Labour gets in trouble playing identity politics

The muslim rebellion in Rochdale against Labour resembles the rebellion in Scotland against Labour in 2014/15.

In both cases, voters feel “tricked” by Labour. Labour spent the 80’s and 90’s claiming that Thatcher and Major were illegitimate PMs because “Scotland hadn’t voted for them”. That was a nationalist dog whistle because no region gets the govt they vote for 100% of the time. London manages it 40% of the time, and the LibDem-voting south-west about 10% of the time.

The only way for Scotland to get the govt they vote for 100% of the time is to be independent – but when the Indy ref happened, Labour came out sheepishly for the union and their voters felt they’d been lied to for votes (not helped by the fact that Labour took them for granted and barely sent them a leaflet once a decade). A bunch of Scots defected to the sectarian, anti-English SNP.

A similar pattern is going on with muslim voters, with Labour telling them god knows what behind closed doors, but publicly saying something different.

I think muslim voters have clocked that Labour thinks of them as ghetto people who should remain silent on the backbenches. Whereas Tories will promote people of muslim heritage on merit – see Sajid Javid becoming Home Secretary.

As I understand it, the final straw came when Starmer’s team briefed the press that muslim voters were “fleas” who they “were shaking off”.

This went viral on british-muslim twitter, they were angered and determined to vote against Labour and didn’t care if the Tories won because “at least you know where you stand with the Tories”.

No voter, muslim or otherwise, will tolerate being called “fleas”. No voter likes being tricked or taken for granted.

The issue isn’t immigration per se. It’s that one party, Labour, has been playing sectarian and identity politics in different parts of the country, which is generating a backlash and a movement towards other sectarian parties like the SNP and Galloway’s outfit which promise to offer a “purer” sectarian space.

But Labour shouldn’t have encouraged sectarian politics in the first place over the last four decades.