LONDON — More than 100 independent Muslim candidates won seats in the most recent UK local council elections, while 574 candidates linked to Islamist or pro-Palestinian agendas were elected overall, an analysis found.
A total of 5,066 councillors were elected in the polls, according to the Henry Jackson Society (HJS), a London-based think tank that conducted the analysis.
More than 1 in 10 of the candidates elected to England’s local councils campaigned on a Muslim agenda, the HJS report said.
Not all of the candidates were Muslim, but their platforms were clearly linked to Islam, the report said. “They have all consistently and explicitly promoted Muslim-related issues as the central focus of their political agenda,” the report said of the candidates.
Among the pro-Muslim winners, 132 ran as independents, 350 as Green Party members, 84 as Labour Party members and six as Liberal Democrats, the analysis said.
One of the 574 candidates is Mohammed Suleman, who was elected as a Green Party candidate in Newcastle. Saika Ali, a Green Party candidate in Lambeth, was elected despite having been arrested earlier for posting antisemitic comments online.
Shams Syed, a Green Party candidate in Manchester, had said he had no interest in politics beyond Gaza. He was also elected.
About 6.5 percent of Britain’s total population is Muslim, according to the most recent figures. The concentration of Muslims is highest in England. By comparison, only about 2 percent of the population in Scotland and Wales is Muslim. In Northern Ireland, the figure was just 0.6 percent, according to the 2021 census.
The Muslim population in the UK has been steadily growing. In the 2001 census, only 2.7 percent of the population identified as Muslim. In the 2011 census, 4.8 percent of residents identified as followers of Islam.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report