An Address to Left and Right-Wing Muslims

Every election year, debate breaks out among the Muslims of the United Kingdom. Should we continue to honour our unwritten alliance with the Labour Party? Should we vote tactically, going for smaller parties to take away votes from the major ones - even if those smaller parties have little in common with us? Despite all these considerations, the same thing always seems to happen. The majority of British Muslims end up voting Labour, regardless of what is happening in the world around us. Thus, we have ended up forming some sort of allegiance to the left-wing, and many of us identify with the left-wing as a label.

I pose a question to my brothers and sisters who consider themselves to be members of the left-wing movement. Are you an ally of the left, or are you a pawn in their hands? Do you think they respect you, or do you think they laugh at you? When Labour pretends to have your best interests at heart, only to invade Afghanistan, Iraq, and to stand by as Israel commits genocide, do you not think they consider you gullible and naïve? The truth is that we should have ditched our de facto alliance with Labour as soon as the first soldier was deployed in Afghanistan. Us British Muslims have a habit of complaining about our leaders back home - we accuse them of having no backbone, of cowering in the face of the Zionist threat. But for us to level such allegations, surely we should develop a spine ourselves. Do not take my message the wrong way - I am not saying that we should absolutely never vote for Labour ever again. But at the moment, the Labour Party is walking into every election with arrogance, knowing that the Muslims will vote for them no matter what. And so we have become their pawns, not their allies or their equals. It’s time for British Muslims to end our blind loyalty to the Labour Party - if the Gaza genocide wasn’t enough for us to realise this, then we are truly lost.

Then there are those Muslim leftists who have rightly rejected Labour, and instead they rally behind the likes of George Galloway. Unfortunately, this too is problematic. I am not here to launch a scathing assault on Galloway - I do believe he is genuine in his support for Palestine, and genuine in his support for Kashmir. But at the end of the day, Galloway belongs to a group of leftists who oppose the Western narrative on all fronts, sometimes rightly and sometimes wrongly. When a Muslim becomes loyal to Galloway, it may seem perfectly fine. What could be wrong with rallying behind a man who fought apartheid in South Africa, and now vehemently opposes it in Palestine? The question is this: when your Uyghur brothers claim they have been oppressed, do you trust your left-wing allies over them? Galloway may support our brothers in some places, but he is consistently a proponent of the Russo-Chinese narrative. I would like to stress to the Muslim audience - Western oppression of the Muslims does not mean that the Eastern superpowers are our friends. They have done the same thing throughout recent history. Galloway denies Putin’s oppression of the Chechens and the CCP’s oppression of the Uyghurs. He mourns over the defeat of Assad in Syria, and considers our victorious brothers there to be agents of the West. It is truly a shame that some Muslims will support Palestine along with Galloway, but under his influence, they will ignore, and even deny, the suffering of our brothers in Chechnya and East Turkestan. I invite those Muslims to stop using their left-wing allegiance to disgrace the name of our oppressed brothers - it is simply wrong for us to trust any Western ideologue over our own Muslim brothers and sisters. And it is simply impossible to consider Galloway a permanent ally of the Muslims when he treats some of us as his brothers and some of us as CIA-backed liars.

I want to make a small side-point when it comes to Muslims and our alliance with the left concerning Palestine. This alliance is not a bad thing, and we should definitely work together with other people who share our views on the situation. However, the ugly truth is that both sides of the political spectrum are as colonialist as each other. We are already aware of the right-wing displaying that characteristic, but we are ignorant of the left-wing’s colonialism. Let’s imagine that Palestine is free. Ideally, from a Muslim standpoint, this liberated Palestine would of course be ruled by Islam. Do you not think the left-wing would regret their support? Would they not try to make Palestine into some liberal puppet in the Middle East? Would they not criticise and meddle, in the name of their democracy? The point is that the alliance between the left and the Muslims can never be eternal. The right-wing despise Islam openly, the left-wing do so secretly, and they show it when a chance arises. So, how can a Muslim identify with either side?

My final address to left-wing Muslims is to those who go further than the others, those who consider themselves communist. When I make my next claim, I encourage you to look at recent history so you can see my point for yourselves. Every time a Muslim country has experimented with communism or socialism, that country has been destroyed. Those who have been destroyed physically include Bosnia, Afghanistan, Libya, Chechnya, and the list goes on and on. There are also those who have completely lost their Islamic identity thanks to communism - Albania, Azerbaijan, and all the Central Asian countries which once formed part of the Soviet Union. Indeed, one of the things which prompted me to write this article was the niqab ban in Kyrgyzstan, imposed in February 2025. Kyrgyzstan is no exception, we see similar restrictions on Islamic practice across the aforementioned countries. Uzbekistan was once the land of great Islamic scholars, with Bukhara and Samarkand flourishing, and Imam al-Bukhari being the most obvious example. Yet, in its post-Soviet era, Uzbekistan restricts the hijab in certain places, treats long-bearded men with suspicion, with the same justification that we hear from the CCP - to stop so-called extremism. Some of its Central Asian neighbours go even further. This is the result of the ideology which some British Muslims espouse (especially my fellow university students): communism. This should come as no surprise. The father of communism, Karl Marx, referred to religion as the “opium of the masses”. So, if you are a Muslim who wishes to identify as a communist, know that you are associating with the ideology which has robbed millions of your brothers of their identity or their lives. Regarding the latter, I could write an entire essay on the wars and genocides launched by communists against the Muslims, but this is only a blog article - so I will keep it short and simply remind you of Kosovo and Srebrenica.

On the other side of the spectrum, less commonly, we have brothers and sisters who label themselves as right-wing. First, I will address those who rejoice whenever they see a right-wing victory over the left. When Trump won the election against Harris, there were right-leaning people among the Muslims who celebrated. Earlier, I mentioned the naivety of leftist Muslims - I repeat the same thing when I address right-wing Muslims. Within a month of his inauguration, Trump has been openly calling for the complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza - rightist Muslims will be as angered as the rest of us, but you should have known this was coming. Trump and the right-wing may agree with us on the amount of genders, but they will never be our allies. Was it not Trump who recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel? A few years ago, I also would’ve addressed Muslims who fall for the trap of Jordan Peterson and his like, but fortunately, the vast majority now see him for who he is. But there is still a lesson to learn here - there will be other individuals like Peterson who emerge every once in a while, and Muslims will fall for it. I hope we are better than that, but this is a sign that Muslims need to ditch the right-wing label. When I spoke about communism, I mentioned their crimes against the Muslims, and the same must be said for the right-wing. Again, a whole essay could be written on this, so I will name a couple of examples to jog your memories – Christchurch, and India under the BJP.

Another group of rightist Muslims are those who end up where they are simply because of their rejection of the left-wing. Many of these Muslims are easily influenced by individuals like Andrew Tate – these people become so embroiled in the societal conflicts of the West that they bring them into our ummah, pitting brothers and sisters against each other on podcasts which have next to no benefit. If you are one of these brothers or sisters, you should be aware that you are not the anti-feminist, traditional mujahid that you think you are. You are simply increasing the amount of turmoil and division in our community, playing right into the hands of the rightists who influence you. How can the Muslims succeed when both halves of society are at each other’s throats? Allah has made the roles and rights of both genders clear, so abandon these squabbles and unite upon Islam. Furthermore, even if you steer clear of these extreme rightists, and instead go down the path of moderate conservative voices, you will still find yourself in a tough spot. The obvious issue is Palestine: the vast majority of the right-wing, whether extreme or moderate, will never take the side of our brothers, even if all of Israel’s crimes were to be exposed. And most evidently, the right-wing has nothing but disdain for Islam and its followers, so how can a Muslim be part of their camp? Agree with them on some things, sure, but do not call yourself one of them.

So, if we shouldn’t be completely loyal to Labour anymore, what should we do in elections? The advice we are often given is to vote for the lesser of the two evils. Unfortunately, some British Muslims interpreted that as “always vote for Labour”. In reality, both major parties are equally capable of evil - just look at Thatcher and Blair. Sometimes, believe it or not, the Tories will be less evil than Labour. It is impossible for me to sit here in 2025 and advise you on elections. Things change election by election, so there is no telling who will be the lesser evil once the 2029 election comes around. My only advice is this - do not be blindly loyal to any party or any politician. If Labour wants Muslim support, they should earn it, not just take it. If we make this clear to Labour, perhaps then they’ll actually take some action over Gaza (unlikely, but who knows).

When it comes to advice on how a Muslim should form their political views and make sense of the world around them, we have a clear choice to make. If you are a Muslim, you claim to believe in Allah, who is omnipotent, our Creator, who knows the best for His creation. Then, we are given the option to follow imperfect men, who come up with laws in their bedrooms. The choice here is a logical one. Do we adopt the laws of an all-knowing, wise Creator, or do we adopt the laws of a man who can make mistakes and get things wrong just as we can? Who will judge entire nations on the Day of Judgement: Karl Marx, Adam Smith, or Allah? A Muslim is one who submits to Allah, and this is applicable in all areas of life. So, the Muslim audience should abandon communism, liberalism, capitalism and any other ideology they have grown fond of. Our religion is Islam, and our ideology is Islam. No law, no value, is superior to the ones Allah has blessed us with.

To conclude, this article would be devoid of any benefit without calling upon the advice of our legends of the past. Umar ibn al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, said “We were a disgraced people, and Allah honoured us with Islam. If we seek honour from anything else, Allah will disgrace us.” The example of the destruction in former communist countries is enough evidence of this. Of course, the left-wing and right-wing both have things which we agree on. But these things are already part of Islam, so why identify with anything else? Islam is not just the perfect religion - it is the perfect way of life, the perfect economic system, the perfect political ideology. So, if you are a leftist Muslim or a rightist Muslim, I invite and encourage you to drop these labels - we are Muslims and there is nothing else we are eternally loyal to.

---

The views and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of this website or its administrators. This piece is intended to encourage thoughtful discussion and critical analysis of British Muslim political engagement. Readers are encouraged to engage respectfully and consider diverse perspectives. Any historical claims should be independently verified.