Keir Starmer does not care about the Muslim vote and he's lost mine

I have always voted for the centre-left Labour Party during elections in the United Kingdom. But the party lost my support in October, when Labour party leader Keir Starmer said that Israel had the right to cut off water and power supplies to the people of Gaza.

While the war raged in the months that followed and we protested through our streets demanding for it to end, Starmer doubled down on his support for Israel. In November, he threatened to sack any minister from his party who backed a parliamentary vote in support of a ceasefire. This further cemented my decision to no longer vote Labour. It no longer matters that Starmer quickly backtracked on supporting cutting off basic human needs in Gaza, or that he changed his stance on calling for a ceasefire come February 2024. The damage is already done.

Apology not accepted

Any doubts that may have crept in after my decision to drop Labour were quickly dashed last week, when several left-wing Labour MPs were told they would not be allowed to run for candidacy in Britain's upcoming general election in July.

While out canvassing recently, Faiza Shaheen received an email telling her she would no longer be allowed to stand as a Labour candidate in her east London constituency of Chingford and Woodford Green.

The reason, she was told, was because she had "liked" a tweet in 2014, posted by the legendary Jon Stewart. The post was of Stewart, a Jewish American comedian, questioning Israel's actions during its 2014 ground offensive in Gaza. Shaheen said she had already apologised for liking the tweet, but that wasn't enough.

Veteran politician Diane Abbott and a Labour stalwart also said she had been notified that she could not run for candidacy in Hackney North and Stoke Newington. This was over comments she had made more than a year ago in which she said Irish, Jewish and Traveller people had not faced the same levels of racism as Black people.

Like Shaheen, Abbot had apologised. But it took widespread public criticism of how Abbot had been treated for the Labour party to backtrack. It confirmed this week that Abbott could still stand in the next election.

There was also wide speculation last week that Apsana Begum, a Labour Party politician who has been vocal about the war in Gaza, would not be allowed to run, in what Labour Councillor Mark Francis called a "last-ditch attempt" by party members to remove her. But on June 4, she announced on X that she would still be standing for re-election "no matter what."

Mistreated

What all three female, Black and ethnic minority, left-wing Labour MPs have in common is their pro-Palestine stance and the fact that they have been treated appallingly by the party.

Shaheen was so devastated that she announced her resignation from the Labour party, saying she had been subjected to a campaign of Islamophobia, racism and bullying. Earlier this week, she announced that she would now be running as an independent candidate.

In February, Begum also raised claims of mistreatment, stating Black and Asian members of the Labour party are being unfairly targeted, examples of which are detailed in the 2023 Forde report.

The writers of the report stated that it received a shocking amount of evidence to support the complaints of discriminatory behaviour based on religion, race, and gender. As the UK's first hijab-wearing MP and domestic violence survivor, for which she has said the party gave her no support, she declared this could not continue, accusing the party of trying to deselect her as MP.

If a politician with almost 40 years experience, like Abbot, who has been fighting tirelessly for decades against racism, catastrophic human rights abuses, the Windrush Scandal, the Iraq war (2003) and the suffering in Palestine (ongoing), is so disrespected by the Labour Party, it brings into question where the party itself stands on all these issues.

And if Labour can treat its own colleagues this way, what about ethnic minorities like me who don't hold positions of power?

Purging pro-Palestine voices

The fact that Abbott, Shaheen and Begum appear to be facing blowback for being vocal on Palestine is also a problem. Purging pro-Palestine MPs suggests that should Labour win in the next election, its stance on Gaza won't be any different to its Tory predecessors.

I would not be holding my breath that Starmer as Prime Minister of the UK would vote for an immediate permanent ceasefire at the United Nations, or end arm sales to Israel.

For me, the cherry on the cake was Starmer's response this week to reporters who asked what he had to say about the seven Muslim Labour councillors in Slough resigning from the party over its racist treatment of Abbott and Shaheen, and the party's stance on Gaza.

Starmer completely ignored the question, another implication that he does not care about the views of Muslim and ethnic minority party members. So why would he care about the views of Muslim and ethnic minority citizens like me?

Labour did not receive my vote in the recent local elections that took place in May because of Starmer's unacceptable stance on Gaza. I live in an area that was once a Labour stronghold, but lost to a pro-Palestine independent candidate. There will also be a number of pro-Palestine independents in my area running for candidacy in July's General Election.

After the local elections, Starmer said he was ‘listening' and acknowledged that he had lost the trust of people who usually vote Labour (while not being explicit about who those people were and why) saying his party was determined to win back those votes. But this culling of left-wing MPs really does not suggest that he has done any listening at all.

Anti-semitism or anti-Israel

The Labour party has worked hard ever since Starmer replaced former party leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2020, to reform its image after it was previously accused of allowing rampant anti-Semitism within the party.

But I can't help but feel that in the case of Abbott, Begum and Shaheen, that the party's definition of anti-Semitism has extended to cover those politicians who are seen to be critical of the Israeli government.

Some may say that with Labour already projected to win during the next elections, that I am wasting my breath and my vote. But as ethical voting campaigning group The Muslim Vote told TRT World in a recent interview, we as British Muslim voters must advocate for a democracy in which there are a multitude of political parties.

We do not have to accept this long-running hegemony of political power held by Labour and the Conservatives as our status quo.

It matters to me that the member of parliament who represents me at the House of Commons is one that can be vocal about racism, Islamophobia and the country's foreign policy freely, without the ever-hanging threat of being sacked or deselected by their party leader looming over their heads.