In some countries, election days are occasions for fanfares. Americans have “I voted” stickers and Australians have their sausage sizzles — hot dogs handed out from barbecues. In Britain, on the other hand, it’s the subtle touches that denote polling day. Village halls or leisure centres, stubby pens, dogs tied up outside those neutral black and white “POLLING STATION” signs — and, more recently, shouts of “Allahu Akhbar!”
This was the scene in Leeds last year, when Mr, now Councillor, Mothin Ali won the ward of Harehills and Gipton for the Green Party. This novel twist on drab acceptance speeches did not go unnoticed, though Cllr Ali has been swift to decry those who did notice as “Islamophobic” in one of his first utterances as a public figure.
His first speech was unusual as well. Dressed in both traditional headwear, a songkok, and the near-ubiquitous keffiyeh, and standing in front of a Palestine flag Mr Ali shouted: “We will raise the voice of Gaza. We will raise the voice of Palestine”. No mention of his constituents back in Leeds.
This is not the only controversy into which Councillor Ali has weighed. He does not just support Palestinian victims of violence — he appears to support Palestinian perpetrators of violence. “Every single person, every single people have a right to fight back,” he said last year, “That includes people who are brown, that includes people who are Muslim.” This ignores the fact that Hamas “fights back” by massacring civilians.
Ali has also said that the Israelis, “Are not victims, they are occupiers, they are colonialists, they are European colonialists … It’s one of the last European colonies in the world and that’s why the European people don’t want to let it go.” It’s embarrassing to have to correct a man on what appears to be his central issue but most Israelis are not descended from Europe.
Then let’s consider Ali’s treatment of a fellow denizen of Leeds — specifically, the Jewish chaplain at Leeds University, Rabbi Zecharia Deutsch, whom Ali has called “creep”, a “low-life” and an “animal”. Ali also falsely claimed that Rabbi Deutsch had tried to kill women and children in Gaza. Unsurprisingly, the Rabbi and his family were forced into hiding after this attack after receiving a large number of death threats.
Why does this nasty little individual matter? Because Mothin Ali was elected, in a stonking victory, as the Deputy Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, this week. Yes, I’m afraid the cuddly greens have a fuming nutter for a deputy leader.
This will nicely complement their newly minted leader, Zach Polanski. Polanski has infamously claimed that he could make a woman’s breasts larger with the power of his mind. (A Green leader with mad pseudoscientific beliefs? Now I’ve seen everything.) In his first media round since winning the Party’s leadership, he claimed that it was good that comedian Graham Linehan was arrested and hospitalised for mean tweets. What a curious place Britain is — where the supposed radicals defend the state locking people up over their opinions.
Rounding out their leadership team is Rachel Millward, a posh home counties lady whose Wikipedia centres on the local feminist film festival she has run. First the Birds Eye View film festival, next the country.
This is the modern left — uber-progressives, socially conservative Muslims, and a few well-to-do Remainers
This bizarre combination of a sort of ur-Lib Dem, a sinister third worldist and the hypnosis boobs man is probably not what many people expect from a political party that is supposed to be about combating climate change, looking after the environment and being nice to animals.
But this is the modern left — uber-progressives, socially conservative Muslims, and a few well-to-do Remainers who haven’t quite realised what’s happening. This is part of the broader story of course, of the fragmentation of British politics. Whilst the national media focus on Reform, the left is seeing its own foment.
Alongside the Greens, the obvious example is the ludicrous “Your Party”. Your Party has already seen co-founders, magic grandpa Jeremy Corbyn and perennial student politician Zarah Sultana, fall out in classic hapless socialist fashion. It has seen further splintering where the independent MP for Blackburn, Adnan Hussain, fell out with high-profile trans activist India Willoughby. Willoughby, in not-quite Ciceronian invective, disagreed with Mr Hussain’s take on trans issues, saying:
Fuck you, @AdnanHussainMP. I am absolutely a biological woman. So sick of this constant degradation. Imagine if I said you’re not a real Brit. Are you going to let this clear transphobic declaration pass without action @zarahsultana @jeremycorbyn? Racism for trans people.
This nicely mirrors the case of Dr Shahrar Ali, another former leader of the Green Party who was kicked out for having gender-critical views. It seems that the penny is finally dropping that the people who think there are 87 genders, and those who think there are barely two, may not make for the most stable long-term electoral coalition.
The difference between left and right in Britain, is that beyond the bluster, there is little that Reform and the Conservatives disagree on. Reform have the energy and zeal, the Tories have the intellectual hinterland and the scars on their back from fighting the Blob. Together, they could make a powerful electoral and political coalition which could save Britain.
The left, on the other hand, will always find ways to fall out with one another. The well-represented but braindead liberal democrats, the left of the Labour Party, the Your Party (or perhaps “Your Parties” by the time this comes out) and now the Greens have confirmed that they will fall down under the weight of their own contradictions.
With their enemies this mad, bad and dangerous, the right could seal a glorious comeback for the country — provided it doesn’t repeat the suicidal factionalism of the Left.
