Yousra Samir ImranFadeela* watched in horror as the number in the sky-blue box representing the British far-right party Reform continued to climb on her television screen.
She checked who had won in her area, the North London suburb of Whetstone: one Conservative councillor and one Labour councillor.
By the time the results were finalised in May, Reform had won control of 14 councils, with 1,454 Reform councillors now in positions of power across local authorities, more than any other political party.
They were the undeniable winners of the UK’s May local elections.
For years, the idea that this far-right populist party, started in 2018 by ex-UKIP (The UK Independence Party) leader Nigel Farage, a man famous for his hypernationalism, might win an election seemed far-fetched.
But May’s results were concrete proof that opinion polls were correct. For the past two years, Reform has steadily gained popularity; according to YouGov polls, if Britain held a General Election now, Reform would win.
Former Muslim Council of Britain Secretary-General and diversity and inclusion consultant Zara Mohammed tells TRT World that the results are a stark reminder of what could happen at the next general election.
“It really speaks to the sentiment of how fed-up people are, but also how completely divisive our politics are,” she says.
“Reform has made so many gains that the future has changed, whether we like it or not.”
With Reform’s proposed policies, including scrapping indefinite leave to remain, revoking the Equality Act 2010 (a piece of legislation designed to protect people from all forms of discrimination), and curtailing immigration, people like Fadeela are concerned about what that might mean for their residency status.
The 38-year-old French-Tunisian mother who works in publishing has indefinite leave to remain in the country. Her husband and three children are British; however, that has not automatically qualified her for British citizenship.
Reform’s recent success in the local elections has made her worry that if they win the next General Election, scheduled for 2029, and follow through on their plan to end indefinite leave to remain, she could find herself forcibly separated from her family.
“I had been postponing applying for British citizenship because it’s an expensive process,” she tells TRT World.
“But the rise of Reform has been a motivator to get it done. I have seen instances where people who don’t have a UK passport have not been able to re-enter the country. I feel like that could be reinforced with Reform coming into power.”
The extent of racism
It is not only Muslim immigrants who feel, following local elections, that their future in Britain is precarious.
British Muslims are deeply concerned that a Reform government would enable anti-Muslim sentiment.
This was most recently evident at the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally in London on May 16, organised by the notorious anti-Islam and far-right figure Tommy Robinson.
A recent POLITICO poll found that one in three Reform voters held positive views of Robinson, indicating a link between racism, Islamophobia and Reform.
This racism and Islamophobia extend from Reform voters to the top levels of the party’s politicians. Reform leader Farage has come under fire numerous times for making Islamophobic statements.
In his first election interview in 2024 with Sky News, he claimed that 46 percent of British Muslims support Hamas and do not share British values, and as recently as in March, Farage called a public Ramadan event in London city centre, a “deliberate, wilful attempt…to overtake, intimidate and dominate our way of life” and that he would like to see such events banned in future.
“While Reform will say, ‘We're not racist,’ the rhetoric that they're feeding is one that breeds that kind of hostility in the street,” Assistant Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain Naomi Green tells TRT World.
“The number of reports I'm hearing from Muslims of them just walking down the street and having things said to them because they wear hijab or they have a beard, it's never been like this before.”
This anti-Muslim discourse trickles all the way down to the councillor level — the same councillors elected in last month’s elections who now have power in local authorities.
A number of recent racist and Islamophobic posts were found on the social media accounts of Brett Muscroft, now a Reform councillor in the Wakefield district of Castleford and Glasshoughton, along with open support for Tommy Robinson.
In May, Reform Deputy Leader Richard Tice refused to condemn the comments of Reform councillor Glebb Gibbins, who in 2024 posted that Nigerians should be melted and used to fill potholes.
Gibbins has since been suspended.
Other newly elected Reform councillors have also been suspended or resigned over making similar comments.
Stuart Prior, who resigned days after being elected, had allegedly called Muslims ‘dirt’ and, in another post, wrote, “There cannot be a genocide against Muslims. It’s only ever self-defence against those rats”.
Knowing that some of their elected councillors hold such hateful views leaves many Muslims in Britain anxious.
“Many Muslims have to use local authorities because of our faith, for burial, planning permissions and local services for mosque community centres,” Mohammed tells TRT World.
“So, there is a lot of engagement between local authorities and Muslim communities. Muslims will be concerned about how they navigate this. The idea that they [Reform] have so much representation in councils, I think Muslims are absolutely terrified by the idea that there could be a Reform government.”
Reform did not respond to TRT World’s requests for comment.
‘I worry about the future for my kids’
Siddique Patel’s family has lived in Dewsbury for generations.
The family lawyer keeps a keen eye on local and national politics. While independent candidates won in his area of Dewsbury West, on the other side of town in Dewsbury East, Reform won, reflecting the increasingly polarised politics in the West Yorkshire town.
Last summer, Dewsbury East was the site of a large community effort in hoisting St. George’s flags on public lampposts as part of the far-right Operation Raise the Colours movement.
“I do worry about the future for my kids,” says Patel.
“I want my kids to grow up in a country where they feel safe and feel part of the country. They're British Muslims; they were born in this country. We're fourth-generation Muslims, so we're established here.”
Patel says that when political leaders normalise Islamophobic rhetoric, it sends a signal that such behaviour is acceptable, allowing hatred and division to spread more easily in society.
He adds that the language used by many Reform councillors risks creating an environment where Muslim families, including his own children, no longer feel safe.
While Patel worries about what a Reform-controlled Britain would mean for his children, he is adamant that Britain is their home and that he is not going anywhere.
“This is our country, and we've contributed to it,” he says.
“We want this country to do well, and we want to show people the beauty of our faith through our actions. However, for other British Muslims, as the possibility of Reform becoming the next government becomes real, moving to another country or making hijrah (migration) to Turkey, Malaysia, or the Gulf is now on the cards.”
Occupational therapist Amina Tracy Siddall, who lives in a village in the Northeast city of Durham where Reform won, echoes this.
“I would be here until I could move to another Muslim country,” she tells TRT World.
“Otherwise, I don't think I could move anywhere else in England that would be any better.”
Fadeela and her husband are keeping their options open.
“We are 100 percent thinking about our exit plan,” she tells TRT World.
“We are thinking about moving to other places where there's less hatred towards Muslims. It could be another European country, a country in North Africa or somewhere like Singapore.”
