DOGWHISTLE ISLAM TRIUMPHS IN BRADFORD

by Colin Liddell

In a UK parliamentary by-election, the 'safe' Labour seat of Bradford West has been taken by the Respect Party candidate, George Galloway, with 18,341 votes (55.89%) to 8,201 (24.99%). This is a major and unexpected shock result.

Even though the successful candidate is an ex-Scottish Labour MP, best known to voters for appearing on the reality TV show "Celebrity Big Brother," he managed to win by convincing radicalized Muslim voters that he was a better Muslim than the Labour Party's Pakistani candidate Imran Hussein, while also maintaining the illusion for non-Muslim voters and abstainers, mainly White working-class people, that he was essentially just interested in peace and social issues. A party that serves Muslim ethnic interests still has to employ a degree of taqiyya (religious dissimulation) to compete for constituencies like Bradford West, but the unexpectedly large margin of victory in this case means that within a few years the 'dog' (in this case Galloway) and the 'whistle' will soon be dispensed with.

The history of the constituency is interesting. In the days when the ethnic composition of the constituency started to noticeably change, Labour stuck with White candidates, probably because there were simply no suitable non-Whites. Then, as the numbers of non-Whites in the local Labour party increased, they held off switching to an 'ethnic' candidate because of the threat posed by the BNP. Once the BNP threat had been safely contained, however, they lost no time in switching to a non-White candidate. Unfortunately, they went for a Sikh, who turned out to be unpopular with the dominant 'ethnic' group, the Muslims, so they had to rely on compliant White Labour voters (i.e. the 'unethnic' group) and the fact that Bradford West was essentially a safe seat with no real competition from the other main political parties.

When the Sikh MP became ill and stepped down, Labour then made what they thought was the smart move and put in a Muslim. But by now the White Labour voters had become disconnected, causing that part of their vote to collapse. Some Whites decided to vote for Galloway on the basis that he was at least a White working-class face and had "been on the telly," while others simply abstained. The Muslims meanwhile were not too impressed with the kind of tame Muslim that the Labour party machine had selected for them and with the fact that Labour's leader is a Jew, so that part of Labour support was also very soft. Galloway's success was built on the destruction of these twin pillars of Labour power.

Ironically, Labour will now deploy the same kind of tactics they used against the BNP to try to defeat Respect in this constituency. This will include intensive canvassing and the use of extremely detailed databases to tailor their appeal to individual voters on a house-to-house basis, while also launching smear campaigns and possible infiltration against Respect. They will doubtlessly engage in fear-mongering, saying that the election of an "extremist" like Galloway will see the town economically isolated and be bad for business and jobs.

For their part, Respect will start looking at other Labour seats with large blocks of Muslim voters. In particular danger are those Labour MPs of Jewish extraction, like Jack Straw in Blackburn and Margaret Hodge in Barking, a constituency where large numbers of immigrants, many of them Muslims, were brought in after the BNP breakthrough at the 2008 council elections.