The resounding victory of Sadiq Khan, the Labour Party candidate in the just concluded election for mayor of London, was greeted by Muslims around the world with joy. After a long and dirty campaign waged by his opponent Zac Goldsmith of the Conservative Party, in which Khan’s Pakistani and Muslim origins were used to try and scare voters off, London voters showed that they were having nothing of it.
Goldsmith, the son of a billionaire, who studied at Eton and Cambridge, sunk to new lows in British politics after he followed the advice of his campaign manager Lynton Crosby — an Australian known for his nasty tactics — and kept on attacking Khan for having appeared on public platforms with various leaders of the Muslim community in London. These were deemed “dangerous” for preaching about the establishment of an Islamic state. Khan shot back that he had appeared with these figures in his work as a human rights lawyer and politician and stressed that he did not agree with the extreme ideas that they espoused.
Polling of London voters, many of them Tories, found that they were appalled at Goldsmith’s scaremongering tactics, calling them “slimy.” It is amazing that in today’s Britain, and especially in the cosmopolitan city of London, that any politician could think that playing the race and religion cards could get him anywhere with an informed and intelligent electorate. It was also disappointing to see British Prime Minister David Cameron, and fellow Tory, jump on the racist and bigoted bandwagon, calling into question Khan’s credibility by attacking him during Question Time in the Parliament for having appeared in public with the imam Sulayman Ghani, whom they accused of being a radical. It was quickly pointed out that Ghani had visited No. 10 Downing Street, and had campaigned for the Conservatives in the last general election.
Privately many Tories insist that Goldsmith is not a racist, nor anti-Muslim, but that he was just following the Conservative Party’s playbook of prying on people’s perceived fears of all things Asian and Muslim following the 9/11 attacks in the US in 2001 and the 7/7/2005 bombing attacks in London. It still is despicable and shows that he had no moral spine to stand up to fear mongers such as Crosby. Instead of focusing on affordable housing for Londoners, better transport and safer streets, as touted on his campaign website, he mired himself in the filth of trying to paint Khan as a terrorist and his Labour Party as being “friends” with extremists.
What is amazing is that leading Tory politicians can ignore the fact that a sizeable portion of Britain’s Asian community, many owners of shops and small businesses, are actually supporters of the Conservative Party, which is seen as pro-business and against high taxes.
Although commentators love to point out that the United Kingdom has the most well-integrated Muslim population of any European country, Goldsmith and Cameron unfortunately showed that some British politicians are still not above some well-placed racist scaremongering.
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The writer is a Saudi journalist based in Brazil.
Goldsmith, the son of a billionaire, who studied at Eton and Cambridge, sunk to new lows in British politics after he followed the advice of his campaign manager Lynton Crosby — an Australian known for his nasty tactics — and kept on attacking Khan for having appeared on public platforms with various leaders of the Muslim community in London. These were deemed “dangerous” for preaching about the establishment of an Islamic state. Khan shot back that he had appeared with these figures in his work as a human rights lawyer and politician and stressed that he did not agree with the extreme ideas that they espoused.
Polling of London voters, many of them Tories, found that they were appalled at Goldsmith’s scaremongering tactics, calling them “slimy.” It is amazing that in today’s Britain, and especially in the cosmopolitan city of London, that any politician could think that playing the race and religion cards could get him anywhere with an informed and intelligent electorate. It was also disappointing to see British Prime Minister David Cameron, and fellow Tory, jump on the racist and bigoted bandwagon, calling into question Khan’s credibility by attacking him during Question Time in the Parliament for having appeared in public with the imam Sulayman Ghani, whom they accused of being a radical. It was quickly pointed out that Ghani had visited No. 10 Downing Street, and had campaigned for the Conservatives in the last general election.
Privately many Tories insist that Goldsmith is not a racist, nor anti-Muslim, but that he was just following the Conservative Party’s playbook of prying on people’s perceived fears of all things Asian and Muslim following the 9/11 attacks in the US in 2001 and the 7/7/2005 bombing attacks in London. It still is despicable and shows that he had no moral spine to stand up to fear mongers such as Crosby. Instead of focusing on affordable housing for Londoners, better transport and safer streets, as touted on his campaign website, he mired himself in the filth of trying to paint Khan as a terrorist and his Labour Party as being “friends” with extremists.
What is amazing is that leading Tory politicians can ignore the fact that a sizeable portion of Britain’s Asian community, many owners of shops and small businesses, are actually supporters of the Conservative Party, which is seen as pro-business and against high taxes.
Although commentators love to point out that the United Kingdom has the most well-integrated Muslim population of any European country, Goldsmith and Cameron unfortunately showed that some British politicians are still not above some well-placed racist scaremongering.
—
The writer is a Saudi journalist based in Brazil.
