Reform’s new stars must prove that they can think deeply and not just indulge in anti-woke posturing
Reform’s London Mayoral candidate Laila Cunningham is having what the youngsters call a “moment”. The 48-year-old councillor, born to Egyptian parents, defected from the Tories to Farage’s party last summer and has enjoyed a flurry of publicity ever since. Cunningham, a sleek-haired, fashionable, former CPS Prosecutor, is now a mainstay of GB News, Facebook reels and a flurry of right-wing podcasts. But does her substance measure up to her savviness?
Sadly, I am yet to be convinced. Last week, I attended a panel held by Open Justice UK and the Prosperity Institute on the grooming gang scandal. Cunningham was a speaker. The discussion was wide-ranging and emotional. Fiona Goddard, who was brutally abused and trafficked by a Pakistani gang in Bradford, candidly detailed her story and urged action on what remains a live issue.
Cunningham, who spoke first, fiddled with her phone while Fiona spoke, and interrupted a fellow panellist to jokingly urge them to defect to Reform. But perhaps Cunningham’s biggest faux pas that evening was her apparent skittishness around Islam.
During the discussion Cunningham, stressed more than once that (a) she was a “Muslim woman” and (b) that the behaviour of the rape gangs, who were overwhelmingly from Pakistani-Muslim backgrounds, did not represent “the Islam she recognised”. But how relevant is her personal perspective?
Granted, the grooming gangs scandal was not reducible to religion. As Chris Bayliss has written for The Critic, clan structures were also an important factor. Yet it remains true that some interpretations of Islam justify the rape and enslavement of non-Muslim women and girls — not to mention the fact that Islam’s most revered figure, Mohammed, married a child. Australian academic Dr Mark Durie, who published a paper on the religious dimension of the rape gangs, identifies eight Islamic doctrines that contribute to what he dubs an “Islamicate culture” that normalises the kinds of abuse characteristic of the grooming gangs.
Voters, especially those warm to Reform, are increasingly exhausted by politicians suggesting that this or that incident of violence or sexual abuse had “nothing to do with Islam”. Do some of these incidents have everything to do with Islam? No — but they have something to do with it, and thus we should seriously interrogate such beliefs.
On the Right, there is often an urge to ignore the class element of the rape gangs. Spates of snooty Tory MPs, who spent years ignoring the scandal, have only lately taken up the cause in for the sake of right-wing street cred. But if we are to address the role of social class in this ongoing failure, we must be equally unsentimental about how Islam, and fear of offending its followers, has enabled this.
Voters would also be wise to be cautious about yet another ex-Tory, more than happy to attend a highly political “pride” march, and be photographed schmoozing with Rishi Sunak, Priti Patel and Matt Hancock before having an epiphany at the precise moment when another party’s star began to rise. Cunningham, despite having no discernible connection to the city, was selected as the Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Rotherham in 2024, only to withdraw her candidacy “due to a change in circumstances” at the eleventh hour. Did this highly successful woman realise that contesting a seat with such political baggage would do her image no favours?
If Cunningham is willing to cite her identity as a “Muslim woman” from an immigrant background in political discussions, she must not ignore concerns about the faith she claims to adhere to. UnHerd described Cunningham as an “observant Muslim”, while she recently told The Telegraph “I don’t believe it [religion] should be a prescription for how you live your life”. But is that not the entire purpose of religious belief and practice?
She is clearly no Islamist fanatic — supporting, for example, a ban on burqas — but her surface-level thinking is a problem for her and for her party. If Cunningham, and her party, are to be a success, they must begin seriously and consistently strategising rather than repeating “anti-Woke” slogans and posting eccentric memes.
