Posted on 04/21/2005 11:24:23 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Britain's 1.6 million Muslims may not at first glance seem to have significant voting power.However, with much of the community concentrated in key marginal seats and energized by such events as the Iraq war, their potential clout should not be underestimated. In 2001 there were 13 marginal constituencies with significant Muslim voting potential, according to the Muslim Council of Britain.Since then the number has risen significantly, with many seats once considered Labor strongholds now hotly contested.
The North London constituency of Brent East, which has a large Muslim community, is a case in point.Labor-held since the 1970s, Labor candidate Paul Daisley won comfortably in 2001 with 63 percent of the vote.But in a 2003 by-election in the midst of the Iraq war, Liberal Democrat Sarah Teather came from nowhere to snatch victory with 39 percent, in the process becoming the youngest member of the House of Commons at age 26.
Sarah Teather is likely to retain her seat, and her victory may well be repeated elsewhere.
The most bitter and high-profile of these election battles is currently being waged in the East London constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow, where George Galloway, leader of the antiwar party Respect, is threatening to depose the Labor incumbent, Oona King.
Galloway, a man never far from controversy, was expelled from the Labor Party in October 2003 in the wake of his outspoken comments on the Iraq war -- comments that Labor chairman Ian McCartney said "incited foreign forces to rise up against British troops."Labor acted against him following a TV interview in which he accused Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President George W.Bush of acting "like wolves" in invading Iraq.
Shortly afterward he helped to found Respect, but for some time was dogged by accusations that he had accepted bribes from Saddam Hussein's regime and was involved in diverting money from the U.N. Oil for Food Program.
In 2004, he won two libel cases against newspapers publishing articles to that effect - Britain's Daily Telegraph and the Christian Science Monitor in the United States.It was the day of his Telegraph victory that he announced he would be standing against King, the black, Jewish "Blair babe" who lent her unfettered support to the Iraq war.
"Here in Bethnal Green and Bow, there is a New Labor stooge MP," Galloway said."A stooge who will sing any song, make any speech, do any dance, do anything she is told to by Tony Blair - irrespective of how her constituents are adversely affected or how strongly they feel to the contrary."He added: "We intend to make her pay, and I suspect that she knows that already."The signs are that he could well do just that.Galloway is a popular man in Bethnal Green and Bow, where over 40 percent of the population is Muslim, and King's 10,000 majority is looking increasingly shaky.
Respect claims that a ward-by-ward analysis of the European election results in June 2004 - the only recent poll of the area - show their party ahead of Labor by 6 percent.Meanwhile, analysts say the contest is too close to call -- in marked contrast to 2001, when King took 51 percent in a six-candidate field.The result has been an increasingly vicious electoral contest.Galloway said of King at a recent debate that "100,000 people lie dead as a result of the decisions she made."King responded by citing Galloway's two trips to Baghdad to meet with Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi president, in the years before the war."When I come across someone who is guilty of genocide, I do not get on a plane and go to Baghdad and grovel at his feet," she said.Analysts say King's problems, while potentially more serious than those faced by many Labor candidates, reflect the fact that the Iraq war still evokes great anger among much of the electorate.
And in the Muslim community, it is a key voter issue.The Muslim Council of Britain, the nation's foremost Muslim association, has distributed voter guides with 10 questions to pose to candidates.Withdrawal from Iraq is a key demand, as is enforcing international law equally rather than allowing some countries such as Israel, India and Russia, to "flout United Nations resolutions with impunity.
" On a domestic level, desirable policies include support for legislation against incitement to religious hatred, opposition to anti-terror legislation that bypasses trials, and improved support for Muslim faith schools.
Naima Bouteldja, a Muslim activist and freelance journalist, told United Press International that although not all Muslim electors would vote on such issues, the current international and domestic circumstances had unified the community in terms of its political stance.
Public service issues such as education or healthcare would also influence Muslims as they tended to be one of the most impoverished communities, she added.
Although the Muslim community was still not a monolithic voter group, it was now much more cohesive than in the past, she said.
Muslim voters were also rejecting their traditional alliance with the Labor Party, she said.
But a lot of Muslims would still vote Labor, she said, particularly where a Muslim or antiwar candidate has been fielded in their constituency, noting this has happened in many seats with a large Muslim population."A tiny minority" would also vote Tory, mostly the upper-middle or business class, she said.
But the majority of the community would shift toward Respect or the Liberal Democrats on the basis of their stance on the Iraq war, foreign policy and domestic anti-terror legislation, she said.
A small minority would also abstain for religious reasons, Bouteldja noted.
The issue of electoral participation and Islam has been thrown into the limelight this week with an eruption of violence between antiwar protesters and Islamic extremists.
A Muslim Council of Britain event at a London mosque Tuesday was stormed by around a dozen men believed to be members of the supposedly disbanded militant group al-Muhajiroun.Denouncing the MCB as "the mouthpiece for Tony Blair," the men warned that voting was against Islam and anyone who did so would become kafir (an unbeliever) and go to hell.
Later that night, George Galloway was forced to take refuge from a group of Islamic extremists as he visited voters in a council apartment in Bethnal Green and Bow.A gang of 30 men, believed to be members of radical group Hizb-Ut-Tahrir, entered the apartment and surrounded Galloway and his supporters.Warning him against attempting to woo Muslim voters, they told him they were "setting up the gallows" for him and that any Muslim who voted for his antiwar Respect party would face a "sentence of death."
As a fight broke out between the two groups, Galloway escaped to his car, where he hid until the police arrived.
The same evening Oona King had her car tires slashed and the vehicle pelted with eggs by a gang of youths angry at her support for the Iraq war.It later emerged she had also been attacked with eggs at the weekend, allegedly by Respect supporters.The intimidation continued Wednesday night, when a group also believed to be linked to al-Muhajiroun stormed a Respect meeting and issued Galloway with a death threat.He was a "false prophet," they informed him, for which the sentence was death.Both Galloway and King are now under police protection.
Though such extremists are very much a marginal group within the Muslim community, their intimidation may have an influence on some potential voters.Bouteldja told UPI some Muslims who were unsure about voting may now decide not to, either through fear of retaliation or for religious reasons.However, anger at the Labor government is likely to prove too powerful a pull to the ballot box, and ultimately, the electoral battle in Bethnal Green and Bow may come to be seen as a microcosm of other marginal seats.
Respect is fielding just 25 candidates, but the Liberal Democrats also stand to make significant gains.Potential upsets could include Blackburn, previously a Labor stronghold, where Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is struggling for survival.
Though the Muslim community will not unseat Tony Blair, they are certainly capable of giving him a very bloody nose indeed.
As a seat-of-the-pants observation, I'd say that any British politician who gets the overwhelming Muslim vote is the wrong man or woman for Britain.
The Brits are committing cultural suicide. It's frightening to watch the deterioration of this once-great country.
Please Muslims... please try some of the crap you're pulling in England over here.
Frightening and sad.
Don't believe the hype. 2.6% of a nation is hardly the end of the world.
Strangely there is the same amount of muslims in proportion to the size in America as in the UK. Are you swamped too?
Dhimmi alert!
Remove all women's rights, arrest/deport all J00Z, and make it legal for middle aged men to have sex with little boys and I bet you'd find some support.
"The same evening Oona King had her car tires slashed and the vehicle pelted with eggs by a gang of youths angry at her support for the Iraq war.It later emerged she had also been attacked with eggs at the weekend, allegedly by Respect supporters.The intimidation continued Wednesday night, when a group also believed to be linked to al-Muhajiroun stormed a Respect meeting and issued Galloway with a death threat.He was a "false prophet," they informed him, for which the sentence was death.Both Galloway and King are now under police protection."
Not that I mind the fact that they detest Galloway mind you.
How quickly people forget.
To equate the events of 9-11, which were carried out by an Al Qaeda sleeper cell, with the events described in the article is a real stretch. Argue the point if you must (and I'm sure that you will) but there is one fact that you cannot get around - today we do not have muslims behaving this way in the USA.
The Brits would do well to remember what Ben Franklin said: "We must all hang togather, or assuredly we shall all hang separetely". Who would of thought that the islam-a-nazis would be in a position to control Britian? The lrft and the right had better wake up and recognize their common enemy and do something about it. We should lear the same lesson.
Yes you say "today" the USA hasn't Muslims doing that openly because they would be killed. We will (sadly) have to wait for an inevitable attack on the UK before attitudes change and they realise that tolerance of the tolerant is a virtue; tolerance of the intolerant is stupidity.
However America isn't immune to this either as the roles are reversed for others, even terrorists. Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein/IRA have long, not just been tolerated, but kissed and cuddled in America and allowed to raise millions to blow up British children. Much to the incredulity of the British people.
But they are not. This is hysterical nonsense.
I live in a Musllim country, but if I didn't LOVE living here, I wouldn't.
Point taken.
The Irish in America, remembering their ancestors, have not regarded the British people as friends of the Irish. Maybe that will change.
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