Two candidates who backed a campaign to undermine the Labour Party in the last general election are running to lead the Muslim Council of Britain, an umbrella body representing hundreds of mosques and Muslim charities in the UK.
Successive UK governments have refused to engage with the Muslim Council since 2009. Then Labour prime minister Gordon Brown broke contact with the organisation after their deputy leader signed a letter which ministers said condoned attacks on British forces.
More than 500 mosques, Muslim charities and other related organisations are expected to vote on the new leadership.
The two candidates, Wajid Akhter, a doctor from Essex, and his challenger Mohammed Adrees were vocal supporters of The Muslim Vote, a campaign launched during last year’s general election to mobilise Muslims against Labour.
The campaign said it would endorse alternative candidates who had voted for a ceasefire in Gaza, encouraging British Muslims to vote for them. Labour lost four seats to independent candidates endorsed by the campaign, including Khalid Mahmood, the UK’s longest-standing Muslim MP, and nearly a third of Muslim votes over its stance on Gaza.
Mr Akhter was a leading spokesman for the The Muslim Vote. In a recent interview, he complained that young Muslims prefer to go to night clubs rather than Friday prayers, and spoke of the “battle of ideas” in universities.
“There are more Muslims in the clubs on Friday night than there are in the Jummah prayer. There is a battle for ideas in university, not just degrees. You are part of this battle for ideas and it is up to you which side you are going to fall on,” he said in a recent interview.
Mr Adrees, a Glasgow doctor, leads the Muslim Council of Scotland, which supported the The Muslim Vote.
He travelled to Iran on a delegation in 2017, meeting Iranian officials and the grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini and praying at Khomeini’s shrine. Writing of his trip later, he praised Khomeini as “great leader” who “led the nation to its destiny”. He also wrote approvingly of Iran’s treatment of Sunni and non-Muslim minorities.
The conservative UK think tank Policy Exchange, which published its investigation into the two candidates on Monday, said their views were “deeply disturbing” and urged the new government not to change its policy towards the Muslim Council.
“That the MCB keeps getting it wrong is no accident – it is a design fault, rooted in its ideology. The government rightly refuses to engage with the MCB and this demonstrates why that policy should not change,” said Khalid Mahmood, the defeated Labour MP and a senior fellow at Policy Exchange.
