Scottish Muslims torn between SNP and Labour

At Friday prayers at Glasgow’s Central Mosque, the imam implored the congregation to help “our brothers being butchered in Gaza”, chastising the UN — the “Useless Nations”, as he put it — for its inaction. 

As the faithful left, many cited the rising death toll in the enclave as the defining issue in Scotland’s Muslim heartland in south Glasgow.

“It’s unthinkable, no one is doing anything about it, especially Muslim countries,” said Muzahir Shan, a retired restaurateur, who like many voters has been alienated by Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s initial refusal to back a ceasefire.

“There’s no way I am going to vote Labour, it has to be [Scottish National party] — the majority of people with knowledge of the situation will go the same way,” he said.

The intensity of feeling on Gaza in Scotland could influence some marginal constituency contests, damaging Labour’s prospects and assisting the SNP in the general election this year.

Polling has put the SNP and Labour neck-and-neck, with both set to take 23 seats in Scotland. Labour, which holds two seats north of the border, would regard a gain of fewer than 12 seats a major disappointment, said one insider.

The Muslim vote is strongest in Glasgow, where Muslims made up 5.4 per cent of the population in 2011, according to the last census data.

Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf, whose relatives were trapped in Gaza at the beginning of the conflict, called for a ceasefire in October soon after the conflict broke out and has kept up pressure on the issue since.

SNP figures believe his clear line, which has gathered plaudits within the Muslim community and among other Palestinian supporters, could become an electoral factor in the populous central belt between Glasgow and Edinburgh, where Labour is set to stage a strong challenge.

The SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn MP on Wednesday said “the UK government is failing the people of Gaza by dodging its responsibility to help secure an immediate ceasefire”.

Sir John Curtice, professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, said: “All the seats are marginal so local factors can potentially make a difference.”

But the Muslim population is probably too small to have a large impact on the results, he added, especially as not all voters will switch sides. “There isn’t any evidence of the Labour vote falling significantly post [the Hamas] October 7 [attacks],” he said.

Anas Sarwar, Scottish Labour leader and son of the UK’s first Muslim MP, followed Yousaf’s ceasefire call in a challenge to the cautious approach of Starmer, who is still remembered for an interview in which he refused to condemn Israel’s siege of Gaza.

At the Scottish Labour conference last month, Starmer shifted UK Labour’s position to seeking a ceasefire agreed by both sides.

Sarwar’s “position of principle” on Gaza had prevented Scottish Labour receiving the same backlash felt by the party elsewhere in the UK, said one person briefed on Labour’s strategy.

But in Glasgow, where mosques are often politically oriented to either Labour or the SNP, others are torn on how to vote.

“We are fortunate to have a Muslim as leader and Labour leader, they represent Islam,” said Humza Hafiz, 22. “I think Anas Sarwar has been strong on this issue, but my family are SNP — I have yet to decide.”

Some feel disenchanted. “We need to make a protest vote, like the Greens, because the media and the main parties are aligned with Israel,” said Javid, a local authority worker.

Labour, riding higher in the polls, is targeting almost every seat in the central belt, eyeing a landslide as Scots abandon the SNP after scandals and questions over its record of delivery.

Dr Muhammad Adrees, convener of the Muslim Council of Scotland, said Labour and other major parties had long taken the Muslim vote for granted. The MCS, along with other groups, has launched a campaign encouraging Muslims to register to vote.

While he estimated average turnout among Muslims in southern Glasgow being as low as 20 per cent, Adrees said the younger generation is now more engaged, given the sense of abandonment in the wake of Hamas’s attacks on the Jewish state.

Starmer’s initial support for Israel’s siege on Gaza and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s strong backing for Israel and refusal to accept statehood for Palestine had left the Muslim community “traumatised”, he said.

“They [young Muslims] feel ignored and therefore have decided to take this election very seriously,” said Adrees, an NHS consultant. “I believe that will be very healthy for British politics.”

Data on religious affiliation from the last Scottish census in 2022 is set for release in May. The Muslim population was last recorded as 77,000, or 1.4 per cent of the population, in the 2011 census.

The former constituency of Glasgow Central, which includes Pollokshields, the bastion of the Pakistani immigrant community, had a 12.9 per cent Muslim population in 2011, according to census analysis carried out by the University of Edinburgh.

In eight seats, mainly around Glasgow, the Muslim population was more than 3 per cent.

“Gaza is at the heart of lots of people, not just Muslims,” said Linsay Taylor, a MCS board member. “There is a chance it could make a difference at the polls.”

Andrew Finney, an ice cream vendor from Skye, lambasted Labour for hijacking the SNP’s opposition day vote on a ceasefire last month, saying it reflected “how we are silenced in Westminster”.

“I want Scotland to be independent but — in the grand scale of things — Gaza overshadows everything,” he said as he wandered out of the mosque car park. “To me it’s not a war, it’s a genocide.”