Miqdaad Versi’s article about Labour and the Muslim community was interesting (There is a way for Starmer’s Labour to fix the big rift with Muslim voters – if it has the will, 6 May). However, while older Muslims tended to support the Labour party in the past and were loyal, younger generations have become extremely savvy and knowledgeable about local and world politics. They will not blindly follow politicians.
The hegemony enjoyed by the two main parties is slowly disintegrating, and many are now considering smaller parties. Therefore I am not sure the Labour party will gain the trust and support of the community in the future, and I would be extremely surprised if it does. In my area, five independent candidates defeated Labour’s candidates in the local elections.
Baser Akoodie
Batley, West Yorkshire
• Great to hear the disenfranchised Labour-leaning Muslim voice in Britain, thanks to Miqdaad Versi. His point about Labour “core values of human rights, justice and international law” is important. But the exclusive focus on Muslim voters in relation to Labour is misleading. Experts were doing the same thing after the local elections, talking about this portion of the electorate as if it were the only demographic that Labour’s disgraceful policies on Gaza and Israel had alienated. Implying that only Muslim votes were lost because of this is at best simplistic and at worst a wilful manipulation of the truth.
One effect of the campus protests in the US has been to allow students in other countries to realise that they aren’t alone.
Paul Gander
London
• Labour’s response to losing Muslim votes in recent local elections misses the point (Labour ‘working to get support back’ after losing votes over Gaza stance, 5 May). To say “the better lives that people want for the Palestinian people is something the Labour leadership shares” is a wholly inadequate response to what many people see in Gaza. People want a stop to the slaughter and destruction of the Palestinian people and their society. And they want the actions of the Israeli government and army to be condemned. To call for “better lives” in the face of 35,000 deaths, destitution and the rising threat of famine suggests that the Labour leadership does not understand or care about the depth of feeling of many people in this country, not just Muslims.
Geoff Skinner
Kensal Green, London
• Martin Kettle is right to question the assumption that discontent with our politicians’ response to Gaza comes only from “the Muslim vote”, or “the left” (If Keir Starmer isn’t careful, Gaza could do for him what the Iraq war did for Blair, 9 May). There are many who are neither Muslim nor left, but react with horror and disgust to the spectacle of a civilised, articulate people reduced to clustering around tiny body bags and moving from one rubble heap to another to escape merciless bombardment.
We would feel – did feel, on 7 October – this disgust whether the victims were Palestinian, Jewish or anyone else. Accusations of antisemitism are misplaced. Our disgust encompasses Hamas too, but we had perhaps hoped for better from Israel, and from politicians claiming to speak for us.
Peter Millen
Huddersfield, West Yorkshire
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