Border control campaigner and Brexit leader Nigel Farage has warned of a new wave of sectarian politics washing over Britain, pointing to the unedifying spectacle of a top Labour politician pleading with a “group of Muslim leaders” to get her re-elected in the summer general election.
Speaking at a border control campaign event in Dover, England on Tuesday — the “front line” of the mass migration “invasion” playing out over Britain’s southern coast — Nigel Farage warned that a failure to integrate the huge numbers of new migrant arrivals was allowing communities at odds with the British mainstream to establish themselves.
He said there are a “small but worryingly growing number of young men… adopting radical views, views that aren’t just un-British, but which frankly are extremely anti-British. We saw the recent local elections, candidates being elected in inner-city districts in Leeds, Burney, and elsewhere.”
Illustrating the point, Farage cited leaked footage from a Labour campaign event from the weekend, where not a single member of the audience is female and the speaking MP begs to keep her job, promising a new left-wing government would recognise Palestine as a state in return for their votes.
Farage said: “We saw the aggressions. And you might have noticed that Angela Rayner yesterday was campaigning in her constituency begging, begging! A group of Muslim leaders to please vote Labour. You’ll have noticed not a single woman in the room.
“So we’re moving into an age, in our inner cities and towns, I’m afraid and worried to say, of sectarian politics with women completely excluded.”
The Angela Rayner speech to what have been called a room full of “Muslim leaders” and which British newspaper The Daily Mail says it believes was recorded on Sunday comes amid the context of left-wing-populist George Galloway winning a recent election by pandering to Muslim anger over Palestine, and a group of European countries recognising Palestine as a state.
In the footage, Rayner speaks first of the importance of the votes that can be brought in by the men in the room. She said, in what Farage characterised as “begging”, Rayner said slowly and with deliberately enunciated words: “… my voters were very upset with the Labour Party. I was with you, and you saw me over the line. You supported me. In seats that are similar to mine, people lost their seats. You were there for me and I don’t believe I could have done that without you.”
Outlining what she was offering her constituents in return for delivering the votes she needs come election time, leftist Rayner said:
Now, I know that people are angry about what’s happening in the Middle East, and I said live on TV, and I say it to this day, if me resigning as an MP now would bring a ceasefire, I would do it. I would do it… Only last week the Labour Party were supporting the ICC, the Conservatives didn’t support the ICC. So this general election on this issue, we can’t effect anything if we’re not in government. And I will be honest with you, if Labour get into government we are limited. I will be honest, I’m not going to promise you, because Biden who is the U.S., who has way more influence, only has limited influence and that.
Qatar, Saudi Arabia, all the people, we are all working to stop what’s happening, we want to see that. So I promise you that’s what we want to see. And if Labour get into power we will recognise Palestine. I will push not only to recognise — there’s nothing to recognise at the moment, sadly. It’s decimated, we have to rebuild Palestine, we have to rebuild Gaza. That takes more than recognising it, it takes resources. It takes infrastructure… we need teachers, we need civil servants…
Spain, Norway, and Ireland announced they were to recognise Palestine as a state last week, and made that move on Tuesday this week, saying they would open embassies in the territory. Recognising Palestinian statehood so soon after the October 7th terrorist attacks had the effect of “rewarding terrorism”, Israel said, which rejected the rationalisation by Spain’s government that it would “help Israelis and Palestinians achieve peace.”
The group made clear recognising Palestine was seen as a step towards achieving a “two-state solution”. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a message addressed to Spain’s socialist Prime Minister: “You are complicit in inciting the Jewish genocide and war crimes”.
The footage of Rayner so openly pleading for Muslim votes by leveraging Gaza may be seen as unhelpful internally, given present Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has focussed so keenly since taking over the party on putting distance between themselves and the previous leadership of hard-left populist Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn’s Labour era was beset with antisemitism scandals and obsessed with old-school, hard-left preoccupations, not least among them Palestine, rendering it unelectable.
While Starmer hopes his attempts to moderate that element of Labour — including by purging Corbyn and his key lieutenants from the Party — will endear it to the wider British public, it has seen a chasm open between them and their traditionally rock-solid base of Muslim voters. As reported earlier this year, Muslim support for Labour was reckoned to have fallen by 40 points over the Israel-Gaza war.
Earlier this month, a coalition of Muslim activist groups issued demands to the Labour Party to be met in return for the bloc of votes to return, a striking illustration of the rise of sectarian politics referred to by Farage this week. As reported, the demands include:
“Labour to commit to recognising Palestine as a state and to impose sanctions on Israeli companies and settlers. Muslim vote also demanded that Labour vow to cut all military ties with Israel and to impose a travel ban on “all Israeli politicians that prosecuted this war and support illegal occupation.
“Turning towards domestic issues in Britain, the group called for guidance to be issued allowing Islamic prayers in British schools and for the overturning of a prohibition against religious leaders telling their congregation how to vote in places of worship, a long-established rule in the British constitution. They also pushed for Labour to commit seven per cent of public sector and local government pensions be directed toward ‘ethical and Islamic funds’.”
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