a cemetery is attacked. Every day a Muslim is attacked in some way whether it is a Muslim wearing a hijab or a man with a beard. Every single day. These are the reported statistics.
I can tell you how under reported they are. I was asked by the BBC to find examples of women who had suffered from Islamaphobia and I spoke to 20 of them and only one or two reported it. This is the extent of the problem we are facing. We do not realise how bad Islamaphobia is. It is seen to a great extent in job discrimination. Muslims are 70% less likely to get a job than someone who is not Muslim according to a Bristol University report published last year.
When Islamaphobia is such a problem it is something that we need to raise and highlight. The fact is that some parties are dealing with this better than others. In the last five years there was a cross government working group on the issue of Islamaphobia. Dr Chris Allen one of the key leaders of Islamaphobia work in the UK, not a Muslim, resigned from that working group because he felt that the government was not taking it seriously.
These are the facts on the ground. This is not a partisan view. I do not have any partisan affiliation when it comes to these types of things. We altogether want to stop this and Islamaphobia is a key area. The counter terrorism bill is a key area of concern. The Prevent legislation (Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act) that has just been passed makes prevent a statutory obligation of all public bodies.
I was part of a delegation working directly with the House of Lords trying to directly counter some of these things. Talking to the leader of the Labour Party in the House of Lords I said you shouldn’t do these things, do you realise what the detrimental impact is on the communities you are trying to deal with? This is going to result in a policy which is ineffective in dealing what we all care about, the security of our nation. We do not want ineffective policies, we want effective ones.
This is going to result in extra looking at Muslims. Even in nurseries if the nursery teacher suspects that their children may be extreme they will have to report it. This is very dangerous. This is looking at Muslims through the lens of security. Muslims are seen as potential security threats and is very very dangerous. We will only see the impact of this in years to come.
And finally the third out of four areas of most interest is representation and engagement. What do I mean by that? In the past five years there has been little engagement by the government with the Muslim community. We haven’t had the engagement that we had in previous years. So all these issues that we are talking about are not being dealt with. Why? Because the Muslim voice is not being heard. We are not able to raise our voice at the right level because they do not want to engage with us.
It is not a blanket policy that we will not engage with any community. It is a selective policy towards select communities and select people. There is a ‘good Muslim’ ‘bad Muslim’ narrative where if you do a certain thing you are a good Muslim and we will talk to you but if you decide to speak the truth and the reality on the ground and that is not something that is palatable you may not be spoken to. This is a worry that we face right now: the ‘good Muslim’, ‘bad Muslim’ narrative.
This is flowing into the idea of representation. As Muslims are we represented in any way in the judiciary, in the police force, in the security services, in the government, in the council list, at every level of government. Are we represented in a fair way? The reality is we are not. We have eight Muslim MPs when five percent of a 600,000 population means we should have 30 MPs. I am not saying it should be directly like that but there should be some sort of link. There is a significantly lower number than there should be. And that is what we are facing right now.
And the final area of interest is foreign affairs and I do mention it finally. While Muslims are very passionate about issues such as foreign affairs polling suggests that is not the primary decision maker. There are a lot of other areas of interest that actually drive decision making. For some people foreign affairs is the most important issue whether that is to do with Kashmir, the Palestine issue, Syria or a whole range of other issues foreign affairs plays a big role.
So with all this in mind what does the Muslim community want? I think I can summarise it in three words: fairness, not favours. Fairness not favours. That is the title of the MCB election document. That is all anybody wants on all of the issues we are talking about. If it is Islamaphobia we want fairness. If it is foreign affairs we want a consistent, ethical policy which is fair – nothing else. We do not want favours. We do not want special treatment. All we want is for fairness to come through.
And from that we realise what is going to happen and how can we deal with this. We said these are the issues that matter to the community. There are 40 seats that can be influenced by Muslim voters. I think it depends on how you split the numbers. The most powerful analysis of the numbers is from the Muslim News which says that 22 have a highly significant chance of moving and changing because of the Muslim vote.
What can Muslims do on the local level and what is the government doing? At the local level Muslims can do a whole range of stuff. In Harrow I can talk more definitely and with more authoritatively. In Harrow all the mosques have come together under the Muslim Forum of Middlesex. We met with all the candidates, we sent out information leaflets about what the candidates views are, we got 15 page pledge forms. We created focus groups. We did surveys and decided what are the issues Muslims care about at the local level. We supplemented them with what happens at the national level and we created a questionnaire which we gave to the candidates. We said this is what we care about. Tell me what your views are on these issues. Write them down. And every single candidate in Harrow East and Harrow West except for one responded. That meant 15 page responses. They actually cared that much about the community that they wrote 15 page responses.
We had hustings where anybody can ask questions and we had leaflets summarising their views which we are going to be distributing across the whole of Harrow. This is a very structured, formulated attempt which was worked on over an eight month period in a constituency where the Muslim vote is three times as large as the majority vote. It is a very major swing seat. Harrow East was considered to be one of the king maker seats. If the Labour Party wins that seat they may win the election.
The mosques are working in a non partisan way in this. With that in mind Muslims can make a difference and according to the Ashcroft Polling in Harrow East before we started working the Conservative Party was ahead in the polls. Now it looks as if the Labour Party may be ahead in the polls. And all we were doing was encouraging the people to vote and giving them information. The Labour Party believe that we may have been part of the reason that happened. All we were doing was non partisan, encouraging people to vote. But as you know many in the Muslim community end up voting Labour.
So what is going to happen in this election more broadly?What is going to happen at the national level?We have seen the manifestos that have come out. The Conservative Party does not have a separate BME manifesto. It has a general manifesto on all issues. They have talked very powerfully on issues that matter – that the economy is most important and without a strong economy you can’t get strong health care. They have talked about protecting halal food and Islamaphobia. That is where the Conservative Party are.
The Labour Party has been a lot more proactive. They have a separate BME manifesto as they have for many years. They have talked quite powerfully about a cross government strategy to deal with Islamaphobia in both education and in social media. This is real issue for us as the Muslim community.
Ed Milliband in the recent news has talked about creating a new crime category for Islamaphobia. Any crime which is due to hate (hatred of Muslims) will be considered a hate crime like any other hate crime in the same way anti-Semitism is a hate crime. They are putting Islamaphobia on the same level.
That caused a lot of fuss in the media. Douglas Murray in his usual style attacked Ed Milliband. He has also talked about wanting to overhaul the Prevent legislation. So these are quite powerful and major choices made by the Labour Party. Why? Because they want to maintain their strong share of the vote and they want to win back those voters who said they would never vote Labour again after the Iraq war.
The Liberal Democrats want to maintain the protest vote. They know a lot of people who are not affiliated with them went to them. They are trying to keep those votes. They are part of the government and when you are part of the government you are going to lose a lot of votes. Their BME manifesto has been very strong. It is probably one of the strongest when it comes to the Muslim community. It has talked about Islamaphobia in terms we would talk about it. It has talked about fairness when it comes to foreign policy in the same way we would talk about it. It has talked about social justice in a way we really care about. The Liberal Democrats are a very interesting party but they have zero Muslim MPs and one likely either. And no winnable seats. So you have to balance all these things.
And then you have to look at the Green Party and the SNP. They seem to be very close to the Muslim community on many issues. So what do we do? My guess is that many Muslims are very close to the Conservative Party because of its values: crime and response to crime, family values and entrepreneurship. But because of the last five years, because of previous years it does not look like they are going to climb this mountain and they are not even trying. And the worrying thing is that they will resign themselves to loosing the Muslim vote and not bothering. So my guess when it comes to the election is that we are likely to have a situation where the Conservative Party when it comes to Muslims is going to loose its share of votes, probably less than 15 %. Labour are probably going to keep 60% of the Muslim vote and the remainder is likely to go to the protest parties: the Greens and the SNP rather than the Lib Dems in England or Scotland. So with that thank you very much.
Chairman: You have given a good summary of the background and an analysis of what is likely to happen. We will see if it comes true. Our next speaker was born in a village in the third world. I think the whole of the Third World is not a global village. And he is now in the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
Cllr. Mushtaq Lasharie: I was born in village where even today there is no electricity. There is no hospital and there is no school. I was one of the lucky people. I left home because my mother died when I was five years old. She died from TB. I was her only child. Since I left the village I travelled all the way to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and in that journey I have seen a lot. So my contribution this evening will be based on my personal experiences.
I am very pleased that I am speaking after a mathematician who graduated from Oxford. You will not hear any statistics from me. I will make a very practical contribution. Let me start with a few things. I am very pleased I am a political activist. I belong to the Labour Party, I represented David Cameron till he moved out to Ten Downing Street and I retired. Since then I have been more busy than when I was a deputy mayor or a councillor. I was the only non white now there are four non whites so I have made some progress in that section.
Labour are very strong in Kensington and Chelsea. They are not fearful of any changes. I am pleased I live in Kensington and Chelsea which has 60 our of 80 billionaires in the UK. So it is good news that I leave next to billionaires. The most deprived ward in the country is about half a mile from where I live. It is sad we live in a world where inequality is so wide.
I would like to speak about a couple of things. Number one: Islamaphobia. I think we know that it has become a norm in this culture. The media is hyping it and the establishment is supporting it. A lot of people are against the legislation that they have passed in the last four years on terrorism. They are using extremism as one of the tools. Gordon Brown took us to the war and almost half of the members of the Labour Party resigned. We used to have 450,000 members and 250,000 were left. I was one of those who stuck with the party even though I was very critical. I was standing in Hyde Park and I was part of the campaign not to go into the war.
When Gordon Brown tried to pass the law that we can keep any person who is arrested on terrorism charges for 90 days he failed because we the Muslims in the Labour Party opposed it. There are very important things which are happening in this election. On Thursday, David Milliband spoke in the Royal Institute of International Affairs and he introduced the ethical policy, the BME policy and many others which I totally agree with them. The Prime Minister was criticised because he is using these broad cases to make his point. He was right. The issues in the Middle East and Asia are related to and linked to other foreign policy issues and we have to have a very strong voice and raise that voice.
Another point before I move to the subject of today. There are a lot of Pakistanis in the audience. I would like to recite a poem in Punjabi by Munir Nizai which I will try and translate. I am directing this poem to Muslims. Although we know that the policies of the West are not good we Muslims are not contributing anything to making them good. You can see what is happening in the Middle East, in Yemen and everywhere in the Muslim world.
We Muslims who live in the UK are four percent of the population and we are being demonised. The Muslim communities are neither united nor one. We came from different countries, historical backgrounds and cultures. Some came from the Middle East, some came from Asia. We were wonderful when we came from Asia and introduced chicken tikka. But when we tried to establish mosques and cultural centres we were divided and we are divided.
The MBC is really playing a very important role and I really appreciate this. It was established in 1998. I remember Jack Straw was the home secretary. It had a link with the Labour government but now they have made a lot of progress and they have become a very independent organisation. I really appreciate what they are doing. I have always supported Aziz Pasha.
Today we need more of a united front. Not only on the local level in Harrow but also on the national level. The Muslims with differences can have one voice and that voice will be a united voice but we can differ as well. We can say that these are our demands. There are some people like Mohsin Abbas who are working on this. He has come up with the Muslim Charter for this election. Other people are also working on this.
As you can understand, ideologically I am very close the Green Party or the Communist Party or the SNP or Clyde Cymru. But I am part of the Labour Party because I believe that the Labour Party is the only party which will govern this country. The prime minister will be either a Labour Party prime minister or a Conservative prime minister. I don’t think anyone from the other parties will be the prime minister.
So ideologically we want to keep the Labour Party under pressure and that is our duty whether we are supporters of the Labour Party which has about 70% support [from the Muslims]. Less than 10% of Muslim voters are supporting the Conservatives because of what they have done during the last five years. Their policies were not positively directed towards the Muslims and the Muslims were not very happy with them.
I would like to tell you the difference between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party. I am not advocating that you should vote for one of the other. I will vote for the Labour Party. That is my choice.
Whenever the Labour Party comes into the government it expands the government. They bring more people into the government whether it is local or national government. They expand the government. When the Conservative Party comes into the government it shrinks the government and individuals benefit. That is why when there is a Conservative government it is always cutting local budgets. Last year in Kensington and Chelsea it was cut by £43m. In other areas where there is greater inequality it will cut more deeply. In Brent it was cut by a £100m in the last four years. I don’t know the figure for Harrow but I am sure there were cuts.
Let us say that although extremism should not be linked to Islam or any religion unfortunately is being linked in this way sometimes by the media and sometimes by state leaders. Now they are not using the term ‘Muslim terrorist’. They are using the term ‘extremist’. MBC’s work in this area is very important and people like myself through the group small group I have called Third World Solidarity. We also have an Interpaliamentary group and we raise these issues on human rights and other issues as well through a different approach.
We say we are not raising these issues because we are Muslims. We are raising them because we are human beings. We have the same rights as any human being in this country because we live in a democracy. The beauty is that after five years every government has to come to you or go to you and I have fought eight general elections, ten local elections, ten European elections. The mayor Ken Livingstone was a good friend of mine. I hope that the next mayor of London will also be a good friend of mine whether it is Tessa owell or Sadiq Khan. A lot of Muslims are coming to me and saying support Sadiq Khan and I tell them I have to support the one who is more capable so they can be elected. I do not think supporting losers is agood thing although sometimes we have to them because of our principles.
Let us see what role Muslims can play. The previous speaker has already mentioned how many seats can be affected by the Muslims. I think he has given a very low number. I think the number of Muslim votes can affect more than 100 seats because the margin of the majority in this election will be very little. There are many seats, even in Kilburn. I think there are four thousand voters who will not come out. There will be at least 400 Muslims in that area. This will be a very closely contested election so the political parties are asking you to come out and vote.
I think we should come out and vote for whichever part we support and try to know make sure that we know the local MPs. In Harrow candidates for the Labour Party are wonderful. I hope they will. One is going to be the foreign minister for the Middle East and Asia. He is a good man and I believe he should continue.
At the same time we Muslims have to challenge ourselves as well. What are the issues which concern us especially in the areas where the majority of us are Muslims and where Muslims in this country should do better than they are doing at the moment.
I would like to make some recommendations. Get involved in this election and become a member of a political party. Even if you don’t vote and get involved decisions will be made by the future government about your lives whether it is the NHS or the economy. This election is being fought on these two major issues. One party is saying if the economy is strong every one will benefit. But I personally believe that only 80 or 170 billionaires will benefit rather than the lowest 20% – possibly 20m people. So we have to look into which party is ideologically closer to us.
With regard to the NHS I can’t get an ambulance nowadays. They ask me whether I have a car and as I have a car they tell me to come by car. And when I park it I have to pay for it. They are taxing us through many back doors. We have to put our national priorities first. We live in this country. Our children live in this country. We have the benefit of democracy in this country. I believe this is our country and this is our homeland. Then comes the country where we came from be it Pakistan where I came from or the Middle East or any other part of the world.
We live in the United Kingdom. As Muslims we are passing through a very challenging situation in history. But with challenges come opportunities and the opportunities are only ten days away. Lets work together to vote for a government which work for us, which will work for the country. So let me conclude. Let us engage at a later stage and I will be very happy to answer your questions or comments.
Moeen Yaseen: Salam Aleikum and Good evening to some of my non Muslim guests. I am using this platform to raise issues which have not been raised and indeed that is the purpose of our think tank. The Muslim ummah is in a crisis in our so-called homelands and here. We are in a very dangerous, unpredictable, turbulent situation. There could be a constitutional crisis in this country. I am not saying it will happen but it could given what might happen in Scotland.
We are in unchartered times. Like wise with Europe. Let me bring the discussion up to date. Let us look at the situation in which we find ourselves and someone has got to say it, here, in parliament or on the streets.
I would like to draw attention to the next generation of Enoch Powell. I salute the pioneers who came to this country. They came to a country and unknown territory. There was the rivers of blood speech. Now we have a party without mentioning names who talks about you and me as fifth column.
You said, sir that maybe 40% of Brits do not like Muslims and do not want them here. The implication is go home. This is home for most of the Muslims and those who want to come are dying in the Mediterranean sea. I don’t think it is going to change and Europe and Britain need to understand that we are here to stay. But we have to ask ourselves the question what are we here for?
We have to go back to first principles but what is the Islamic vision for our community and for everyone. We haven’t really addressed this issue. The time has come. Murdoch is one of the richest people in this country who owns 800 papers and is backed by the richest man in the world, Rothschilds and lives next door to each other in St James. How dare one of his reporters, a white non-Muslim lady refers to Muslims as ‘cockroaches.’ She said our navy, the British navy, who we fund should be sent to eliminate them. That is the situation of Muslims in the UK and in Europe. It is unacceptable.
It is time we understood the situation w
