Last month in Birmingham we conducted focus groups among people who will play a decisive part in the next election in constituencies around the country, as they did in the Gorton and Denton by-election: Muslim voters who backed Labour in 2024. They talked about political division, Labour’s record, alternative parties and candidates, and the role of Gaza in their voting decision.
We’re just the common enemy at the moment
Many said they found the general political atmosphere difficult and even hostile, and that things had got worse in recent years: “Even though we’ve been here 50 or 60 years, we’re kind of second class. I think there was always discrimination when we were growing up, with skinheads and things, but it was open discrimination. Then it became more subtle, but now it’s open again;” “Whenever something happens in the news they always pick on ‘a Muslim’. They never say if it’s a Sikh or something. They never say a Jewish Epstein. They never say Catholic, or Christian Jimmy Savile. It’s always a Muslim.
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