The Islamo-Left alliance is already breaking down
Shockat Adam, independent MP for Leicester South, held up a keffiyeh on hearing his result. Adnan Hussain, MP for Blackburn, told a Free Palestine rally in 2014: 'They let Gaza burn, they hate Gaza… Now let's make Israel burn, let's make Israel burn.'
Electing four MPs, the Greens did better than their wildest dreams at last year's general election. Trashing Israel with their whole heart and soul was part of their appeal.
Fesl Reza-Khan, who signed up to the Greens because they (falsely) called Israel's campaign a 'genocide', helped create a Muslim Greens group. 'A lot of us are from ethnic minority backgrounds. What I see in Gaza, I think: 'Hang on, that's happened to me, that's happened to my forefathers, that whole occupation, exploitation, colonisation'.' Right then.
But because Labour and the Tories refrained from calling Israel's defensive campaign after October 7 a genocide, Mr Reza-Khan concluded they were 'actually gaslighting me, telling me, 'that's not happening, that's not what I'm seeing'. And I don't need to be told what I'm seeing and witnessing.'
One of the most bizarre Green election successes was gardening columnist Mothin Ali taking a seat on Leeds City Council. 'We will raise the voice of Gaza. We will raise the voice of Palestine. Allahu akbar!', he cried on winning, dressed in full religious garb and draped in a keffiyeh.
But the Islamo-Left alliance is beginning to fray with almost comic predictability. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that there will be considerable divergence between a party that is all guns blazing for LGBTQ+ rights and a constituency that embraces the ultra-conservative credos of Sharia law, under which even immodesty in women, to say nothing of homosexuality, is most certainly banned and, in many Muslim societies, punishable on occasion by death.
Exchanges like the following have been livening up social media this week: 'Mate, if you're 'socially conservative', then you're not on the Left. End of', wrote one Mathew Fulton.
This triggered a reply by independent MP Hussain arguing that minorities aren't 'privileged with the black and white clarity of an obvious political home on either the Left or Right'.
This kind of fracturing over the socially Leftist politics of a party like the Greens, or indeed the emerging Corbynista party, is hardly a surprise. But what remains to be seen is if such issues will end up overpowering the anti-Israel sentiment that currently unites the Left's motley crew of alliances. Britain's Muslim vote is growing – my bet is that those appealing to Islamic-inclined voters will win out over the Leftists.
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