Latest news with #MothinAli
The Guardian
9 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Mothin Ali challenges Greens' ‘middle class' image as he enters deputy race
A Green councillor who intervened to stop rioters and received death threats for vocal support for Gaza is running to replace Zack Polanski as deputy leader of the party. Mothin Ali, of Gipton and Harehills ward in Leeds – a former Labour stronghold – said he wanted to champion working-class communities, challenge the idea of the Greens as a 'middle-class party' and ensure it represents 'a diverse Britain increasingly threatened by the far right'. Ali, 43, said the support he got from voters in Gipton, 'a traditionally white working-class community', as well as diverse Harehills, reflected unifying concerns and his commitment to all, adding: 'We're not playing identity politics games.' Launching his candidacy, Ali said: 'A lot of the problems white working-class communities face, a lot of ethnic minorities face, a lot of rural communities face. We're all faced by the cost of living; climate change is very real. 'We have to address climate change, we have to address poverty, we have to address the lack of opportunities, the access to good education, the health deserts where people can't get a dentist appointment, these are not ethnic minority problems. These are not working-class problems. These are problems that are structural in our society. 'We have to take care of every single person – if that means the rich have to pay a little bit more, absolutely right.' Ali, who organised the City of Belonging event in Leeds after rioting broke out in Harehills in July 2024, said he wanted to spread the 'grassroots community organising' he had done in the city across the UK to build a 'people-powered movement'. 'We've got to keep organising our communities, regardless of whether they're black, brown, Muslim, Jewish or Christian – the common problems that we face, we face together,' he added. Ali said the 'Overton window shifting more to the right' was creating a 'climate of fear' among his constituents in a poor area where people 'look out for one another'. In July last year Ali was falsely accused of rioting in Harehills by the far-right activist Tommy Robinson, after he intervened to stop arson and violence. Ali said he had 'no regrets' about vocal support for Gaza in the local election victory speech in May last year, which led to him getting threats, but said he should have been 'more considered' in language he used on X after 7 October, later apologising. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion An accountant, YouTuber and permaculture teacher, Ali is the third candidate to announce their bid for the Greens' deputy leadership, after Antoinette Fernandez and Thomas Daw. The party's current deputy leader, Zack Polanski, is running for the leadership. The Green party of England and Wales, with 859 councillors and four MPs, is positioning itself as the 'antidote' to Nigel Farage's Reform UK, which has 824 councillors and five MPs across England, Wales and Scotland. The Greens' vote share among people aged 18 to 24 in the 2024 general election was 19%, second to Labour and ahead of Reform on 8%, while their general election vote share among minority ethnic voters rose by 9%.
Telegraph
25-04-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
The Greens aren't cuddly environmentalists. They are Corbynistas on steroids
I thought we had reached the pinnacle of the Greens' Marxist madness with last year's election of Mothin Ali as a councillor in Leeds, who celebrated his win for environmentalism with a shout of 'Allahu Akbar ' while standing in front of a Palestinian flag. The keen gardener, whose TikTok video describing a local rabbi as 'a kind of animal' saw the Jewish university chaplain, his wife and children forced into hiding, labelled Israel 'white supremacists' following the October 7 attacks and claimed Gaza was ' the biggest concentration camp the world has ever seen '. Eco-friendly stuff. Then, last week, we were subjected to the similarly deranged rantings of Green MSP Maggie Chapman, who was filmed at a protest in Aberdeen condemning what she called 'bigotry, prejudice and hatred coming from the Supreme Court' following its ruling that transwomen are not women. Yet many conservative-minded people appear to be making the mistake of voting for these unhinged socialists, with the Greens set to be braced for 'record-breaking' local election results on Thursday. While it may feel like a worthy protest to punish '14 years of Tory failure', this dangerous trend risks re-electing the rabid Corbynistas Boris Johnson eviscerated in 2019. Green candidates have already successfully defeated Conservatives to take over a variety of councils, including Wealden District Council (in coalition with Liberal Democrats) and Mid Suffolk District Council in 2023. Further advances were made at the last general election, when seven of the 15 constituencies where the Greens got their highest vote share had voted Conservative in 2019. Two of the four constituencies won by the Greens in 2024, Waveney Valley and North Herefordshire, were previously Tory. By positioning themselves at a local level as environment-friendly and anti-development, they have successfully parked their tanks on Kemi Badenoch's lawn. The trouble for Conservatives is they don't seem to realise they are supporting a watermelon party that is green on the outside, red on the inside. The Greens' comrades include Rachel Millward, the Extinction Rebellion-supporting co-leader of Wealden District Council, and the party's parliamentary candidate for Sussex Weald, who once declared that 'the colonial exploitation of the global south is the cause of climate change'. Not a popular opinion in the Tory shires. Greens holding anything remotely resembling a Right-wing view tend to fall out of favour pretty quickly – as former Scottish councillor John Ross Scott found when he was stripped of his membership after describing Hamas and Hezbollah as 'terrorist' organisations. Darren Johnson, who twice stood as the Greens' candidate for mayor of London and spent 16 years representing the party as a London assembly member, was suspended after criticising the party's 'arrogant dismissal' of the Cass Review on gender identity services. Apparently, 'trusting the science' on climate change doesn't extend to foisting untested puberty blockers on vulnerable children. Alison Teal was dumped as the Greens' parliamentary candidate for Sheffield Central after she expressed concern about gender self-identification. There is nothing new about such Greenstremism. What's new is that disaffected Tories appear to be falling for their 'we're-only-here-to-save-the-planet' schtick, particularly in rural areas. The Greens claim to be the party of the countryside but in fact are anything but. Take their sluggish reaction to Rachel Reeves's 'tractor tax '. After 18 days, the party's response from its agriculture and rural welfare spokesperson (who does not even sit in Parliament) was a total fudge. 'It is right to clamp down on those who buy farmland to avoid tax and the Green Party strongly supports wealth taxes,' they declared. 'But we also need the Government to take action to ensure that hard-working farmers can earn a decent income.' When the Conservatives forced a Commons vote on inheritance tax, two Green Party MPs abstained and two backed Labour by voting against condemning the changes. Rural Green councillors have tried to give the false impression that the party opposes the new inheritance tax rules, with some even suggesting they should be 'reviewed' – but the party's 2024 manifesto actually proposes a not very farmer-friendly 'survey of all landholdings to pave the way for fair taxation of land'. That's a land tax, folks. Again, not particularly Home Counties. They have Nimbyism in common with the Tories, but curiously, their anti-development stance even extends to green projects. They have actively campaigned against solar farms in Wales, Kent and Lincolnshire – while maintaining Ed Miliband levels of net zero zealotry. There's protest voting and then there's political hara-kiri. Any Tory voting Green after reading the manifesto would have to be a bone fide masochist. The party wants to remove business rate relief from enterprise zones and freeports, massively hike capital gains tax and align investment income with employment income for tax purposes. It also wants to increase the windfall tax on oil and gas production as well as introduce a separate windfall tax on banks. Greens want a carbon tax at an initial rate of £120 per ton, rising to a maximum of £500 per ton of carbon emitted within 10 years. And if that's not enough to strike the fear of God into the average Tory, consider their employment policies, which make Angela Rayner look like Margaret Thatcher. They want a Charter of Workers' Rights, 'with the right to strike at its heart along with a legal obligation for all employers to recognise trade unions'. They want a maximum 10: 1 pay ratio for all private and public-sector organisations. They want to increase the minimum wage to £15 an hour, regardless of the worker's age. They want equal employment rights for all workers from their first day of employment and they want a four-day working week. Their immigration policy is basically Tony Blair on steroids. They want all arrivals to the UK without a visa to be granted a visitor visa for a period of three months regardless of where they have come from or how they got here – including illegally crossing the Channel. Then they want to give them the right to vote 'in all elections and referendums'. In East Sussex County Council, the Greens have put forward a motion to 'designate East Sussex as a County of Sanctuary for Migrants'. Oh, and have I mentioned their desire to revalue council tax bands and increase inheritance tax?
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Greens aren't cuddly environmentalists. They are Corbynistas on steroids
I thought we had reached the pinnacle of the Greens' Marxist madness with last year's election of Mothin Ali as a councillor in Leeds, who celebrated his win for environmentalism with a shout of 'Allahu Akbar' while standing in front of a Palestinian flag. The keen gardener, whose TikTok video describing a local rabbi as 'a kind of animal' saw the Jewish university chaplain, his wife and children forced into hiding, labelled Israel 'white supremacists' following the October 7 attacks and claimed Gaza was 'the biggest concentration camp the world has ever seen'. Eco-friendly stuff. Then, last week, we were subjected to the similarly deranged rantings of Green MSP Maggie Chapman, who was filmed at a protest in Aberdeen condemning what she called 'bigotry, prejudice and hatred coming from the Supreme Court' following its ruling that transwomen are not women. Yet many conservative-minded people appear to be making the mistake of voting for these unhinged socialists, with the Greens set to be braced for 'record-breaking' local election results on Thursday. While it may feel like a worthy protest to punish '14 years of Tory failure', this dangerous trend risks re-electing the rabid Corbynistas Boris Johnson eviscerated in 2019. Green candidates have already successfully defeated Conservatives to take over a variety of councils, including Wealden District Council (in coalition with Liberal Democrats) and Mid Suffolk District Council in 2023. Further advances were made at the last general election, when seven of the 15 constituencies where the Greens got their highest vote share had voted Conservative in 2019. Two of the four constituencies won by the Greens in 2024, Waveney Valley and North Herefordshire, were previously Tory. By positioning themselves at a local level as environment-friendly and anti-development, they have successfully parked their tanks on Kemi Badenoch's lawn. The trouble for Conservatives is they don't seem to realise they are supporting a watermelon party that is green on the outside, red on the inside. The Greens' comrades include Rachel Millward, the Extinction Rebellion-supporting co-leader of Wealden District Council, and the party's parliamentary candidate for Sussex Weald, who once declared that 'the colonial exploitation of the global south is the cause of climate change'. Not a popular opinion in the Tory shires. Greens holding anything remotely resembling a Right-wing view tend to fall out of favour pretty quickly – as former Scottish councillor John Ross Scott found when he was stripped of his membership after describing Hamas and Hezbollah as 'terrorist' organisations. Darren Johnson, who twice stood as the Greens' candidate for mayor of London and spent 16 years representing the party as a London assembly member, was suspended after criticising the party's 'arrogant dismissal' of the Cass Review on gender identity services. Apparently, 'trusting the science' on climate change doesn't extend to foisting untested puberty blockers on vulnerable children. Alison Teal was dumped as the Greens' parliamentary candidate for Sheffield Central after she expressed concern about gender self-identification. There is nothing new about such Greenstremism. What's new is that disaffected Tories appear to be falling for their 'we're-only-here-to-save-the-planet' schtick, particularly in rural areas. The Greens claim to be the party of the countryside but in fact are anything but. Take their sluggish reaction to Rachel Reeves's 'tractor tax'. After 18 days, the party's response from its agriculture and rural welfare spokesperson (who does not even sit in Parliament) was a total fudge. 'It is right to clamp down on those who buy farmland to avoid tax and the Green Party strongly supports wealth taxes,' they declared. 'But we also need the Government to take action to ensure that hard-working farmers can earn a decent income.' When the Conservatives forced a Commons vote on inheritance tax, two Green Party MPs abstained and two backed Labour by voting against condemning the changes. Rural Green councillors have tried to give the false impression that the party opposes the new inheritance tax rules, with some even suggesting they should be 'reviewed' – but the party's 2024 manifesto actually proposes a not very farmer-friendly 'survey of all landholdings to pave the way for fair taxation of land'. That's a land tax, folks. Again, not particularly Home Counties. They have Nimbyism in common with the Tories, but curiously, their anti-development stance even extends to green projects. They have actively campaigned against solar farms in Wales, Kent and Lincolnshire – while maintaining Ed Miliband levels of net zero zealotry. There's protest voting and then there's political hara-kiri. Any Tory voting Green after reading the manifesto would have to be a bone fide masochist. The party wants to remove business rate relief from enterprise zones and freeports, massively hike capital gains tax and align investment income with employment income for tax purposes. It also wants to increase the windfall tax on oil and gas production as well as introduce a separate windfall tax on banks. Greens want a carbon tax at an initial rate of £120 per ton, rising to a maximum of £500 per ton of carbon emitted within 10 years. And if that's not enough to strike the fear of God into the average Tory, consider their employment policies, which make Angela Rayner look like Margaret Thatcher. They want a Charter of Workers' Rights, 'with the right to strike at its heart along with a legal obligation for all employers to recognise trade unions'. They want a maximum 10: 1 pay ratio for all private and public-sector organisations. They want to increase the minimum wage to £15 an hour, regardless of the worker's age. They want equal employment rights for all workers from their first day of employment and they want a four-day working week. Their immigration policy is basically Tony Blair on steroids. They want all arrivals to the UK without a visa to be granted a visitor visa for a period of three months regardless of where they have come from or how they got here – including illegally crossing the Channel. Then they want to give them the right to vote 'in all elections and referendums'. In East Sussex County Council, the Greens have put forward a motion to 'designate East Sussex as a County of Sanctuary for Migrants'. Oh, and have I mentioned their desire to revalue council tax bands and increase inheritance tax? Righties voting for these pinkos must be colourblind. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
