EU Referendum


Politics: sending a message


21/06/2021




I didn't intend to return to the Batley and Spen by-election so soon, but there have been some interesting development which are beginning to set this contest on fire.

Before I deal with these, though, let me make it perfectly clear that I am not going to be brow-beaten or otherwise intimidated by keyboard race-warriors – especially on my own blog comments – who seem to take the view that any critical appraisal of the behaviour of immigrant communities somehow constitutes racism.

On this blog, I reserve the right to criticise any person, group, community, nation, continent, planet or even galaxy if I think it is merited. I will do so without fear or favour. I am equally critical about a whole range of issues and the groups that espouse them. There is no discrimination – if they are part of the human race, they are fair game.

As regards the current developments, the irony of the situation could hardly be bettered as the Labour Party is now embroiled in a growing controversy which has the party accused of being selectively racist.

The Guardian's take on this is that Muslim voters are unhappy with the party’s stance on foreign policy issues such as Palestine and Kashmir, amid a perception that the party takes some forms of racism more seriously than others.

I am not quite sure what is being implied here – but it could be taken that the party should be equally racist to all comers, which is probably quite hard to do. But despite her sucking up to (elements of) the local Muslim community, Leadbetter is taking some serious stick from some of said Muslims who believe that Labour is taking their votes "for granted".

You can see the Guardian at its mealy-mouthed worse here, retailing a comment from Wajid Hussain, 35, who complains of Starmer that: "Keir took the time to condemn two idiots for being antisemitic last month but he won't condemn the Israeli government for killing innocent people", referring to an incident in north London last month where antisemitic abuse appeared to be shouted from a car.

A live link is included in the passage, which takes us here, where a group of youths in four Palestinian flag-bedecked cars drive down Finchley Road in North London, to the amplified strains of: "Fuck the Jews. Rape their daughters", captured on video and published on Twitter.

Now, just over a month later, this antisemitic abuse only "appeared" to be shouted from a car, with Wajid Hussain dismissing the perpetrators as "idiots", while complaining that Starmer called the exhibition "utterly disgusting" but failed to "condemn the Israeli government for killing innocent people".

By inference, Hussain is suggesting that the Israeli action is "racism" and, quite evidently, is looking for equivalence from Labour. For Starmer to criticise overt antisemitism, he must at the same time condemn Israel. The one is conditional on the other.

To add to the gaiety of life, Hussain then blandly informs the Guardian, "I've voted Labour my whole life but I won't be blindly giving them my vote any more. And that’s not just about Palestine. It’s everything locally. They've been in power here for 25 years but only now they're under threat do they care about Asians".

Bluntly, I really don't know what Hussain is whingeing about. Neither Labour nor the Tories really give a shit about anyone up here, but if anything in terms of spending and other aspects of public administration, the Asian communities do marginally better that the white areas.

And it has not escaped attention that the recovery rate for Council Tax is highest in the white areas, and significantly lower in the predominantly Asian areas, where enforcement seems to be non-existent.

That's the point about the race warriors, though. Discrimination in favour of ethic communities is good, even where to the detriment of indigenous white communities. But any criticism of any members of their darling ethnic communities, no matter how well-deserved, is not just baaaad. It's wacism.

But what's really giving this story legs is Dan Hodges and his Mail on Sunday, which I reviewed yesterday where, according to the Guardian's rendition, a "senior Labour official" claiming that the reason the [Labour] party was losing votes was a "backlash" from Muslim voters over "what Keir has been doing on antisemitism".

Once again, though, the Guardian can't help itself. This "senior Labour official" didn't just claim that Labour was "losing" votes. The word he used was "haemorrhaging", implying that this was an across-the-board reaction.

This, we are told, has provoked the Labour Muslim Network into writing to Starmer and others to complain that the "obvious implication" was that the Muslim community themselves harbour antisemitic views. This, it describes as a "common racist trope perpetuated onto Muslims".

Of course, this "trope" might just have been slightly reinforced by the thousands of Muslims who travelled to London in segregated coaches to demonstrate for a "free Palestine", chanting their genocidal rhetoric with no complaints at all from the Muslim elders, or from the Labour Muslim Network for that matter.

Nevertheless, this anonymous Labour official is said to have "breached the all-party parliamentary groups’ definition of Islamophobia", and Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner has promised an investigation into the comments.

But, in an issue replete with ironies, I noted in my piece that it was unlikely that this official was relying on first-hand knowledge, in which case he is probably relying on a recent survey which had Starmer reported as being rated "far less favourably than Labour by Muslim voters". And this research was commissioned by … the Labour Muslim Network.

If the "race" issue in Batley and Spen is a prominent part of the campaign, though, it's because the Muslims put it there. As long ago as 6 June, The Times was reporting that the Muslim Council of Britain, using 2018 data from the ONS, was suggesting that Batley and Spen "is one of the top 15 seats where Muslim voters have high impact". With turnout estimates, MCB was saying that about 8,600 voters on 1 July "will" be Muslim, more than twice the Labour majority.

In other words, the Muslim Council was doing what it always does – leveraging its bloc vote to political advantage, in this case clearly implying that the local Muslim community holds the balance of power.

Apparently, there is also discontent over how Labour handled its selection process. The party waived its membership rules to allow Leadbeater to stand and two local councillors who applied, both from the south Asian community, did not make the shortlist.

Nevertheless, the Muslim stance, perhaps, is more than a little presumptuous. It assumes the white vote is going to stay static, supporting their traditional parties. By this means, they are threatening that the bloc Muslim vote will decide on who gets sent to Westminster.

What is interesting though is that, of the Muslim community in Batley, the majority is not Kashmiri, as I had thought, but Indian. Many originate from Alipore, a village near Chikhli, Bilimora in the state of Gujarat – part of the sunni Vohra community, which is said to have originated in Hadhramaut, in the Yemen. They come most recently from Gujarat, but they are not Gujurati.

Even though I used to live in the constituency, I didn't know this when I wrote yesterday's piece. It adds another complication which may significantly alter the voting calculus. Although the Vohra diaspora share with the Kashmiris their adherence to the sunni sect, they are not necessarily going to be as worked up about Kashmiri politics, or even Palestine. Nor is it clear that they will react in the same way to Galloway's blandishments.

Here, The Times offers some clues. About 200 people were at his campaign launch, which was attended by people from Indian and "Pakistani" communities, drawing in working-class support as well as those from more affluent backgrounds. But there was just a handful of white people in the audience when Galloway delivered a rousing anti-Labour speech.

For all that, it is clear that Leadbetter, in focusing on both Kashmir and Palestine, is pitching her message at the Kashmiris. By so doing, she is chasing after the minority of a minority, presumably, presumably in the hope that this will win her the seat.

What needs to be remembered though, is this constituency is Batley and Spen, not just Batley. It takes in part of the Spen valley which has – as Wikipedia delicately puts it – "few residents from non-white heritage backgrounds". Some readers have been quoting Batley demographics, and then from the 2001 census. But in the constituency as a whole, the Muslim voting population will probably be less than 20 percent.

Amongst the white majority, it is fair to say that not a few are thoroughly sick of being branded "racist" if they even dare to remark on how the immigrants are degrading their towns. And with Leadbetter falling over herself to appease the incomers – with the London party doing likewise – this may impact on the core Labour vote.

Thus, chasing after a minority of the minority in this instance is not necessarily going to pay dividends for Labour, while the Muslim Council is in danger of over-estimating the influence of its co-religionists.

It is doubtful, though, that the political classes will take the right message from this. If the Tories do win the seat on the 1 July, it is likely that they will fail to understand the dynamics which brought them victory. And there will also be numbers of race warriors who will misinterpret the message the voters send.

The thing is that the message shouldn't be difficult to understand. Despite the West Yorkshire accent, "fuck you" is clear enough, even in Islington.

Also published on Turbulent Times.