The Green party has refused to suspend a councillor after shouting “Allahu Akbar” following his victory in the local elections.
Mothin Ali, who was elected to Leeds city council, apologised after causing upset with his remarks but hit back at “Islamaphobic” attacks against him.
Following his victory in the Gipton and Harehills seat, the YouTuber and TikTok personality celebrated his election by lifting his arms and shouting: “We will not be silent.
“We will raise the voice of Gaza. We will raise the voice of Palestine. Allahu Akbar!”
Following his victory the Green party has launched an investigation into Ali.
Akhmed Yakoob, who campaigned on a pro-Palestine ticket, sent shockwaves through the West Midlands after landing third in the mayoral elections with close to 70,000 votes.
The independent candidate said his success marked the “beginning of the end of the Labour Party in the Midlands and Birmingham”.
One BBC analysis found that in areas where more than one in five voters were Muslim, Labour’s share of the vote dropped by around 21 percentage points.
In the wake of the local election results, it was revealed that several candidates standing for the Greens or independents posted antisemitic comments or downplayed the October 7 attacks.
Writing an op-ed on his Substack, political analyst and academic Matt Goodwin, said: “What we’re now witnessing in Britain is the rise of a dark new sectarianism which risks reshaping our entire politics and society around zero-sum group conflicts pitted along racial, ethnic, or religious lines.
“And at the heart of this is what I’ve called a toxic alliance between a radicalising woke Left, in this case represented by the Greens, and a not insignificant number of British Muslims, who hold radical if not openly extremist views on issues such as the October 7 attacks, free speech, and the role of Islam in British society.”
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