Muslim campaign launch in Wales aimed at getting people to vote against the Tories and Labour

Martin Shipton

A campaign aimed at persuading Muslims and others not to vote for Tory or Labour general election candidates who have backed Israel’s invasion of Gaza is having its Welsh launch on Saturday May 11.

The Muslim Vote campaign is calling for candidates to support policies including freedom for Palestine; an end to Islamophobia and discrimination across healthcare, education, media, employment, justice and political systems; and major increases in funding to the NHS, housing and economic regeneration in the poorest constituencies in the UK.

The event, entitled Be the Change We Need, will begin at 5pm in the Temple of Peace in Cathays Park,

Abdul-Azim Ahmed, Secretary General of Muslim Council Wales, said: “Anyone with a heart, Muslim or not, will have been horrified at Israel’s most recent onslaught against Gaza, one which continues to this day. Horrifying too is the defence some politicians have put forward for Israel’s actions, and the reluctance to call – at a bare minimum – for a ceasefire.

In the next eight months, there will be a general election. The Muslim Vote is a campaign that is coordinating across the UK to ensure that politicians realise there is a political cost to defending the indefensible. Mainstream Muslim groups across Britain are supporting the campaign, and the Muslim Council of Wales is one of them.”

Onslaught

Sumayya Ahmed of The Muslim Vote in Wales said: “The mainstream parties have failed us on every level. It is time we unite to drive genocidal MPs out and ethically viable MPs in. Government funding seems scarce when it comes to our NHS, education and other public services, yet ample when supporting the Israeli genocidal onslaught against an indigenous population in Palestine. Come to the South Wales Community Group meeting to find out how you can be at the heart of that change. This is a call for all groups to mobilise and reclaim our democracy and freedoms.”

Arising out of dissatisfaction with the way many politicians responded to atrocities in Gaza, and a sense that the “Muslim Vote” was being taken for granted, the campaign in South Wales says it is also attracting support from many non-Muslims, supporting its goal to elect politicians who stand for global justice, first class public services, and an end to poverty and racism in Britain. Many of the organisations involved in recent city protests calling for a ceasefire in Gaza are backing the event including Cardiff Stop the War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stand Up For Palestine, and Black Lives Matter.

Among the speakers at the meeting will be former Plaid Cymru MS Bethan Sayed, whose talk is entitled Influencing and Campaigning: the best strategic approaches to activate sleeping communities.

Keir Starmer

While many Muslims and others have been angered by the UK Government’s support for Israel, and its failure to condemn unequivocally the killing of Palestinian civilians, mainly women and children, there has been equal condemnation of Labour, whose leader Sir Keir Starmer said in an interview with LBC that Israel had the right to withhold power and water from civilians in Gaza after the terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians by Hamas. Later Sir Keir claimed that he had been answering a different question.

The number of Palestinians killed in Gaza is estimated at around 35,000. Labour MPs did not support an SNP motion in the Commons calling for a ceasefire.

At the end of February the Rochdale by-election was won by veteran left-winger George Galloway, standing for the Workers’ Party of Britain on a pro-Palestine manifesto. The Labour candidate had been disowned by his party after the contents of a recording was published by the Daily Mail in which he backed a conspiracy theory that Israel had allowed the October 7 killings to go ahead, giving them the green light to invade Gaza.

Asked whether the Muslim community would be asked not to vote for Labour as well as the Conservatives, Ms Ahmed said people were angry with both parties and that was the implication.

Muslim-specific

She said: “There are other candidates to vote for, including Independents and Plaid Cymru, but at this meeting we won’t be endorsing any in particular. We will however be encouraging people to go to hustings meetings in the run-up to the general election, and even to organise such meetings, so the candidates can be questioned. Some of the issues we will be raising are Muslim-specific, but others have a wider interest for the whole community, including improving the health service and education. The two main parties are letting people down, we believe. We want candidates to be judged on their responses to our concerns.”

According to the 2021 Census, the Welsh constituency with the highest proportion of Muslims was Cardiff Central with 11.5%. Its current MP is Shadow Welsh Secretary Jo Stevens, who has had demonstrators outside her office because of her failure to vote for a Gaza ceasefire. New constituency boundaries will operate at the general election because of the reduction in the number of MPs elected in Wales from 40 to 32.

* The public meeting – Be The Change We Need – will be held between 5pm and 8pm on Saturday May 11 at the Temple of Peace, King Edward VII Ave, Cardiff CF10 3AP.