The Muslim Vote or The Moral Vote?
INsights 049, Friday 26th July 2024
The Muslim Vote or The Moral Vote?
INsights 049, Friday 26th July 2024
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As you may know, a platform called The Muslim Vote (TMV) emerged in the UK at the end of 2023 in response to the horrific events in Palestine.
Its aim was to galvanise UK voters in our community – who had mostly voted for the Labour Party in the past – to vote in the recent election for either independent candidates, or those from other smaller parties such as the Liberal Democrats or the Green Party.
The reason for this was Labour’s unwillingness to take a principled position in relation to the unjustifiable onslaught that was being faced, and sadly still is being borne, by the Palestinian people.
It was always clear that Labour was going to win this election. But TMV wanted to make sure that a message from our community was heard loud and clear, namely that our votes would no longer be taken for granted.
All sounds perfectly reasonable, right?
Well, as ever, it’s not that simple…
The problem with protest voting
From the moment that I heard about The Muslim Vote back in December, I was concerned by its approach. I called one of the main organisers of the campaign, a friend of mine and someone I respect, to share my concerns with him.
At that time, I raised two problems.
Firstly, protest voting on the basis of a single issue might feel very rewarding in the short-term. But the reality is that we, like everyone else in this country, are far more affected on a day-to-day basis by a multitude of other issues in relation to the economy, healthcare, home affairs and a whole lot more.
So once the dust has settled, if we had nothing to say on these matters too, it leaves us with very little political capital to engage meaningfully with the winning party whose policies will affect us across the board, whether we like it or not.
Since its launch, some of the messaging on TMV’s website and elsewhere has evolved beyond the single issue of Palestine. But I’m sure the TMV team would agree that, in the end, anyone who followed TMV’s guidance in the recent election did so on the basis of that one issue alone.
Is Palestine a “Muslim issue”?
Secondly, what is the sense in presenting Palestine as a “Muslim issue” when engaging in a political process that involves everyone in society?
From TMV’s perspective, it would have made so much more sense not to have branded itself as “Muslim” if it wanted as many people as possible to avoid voting for an MP who didn’t support the motion for a ceasefire in the vote held back in November, or any candidate who held a similarly spineless position.
I know that post the election, TMV identified a fair number of “near misses” where candidates backed by the platform just failed to win by a small margin.
Ironically, one of the reasons cited for this was that many voters from our community continued to vote for Labour regardless of the Palestine issue, which surely goes to show that maybe there is no such thing as a unified “Muslim vote” anyway. Sometimes we forget just how fractured we ourselves are.
If TMV had partnered with a broader array of organisations and sought support from all the voters in the relevant constituencies, it may well have enjoyed more success.
Perhaps it would have found that there are plenty of principled people outside our community who would have been willing to respond to TMV’s call if they had been addressed by them in the first place.
The broader issue with “Muslim issues”
Because of our internalised victimhood, and our failure to understand the bigger vision that God wants us to fulfil, it has become fashionable in recent years for our leaders to make everything into a “Muslim issue”.
We complain about “Muslim poverty”, “Muslim health inequality”, “Muslim marginalisation”, and the list goes on. But as I have tried to argue in recent editions of this newsletter, this approach will not get us very far in the long run.
It just comes across as a stream of constant grievance, where everything begins and concludes as a fight. We end up displaying little recognition of any positive developments, as well as little concern for the issues that affect people generally. If only we had the strategic sense to realise that the universal approach would be much more productive and far more likely to result in win-win outcomes than our current insular one.
The reality is that there are extremely few matters that affect us to the total exclusion of everyone else. So I pose the same question that I posed last week: Why aren’t we disseminating proposals that we think are authentic to God’s will, deeply cognisant of the context in which we live, and are of benefit to all?
The trick is to get to a point where we can appeal to everyone with the narrative, ideas, policies and voting strategies that are reflective of the overall vision that we have for the country.
If we move forward with this in mind, then one day we may even have our own political party as a credible vehicle to represent the values of monotheism, in a way that is received by a diverse spectrum of voters as relevant, inspiring and compelling.
Wouldn’t that be something?
Real leadership is putting God first
If you take a look at The Muslim Vote website, you’ll see that there are some messages that align with the approach that I’m promoting. But there are also others that represent the exact opposite. These apparent contradictions suggest some internal confusion as to the direction that the platform has been taking so far.
Looking ahead, I think that the organisers behind TMV know that long-term success lies in the universal approach.
But the problem they have is that because they started with the insular approach – one that is reflective of where our collective community mindset is unfortunately at nowadays – this makes it much more difficult to change direction whilst taking their volunteers and followers along with them.
Well, that’s what real leadership is about: making the principled, long-term decisions that prioritise and reflect divinely communicated values, not just the people’s immediate wishes, and cultivating followers accordingly.
After all, it’s God’s wishes that we are here to fulfil, not our own.
The Moral Vote would be so much better
The TMV team should capitalise on whatever gains it has made so far and learn the lessons from its first organised foray into British politics.
But most importantly it should seize the opportunity to shift its narrative entirely to a positive, principled and universal one.
The organisers should reflect deeply on the fact that God has appointed us to solve society’s problems and not just our own.
Without having to change the acronym, they could easily rebrand to The Moral Vote, which would automatically signal an intent to speak to a much wider audience.
They should figure out workable, ethical positions on the key issues that affect us all and are top of mind for the electorate.
Then, when it comes to the 2029 election, they should be ready to appeal to 100% of the country’s voters, not just the ~5% from our community.
If we start moving in this direction, then what can happen on the political scene in decades to come can, by the will of God, be nothing short of miraculous.
Until next time.
Peace.
Iqbal
~~~
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