Mothin Ali: 'There's a lot of racism on the left'

New Statesman​

a day ago

Leeds councillor Mothin Ali is set to run for deputy leader of the Green Party. Photograph by Craig Gent, courtesy of Mothin Ali
Within weeks of being elected as a Green Party councillor in May 2024, Mothin Ali was criticised for saying Allahu Akhbar ('God is great') in his victory speech, faced down rioters and was targeted by far-right disinformation. It was a very public and literal baptism of fire for the accountant and permaculture gardener who knows that in his garden he can be alone and away from online and offline hassle. Now he wants to become deputy leader of the Green Party.
Ali and I speak via Zoom straight after his councillor surgery at the Compton Community Centre in Harehills, West Yorkshire. He seemed weighed down by some of the problems he had heard about, but quickly became energised when talking about the issues. '​​Housing's the biggest problem,' he said. Among the people who have been to see him this morning are a family of five living in a two-bed home. It's a common problem, along with disrepair and the long wait for social housing. 'It's just unbelievable,' he said.
Ali, 43, represents Gipton and Harehills, a working-class, racially mixed community in the north-east of Leeds. It's where he grew up and first stood as a 'paper' candidate (without a chance of being elected) in 2022. It took Ali two years to turn a meagre 22 per cent of the vote into 52 per cent and a majority of 750 votes driven by a grassroots campaign.
'One thing I think that's missing is that connection between the grassroots activists and the leaders,' Ali said. What he wants for the Greens is to connect their local strength to a 'presence on a national scale in the mainstream media'. He contrasts his party's action-orientated approach to Reform, which is, 'getting the votes from media hype'.
'Inner-city areas feel let down, but for a long time it's been the Labour Party who've had free rein over these areas. And no one's really challenged them,' he said. He dismisses any idea that British people are apathetic: 'People are disenfranchised,' he observed.
Ali has recently come under scrutiny for deciding not to sign any internal pledges from the party's various interest groups, particularly the LGBTIQA+ Greens. His reasoning was, firstly, that politicians regularly sign and break these types of pledge so they are not an effective way to effect change and, secondly, that pledges can subvert the party's member-led policy process.
This stance prompted criticism and praise from inside and outside the party, much of which incorrectly assumed that he was unsupportive of LGBT rights when he is on the record expressing support for these communities. Amid the discussion online, Adnan Hussain, independent MP for Blackburn asked on X, 'Is there space on the left to create a broad enough church to allow Muslims an authentic space, just as it does all other minority groups?'
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'First and foremost, I've got to say I'm an unapologetic Muslim. I make no apology for who I am,' Ali said when I asked him if there is a place for practising Muslims in progressive spaces. 'A lot of our [Islamic] mindset, a lot of our thinking is predominantly left wing. It's predominantly socialist based,' he responded, 'we've got a lot of natural home here.
'But, just as the racists exist on the right, they exist on the left – and that's a conversation that's very rarely had.'
Ali said that one prominent Green Party member described him of being 'sinister' while another said it was right to be 'suspicious' of Muslims. These are, frankly, not uncommon attitudes in British society, but Ali highlights how the Green Party does not yet have an anti-racism policy – something that he and others hope to change at the Party's autumn conference. 'There's a lot of that [racism] that goes on in left-wing spheres that, because it's done with a level of politeness and a level of niceness, it's not that visceral hate that you get on the right,' he said.
At a protest outside a hotel housing asylum seekers in Leeds earlier this month, Ali encountered some of that visceral hate when was challenged on camera by far-right activists. It's a compelling watch as he calmly engages with the 'auditor' and puts across his points defending asylum seekers, migrants and refugees. 'Someone was actually swearing at me while I was having the conversation,' he remembered.
'I think it's important to be empathetic,' Ali said. 'They're looking for answers, looking for hope as well. And what they've found or what they've been fed is a narrative where immigrants are to blame or Muslims are to blame.'
Ali believes the far right can be countered through dialogue. 'We've got to create a safe space where people can discuss things,' he said. 'So people can have robust discussions. They don't have to agree on everything. We can't all think the same.'
In the aftermath of the riots in his ward last year, sparked by the removal into foster care of four Roma children, Ali organised a series of meetings to help the different communities hear and understand each other and the challenges they had. 'We created a space where there was understanding, where we're going to have some positives out of it,' he said. It's an approach Ali has used recently to gather opinion on the more quotidian local issue of roadworks, but reflects his belief that people have to be more directly involved in the decisions that affect them.
His other method to bridge divides is doing the practical work of community activism. Ali recounts knocking on the door of a man who swiftly dismissed him, using the P-word for good measure. Instead of walking away, Ali pressed for the reasons why this person was so unhappy. 'His problem was fly-tipping and some anti-social behaviour,' Ali explained. The councillor got the fly-tipping cleared and went back to see him, but he was 'still very angry'. Months went by and Ali went back for another chat to see how things were going. This time the conversation was more 'civilised', Ali recalled. After election day the man told Ali that he had voted for him. 'That's how we change hearts and minds,' Ali said.
[See also: Visions of an English civil war]
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