ZARAH SULTANA MP has done a service by pointing out something increasingly obvious to British Muslims: that the Labour Party is institutionally Islamophobic.
Labour is of course presently in a panic about losing support among Muslim voters — a vital part of the party’s electoral coalition in many constituencies — as a result of its all-out support for Israel’s attack on Gaza.
Muslims have been particularly pained by Keir Starmer’s endorsement of war crimes by the Netanyahu government. He backed cutting off food, fuel and water to the besieged Palestinians in Gaza.
To this day, Starmer refuses to call for a ceasefire and has faced a growing rebellion across the party as a result. The perception that he puts a low value on Palestinian life has caused massive offence in Muslim communities.
But the rot goes still further, as Sultana pointed out in an interview with Novara Media. Under Starmer’s leadership, Labour has expressed the full gamut of Islamophobic attitudes and actions.
It operates a “hierarchy of racism,” as exposed in the report by Martin Forde KC, with Muslims and black people at the bottom. Labour has failed to engage with Forde about his findings since.
Complaints about Islamophobia are not taken seriously by the party. The concerns of Muslim party members are “completely dismissed.” Constituency parties with a large Muslim membership are targeted for “special measures” eliminating local democracy.
And the leaked report which Martin Forde was investigating itself revealed senior party officials engaging in disgusting racist banter at the expense of black people and politicians.
That has been continued with racist press briefings by Labour officials, describing Muslim voters as homophobic or opposed to tackling anti-semitism, and a disturbing media advert identifying Rishi Sunak with paedophiles, in line with prejudiced assumptions that this is a problem of south Asian men primarily.
The Islamophobia has a personal side. Sultana described how her requests to have a Commons office large enough to pray in have been ignored, and how a Labour whip tried to obstruct her from attending an Iftar in her Coventry constituency during Ramadan.
This is all the background to the discontent with Labour in Muslim communities which has now exploded over the Gaza issue. Muslims know that they are second-class citizens in Starmer’s Labour.
No surprise then that the Labour Muslim Network has called for an independent inquiry into Labour Islamophobia. Clearly, the Starmer gang cannot be trusted to mark their own homework.
Affiliated unions should add their voices to those demanding a proper probe and a serious effort to end this racism.
There should be no “hierarchy of racism,” and no pitting of tackling Islamophobia against tackling anti-semitism. Both are evils, and both must be urgently addressed.
The problem of Islamophobia runs particularly deep. It was Labour under Tony Blair that started to frame Muslims as primarily a national security problem. The wars of aggression under the banner of the “war on terror” have been exclusively directed at Muslim-majority countries.
The disastrous Prevent initiative has been used to further demonise Muslims in Britain.
So Zarah Sultana’s remarks must serve as a wake-up call. It is only the possibility of a mass defection of Muslim voters that will likely stir Labour into any sort of action, and even then the party may calculate that it will gain more by appeasing the prejudices of right-wing sections of the electorate.
But the rest of the movement must stand firm in solidarity with those Muslims speaking out, the more so since they risk dreadful online abuse by doing so. Labour racism is no better than Tory racism, and both must be extirpated.
