Andy Burnham wants to be prime minister. He cannot do it without Britain's Muslims

Andy Burnham wants to be prime minister. He cannot do it without Britain's Muslims Submitted by Ismail Patel on Fri, 06/26/2026 - 20:05 The community that Labour once took for granted has gone - and it will not return to a party that offers warm words but changes nothing Andy Burnham, new Labour Party MP for Makerfield, speaks to supporters in Ashton in Makerfield, north-west England on 19 June, 2026 (AFP) On If Andy Burnham succeeds Keir Starmer, he will inherit a Labour Party that has lost something it spent decades assuming it owned: the trust of Britain’s Muslims.  He should understand that this trust will not be recovered with a photograph at a mosque, an iftar or Eid party, or platitudes. It was destroyed by actions, and it can only be rebuilt by actions. The rupture is not a matter of opinion. It is measurable. In the 2024 general election, Labour’s share of the Muslim vote fell to just over 60 percent, from around 80 percent in 2019. In the 21 constituencies that are more than 30 percent Muslim, it collapsed by almost 30 points.  Five sitting Labour MPs were defeated by pro-Gaza independents. Other Labour MPs survived by a few hundred votes.  This was not a protest that has since faded. By this past April, polling put Labour’s support among Muslims at just 33 percent, with three in five willing to back an independent to keep Labour out. The Muslim vote does not bend back towards Labour; it keeps moving away, and the distance keeps growing. Burnham should be honest with himself about why. It began with Gaza. His predecessor said that Israel had the “right” to cut off water and power to a besieged civilian population, words heard as an endorsement of collective punishment. The disconnect deepened as the International Court of Justice found it “plausible” that Palestinians in Gaza were being denied protection from genocide - yet the British government carried on much as before.  Out of arguments To this day, Labour has refused to investigate the estimated 2,000 British nationals who served in the Israeli military during its genocide in Gaza, even as it criminalises peaceful Palestinian solidarity at home. That criminalisation is now its own scandal. Since the proscription of Palestine Action in July 2025, more than 2,700 people have been arrested for opposing it, their average age 59. Pensioners, clergy members and hardworking citizens are processed as terrorism suspects for holding a piece of cardboard, while those supporting Israel’s genocide roam freely.  A country confident in its values does not do this. A government that has run out of arguments does. But the deepest wound is closer to home - and it is the one that perhaps Burnham least expects. Muslims no longer feel safe in Britain, and they no longer believe the Labour government cares.  Burnham may yet lead his party back to power. But he will not do it by asking Muslim voters for one more act of faith. That era is over The government’s own figures show that 45 percent of all religiously aggravated crimes in the year ending March 2025 were against Muslims. In addition, a new study found that the toxic sociopolitical atmosphere has led to one in six Britons viewing the growth of the Muslim population as a “threat to UK culture”.  These are not just statistics to Muslims. In recent months, masked men set fire to a mosque in East Sussex; a man in Walsall raped a Sikh woman in her own home, calling her a “Muslim bitch”; and an assailant stabbed several Muslim men in Edinburgh. Consider how the state responds. When the Jewish community was attacked at a Manchester synagogue last year, the prime minister flew home from a summit, chaired an emergency Cobra meeting, and visited the scene the next day. That was right and proper. It sent an unmistakable message: this was an attack on all of us. But when Muslims are targeted to be burned alive, raped and stabbed, the response is reduced to statements of condemnation and expressions of concern. No Cobra, no immediate visit, no visible mobilisation of the state - no unmistakable expression that the country was wounded alongside its Muslim citizens.  The message projected is devastating. Muslim lives are defended in principle, but their loss is not mourned as a national wound. A clear path This is the inheritance. Now to the remedy - because there is one. Burnham cannot simply declare himself different. He must demonstrate it, and the first act will be who he chooses to stand beside him.  It has been reported that he has selected as his chief of staff a former chair of Labour Friends of Israel. If true, it tells Muslims everything before he has uttered a word.  A leader serious about change must redress this by ensuring his circle of advisers also draws from the progressive left and those who have stood with Palestine, not against it. Appointments of staff and ministers are policy made visible. Before a government acts, communities see who is included/excluded, and from that they can draw conclusions. Palestine Action: History will judge Britain for these draconian sentences Read More » Beyond personnel, the path is not mysterious. Reverse the proscription of Palestine Action, and stop treating dissent as terrorism. Recognise that concern for Palestinian life is a mainstream democratic position held by millions of people, Muslim and non-Muslim alike; it is not a security threat.  Investigate British citizens who fought in a war that the world’s highest court has placed under the shadow of genocide. And treat an attack on a mosque with the same urgency as an attack on any other religious site, because equal citizenship is meaningless if it is not equal in grief. Above all, Burnham must engage Muslims without preconditions. He should talk to the organisations the community actually trusts, rather than manufacturing pliant alternatives to speak in the name of Muslims. He should listen when the conversation is uncomfortable, which it will be. The arithmetic is unforgiving. There are 3.9 million Muslims in England and Wales, concentrated heavily enough to shape the results in dozens of constituencies. And Muslims are no longer captive to the Labour Party: the Greens are advancing, independents now sit in parliament, and Your Party has attracted tens of thousands of members. The assumption that disillusioned Muslims will eventually “come home to Labour” no longer holds, because there are now other homes. Burnham may yet lead his party back to power. But he will not do it by asking Muslim voters for one more act of faith. That era is over. They have heard the promises, read the statements and attended the consultations. Now, they will judge Labour by a single measure: whether its actions finally match its words, treating Muslims as equals. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye. UK Politics Opinion Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:29 Update Date Override 0