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Issue 254, Friday 25 June 2010 - 12 Rajab 1431 Muslim councillors on the increase in London By Eren Tatari, PhD The number of Muslim elected officials in the UK has been increasing at a rather fascinating rate. Compared to their neighbours in France and Germany, British Muslims are much more politically integrated at the local as well as the national level. For the past five years, I have been conducting research for my doctoral studies on Muslim councillors across the 32 London boroughs and have compiled a comprehensive dataset dating back to the 1998 local elections. The findings of this research reveal intriguing facts and poses challenging questions for policy scholars. There were 83 Muslim councillors in London during the 1998-2002 term, compromising 4.4% of London’s councillors. This figure increased to 115 in the 2002-2006 term (6.1%) and to 146 after the 2006 elections (7.8%). Given that Muslim constituents make up approximately 8.5% of London’s population, their political representation at the local level is getting very close to parity. The trend shows that the percentage increase is levelling off in each successive election. As is the case with most minority groups in England, majority of Muslim councillors are from the Labour Party. However, this proportion is decreasing with each subsequent election. After the 1998 elections, 83.1% of Muslim councillors were from Labour. This figure decreased to 75.7% in the 2002 elections and to 70% in the 2006 elections. Tories, Liberal Democrats, and since 2004, the Respect Party, have been picking up the Labour defectors. As of January 2009, 6.8% of London’s Muslim councillors were from the Conservative Party; 13% were from the Liberal Democrats; and 11% were from Respect. Beginning to lose councillors from this highly mobilized group has been perplexing for the Labour Party, which had been counting on the loyal support of Muslims for decades. However, this unwavering support was called into question first with the involvement of the British forces in the Iraq War and the policies of the Labour government since then that were interpreted as anti-Muslim by British Muslims. Labour’s loss has been Tory’s and Liberal Democrat’s gain. Both parties have been stepping up their efforts to draw more Muslims to their ranks and court the Muslim vote. As a result, the number of Muslim parliamentary candidates in safe seats has increased, finally delivering the first Conservative MP to the House of Commons on May 6, 2010. There has been an equally unforeseen increase in the number of female Muslim councillors. The percentage of female Muslim councillors in London increased from 12% in the 1998-2002 term to 24.7% in the 2006-2010 term. Hence, one in every five Muslim councillors is a female. The overall percentage of female councillors in London is 31%. On the contrary, no female Muslims were elected to the House of Commons until the recent elections that turned three female Muslim MPs to the Parliament. Undoubtedly, one of the factors that help Muslim councillors to effectively advocate on behalf of their constituents is serving in the ruling party. In the 1998-2002 term, in almost half of the boroughs, all Muslim councillors were from the ruling party. However, in line with the gradual decline of Labour seats around England, the percentage of councils where all Muslim councillors were serving in the ruling party decreased to 10% in the 2006 term. This could be attributed to their defection to other parties and/or Labour losing its majority hold. There is almost perfect correlation between the percentage of Muslim population in the borough and the percentage of Muslim councillors in the city council. This attests to the fact that although Muslim councillors depend on the votes of the non-Muslim constituents, their primary support comes from Muslim voters. Parallel with the proportion of their Muslim constituents, Tower Hamlets has nearly 67% Muslim councillors whereas the Boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea and the Borough of Bromley did not see any Muslim elected officials… Although their numbers are increasing at unprecedented rates, a majority of Muslim councillors are serving their first or second terms. This suggests that they are novices to electoral politics trying to master the art of local policy-making. The dataset depicts a relatively high turnover rate where many Muslim councillors either do not run for re-election or cannot make the final cut the second time they compete. Arguably, those who serve two or more terms are becoming more and more politically savvy and are in a better position to make effective policy changes. It is now a question for party leaders to decide what to make of this phenomenon: whether to see the Muslim vote and Muslim candidates as a political opportunity to grasp, or as yet another temporary political wave waiting to die out. Eren Tatari is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Rollins College, Florida. Her research and teaching focus on the political representation of Muslims in Western Europe and the US. |