The sectarian campaign tactics and emphatic victory of the Green Party in the recent Gorton and Denton by-election have generated intense political debate. The Greens decisively unseated the Labour Party, while Reform UK secured a credible second-place finish in a constituency that is 53% white and 30% Muslim. Many observers argue that Labour was the architect of its own demise, contending that its decision to reject Andy Burnham as a candidate was a costly misjudgment. Burnham might arguably have retained the seat for Labour.
Yet this win is not an isolated upset. It reflects a political reality already visible in national polling (the Greens are gaining voters from Labour) and the 2024 general election, where Labour lost to independent Muslim candidates in heavily Muslim constituencies. The Muslim electorate has become a major political bloc and many political parties are pandering to it. British politics is in an increasingly fragmented and polarised phase. The poison of subcontinental style communal politics is now coursing through the body politic.
The Green campaign of Hannah Spencer, ditzy blonde and putative plumber, embraced nakedly sectarian tactics that seemed to surprise even Labour, itself no stranger to such strategies. Urdu and Bengali language leaflets and media aimed at the conservative muslim community made much of Gaza but stayed silent on actual Green policies onsay drug legalisation and trans issues. There was a sideswipe at Hindu nationalism with Modi featuring as a bogey man. Spencer wore keffiyehs and headveils, made Islamic greetings and sang and danced to ethnic music. On polling day, masses of Palestinian and Pakistani flags were outside polling centres. Of course Ash Sarkar and Owen Jones will inform you that all this is not shameless sectarianism and that it is deeply racist of anyone to note such things. Inculcating animosity towards British Jews and Hindus is of course the right and correct progressive stance. Also, muslims care as deeply about the environment and LGBT issues as the rest of us. The clincher : they elected a party led by Zack Polanski (who has deliberately jewified his name and repeatedly emphasised his Jewish identity), so they are most definitely not antisemitic.
It is of course hugely racist and a sinister Trumpian tactic (that’s from Owen Jones) to make claims about ‘family voting’ at the polling booths of Gorton and Denton. An independent election observer group, Democracy Volunteers, alleged that there were ‘extremely high cases of illegal ‘family voting’ at polling stations. ‘Family voting’ is an euphemism for coerced and co-ordinated voting when family members enter a voting booth together and collude or direct voting intentions. It is a criminal offence in the UK under the Ballot Secrecy Act 2023. The police and polling agents deny such acts took place and many on the left denounce such claims as wholly imaginary. However the concept of biraderi clan voting in choosing candidates and directing the community to vote in certain directions is not an unknown one : Sonia Sodha has written about it in this 2019 Guardian article. Even non-muslims chasing the muslim vote know how to utilise the biraderi system. George Galloway went all the way to Sylhet, Bangladesh to seek his votes for a constituency in London in 2005. Postal votes in heavily muslim areas have been known to be directed by male family and clan heads. If such forms of voting fraud are wholly imaginary as claimed, then why was there even a need for the 2023 Ballot Secrecy Act? The allegations of family voting are not proven as yet but it is a mistake to dismiss them as knee jerk racism.
Do they think George Galloway went to Bangladesh during an East London election campaign because he thought it would be a great time for a holiday?
I wrote about the issue a bit more here a few years ago.https://t.co/R55J1MjZMn
— Sonia Sodha (@soniasodha) February 27, 2026
Communal politics has been part of the UK political landscape for some years now. The aftermath of the Salman Rushdie case in 1989 saw the bid to create a “Muslim Parliament” in 1992 by Kalim Siddiqui, a staunch supporter of the fatwa against Rushdie. Some hardline British Muslims who felt ignored by mainstream, secular British institutions wanted to give voice to their religious grievances through such a body but that was deemed radical by most british muslims at that time. Four decades on, such a hardline attitude has been mainstreamed. Ummah politics from the Bosnian war to 9/11, from the Iraq invasion to the Gaza War, from Kashmir to Iran deeply animates the muslim demographic. British political parties on the left cynically pander to these strongly expressed views despite having no means of redressing these grievances beyond amplifying them. Respect, Aspire and Your Party are the most radical manifestations of entire ‘secular’ political parties being built around muslim grievances. The Greens now join this group. Labour which has worked for decades with the biraderi clans and acquiesced in many ways to communal politics is now being pushed even more strongly in this direction as the monster it created has escaped into the wild. Labour candidates face being wiped out in heavily muslim constituencies. Following the Gorton and Denton results, this muslim Labour activist rails against Labour for ignoring his advice. “Saving Labour” means submitting to community grievance politics.
‘They are hell-bent on destroying the Labour Party.’
After having his warnings ignored by ‘very senior people’ in the party, the Chair of the Labour Muslim Network @AliMilaniUK feels like he’s in a ‘gaslighting groundhog day’. pic.twitter.com/x4lxD3nLyz
— LBC (@LBC) February 27, 2026
Communal politics inevitably leads to more identitarian politics – there is no way off the rollercoaster. Leftwing parties ignore the social conservatism of British muslims and think they can be radicalised to proper socialism in areas other than Palestine. Rightwing parties such as Reform gain from the majoritarian backlash to communal politics and the public discourse gets more strident. Minorities such other asians and British jews also consider communal politics a threat and increasingly move rightwards. To quote a valued and astute commenter of HP, Imran Khan:
What we have seen is a re-run of the SWP/Respect farce which wrecked the SWP some years ago. When will the left realise that the Muslim block vote cannot be controlled or harnessed to any political programme that does not have Islam at its centre and usually the most reactionary element at that.
I clearly remember the euphoria on the left when Galloway won in Bethnal Green and Bow and twelve Respect councillors were eventually elected to Tower Hamlets Council. What was interesting here was that the SWP members who also stood as Respect candidates were not elected on the instructions of the Mosques so that from the close of the polls the councillors who emerged were all Bangladeshi. Eventually the various defections and reformations led over a number of years to the current Aspire domination of Tower Hamlets.
Yesterday is slightly different is that we now have the basically same underlying forces writ large. Galloway declared in Brick Lane “This for Iraq Mr Blair” stressing that he had won because of Britain’s involvement in that war. In order to attract the Muslim vote Polanski and co had to stress on their literature and in their pronouncements that they were the party of the Palestinians, Gaza and Islam. This of course works in an area where not only is 30% of the population Muslim but that it will act in a coordinated and unified way. The complaints about family voting are true, and will probably get nowhere, what is more important however is the leadership of the Mosques which has quite clearly and unashamedly come out for the Greens.
Polanski and the Greens are now the party of Islam in the eyes of the British public and by becoming so have in one fell stroke restricted their voter base because former mill towns with large Muslim populations are not reflective of this country as a whole.
The Greens are in a euphoric mood and there have been rather wild exultations : they now feel they can win 100 seats in the next GE.
It will be interesting to see in what direction Labour moves with a hugely unpopular leader at its helm. The Tories are far from making a recovery and the days of a two party duopoly are over. This by-election is a reminder of political battles that have been simmering in the UK for decades. The next few election cycles are going to be very fraught, the old certainties of British politics are dead.
