Political Islam is already in Britain

The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is under the full political control of an exclusively Bangladeshi-Islamic male-only political party, called Aspire. Replacing Labour as the party in power in 2022, Aspire shocked the political establishment by winning the local elections with no mainstream support, sectarian campaigning, and a leader, Lutfur Rahman, previously banned from office due to electoral fraud and practicing undue spiritual influence.

The case of the Aspire Party, which only operates in Tower Hamlets, has become increasingly common in multicultural Britain under the increasing influence of Islam. Whilst Muslims make up 6.5 per cent of the total UK population, they account for 40 per cent of the Tower Hamlets population — making it the most Islamic and most Bangladeshi local authority in Britain. Although still unusual, the election of several independent “Pro-Gaza” MPs, the disruption of Parliament and political meetings has alerted political commentators of the increasingly isolated political views of British Muslims from the mainstream. Tower Hamlets, in a sense, is the first British manifestation of such opinion.

The power-grab in Tower Hamlets by an ethno-religious political group has not been without consequence. The Aspire Party has spent twice as much as Labour, largely to the benefit of its own voters. In 2023, The Times revealed that Rahman gave £250,000 for a mosque engagement charity with an annual income of £20,000 chaired by a man who publicly declared that it was important for Islam that Rahman won.

More incriminating is the 2015 court judgment which found Rahman guilty of electoral fraud and undue spiritual influence in the 2014 local elections. No fewer than 101 Imams and Muslim leaders signed a letter to “Make Lutfur Rahman Victorious” before the election, resulting in the first charge of undue spiritual influence since the 19th century. Explaining the judgement, the Judge said Rahman’s career had, “relied on silencing his critics by accusations of racism and Islamophobia … ” and “ … if he had not enlisted the help of the Muslim clergy to put unlawful pressure on Muslim voters, the result would have been very different”. Tower Hamlets contained eight Bengali television channels all entirely supportive of Rahman and there was a very supportive Bangladeshi press. The letter signed by 101 Muslim leaders was only published in Bengali, making it inaccessible to the scrutiny of the English-only-speaking electorate.

A halt to mass immigration would prevent further communities from coming under the spell of sectarianism

The judgement further found that the majority of public money had been kept in Bangladeshi areas and that Rahman was guilty of voting fraud, false statements accusing his rival of racism, bribery, treating (e.g. free food if you vote for Rahman) and illegal practices. Only in very rare circumstances had Lutfur Rahman selected non-Bangladeshi candidates, and never in winnable wards.

As the social analyst Sam Bidwell has noted, Rahman is “the most extreme manifestation … of sectarian politics conducted along ethno-religious lines.” Yet Rahman refuses to acknowledge the ethnic-Islamic links to his party’s successes. Rather, Rahman has built a profile encouraging the idea that Islamophobia is rife in British public life. Shortly before news broke that the Government was to appoint inspectors to monitor decisions made by Rahman, Rahman peddled the line that Islamophobia is normalised, and personally attended a Tower Hamlets-funded Islamophobia Awareness Month Conference in November. In his own words, an “Islamophobic witch-hunt” has plagued his entire career.

As our research has shown, however, the links between Aspire and the Muslim population are overwhelmingly strong. Ward-by-ward analysis shows that areas with a higher Muslim population directly correlates with a higher Aspire vote.

Such claims, however, are controversial or even incendiary in today’s political discourse. As the 2015 High Court Judgement which found Rahman guilty noted, “anything that concerns Islam is extremely sensitive”. After all, Rahman’s “hair-trigger reaction is to accuse anyone who disagrees with him of racism and/or Islamophobia”. This sort of accusation by Rahman dogged the local Tower Hamlets Labour Party and dogged the Metropolitan Police. More broadly, islamophobia created the conditions of silence that allowed heinous crimes against girls to be committed across generations in the UK.

If we are to be serious about combatting the rise of sectarian politics exemplified in Tower Hamlets, then it is clear an honest evaluation of the causes must take place. It is seriously concerning that Britain’s most Islamic local authority, with a population of 350,000, is under the political control of a man found guilty of undue spiritual influence and election tampering. The lack of sway held by mainstream parties means that the Aspire Party is not under the pressure or expectations that a national party would receive from the national press. For instance, whilst the Labour Party deselected Rahman because his extremist links could damage their prospects nationally, the Aspire Party has only prospered from his candidacy.

Worse, the Aspire Party have no website or public constitution and accountability structure, making their policy position rather opaque to voters. There is no attempt to defend their positions or stances in public forums. Many residents of Tower Hamlets will not be aware of Lutfur Rahman, the Aspire Party or the extraordinary court judgement of 2015 that banned him from standing for five years.

The solution to the rise of local sectarian politics like Tower Hamlets is to launch a crackdown on the rule-benders. The law of undue spiritual influence — far from being an arcane piece of jurisprudence from the 18th Century — must be enforced in full, with serious sentences for those convicted. The police, on the other hand, need a radical overhaul. If the Sunday Times’s recent revelation that Leicestershire police made insulting jokes about a journalist’s inquiries into the election of Independent MP Shockat Adam is anything to go by — this cannot come soon enough. If the police fail to protect democracy, even in these under-resourced, crime-ridden times, what will they protect?

Finally, atop of a national debate, a halt to mass immigration would prevent further communities from coming under the spell of sectarianism. The Government must urgently review the teaching of “British values” in schools, and ensure the inclusion of the common foundations of Christianity, and shared British culture, history and habits. Difficult though it is to define “British values”, the false credo of multiculturalism can last no more — but this demagogy of sectarianism will only die if true democrats can be roused to action.