British Muslim group aims to oust 14 Tories, including Boris Johnson and PIO Alok Sharma, in UK election

LONDON: A British Muslim lobbying organisation is campaigning to oust 14 Tories, including Indian-origin MP Alok Sharma and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, from their Tory-held marginal seats at the general election.
The Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC), a London-based grassroots civil liberties pressure group, claims Muslims can swing “at least 30 parliamentary seats” from Tory to Labour at the December 12 general election.It says it is focusing on “MPs that have a record of advancing Islamophobia and/or working against the Palestinian struggle for freedom”.
The not-for-profit organisation has created a campaign on British Muslim crowdfunding platform “Fundamal” to raise £20,000 to fund “Operation Muslim Vote 2019”.
The group, which organises boycotts of shops that sell goods made in Israel, claims it was “the first organisation to remove Islamophobic MPs by utilising the Muslim bloc vote” in the 2005, 2010 and 2017 UK general elections when it unseated eight MPs, which it describes as a 73% success rate. It even takes credit for current home secretary Priti Patel being forced to quit as international development secretary in 2017.
So far the campaign has only inspired 16 backers and raised just £1,585.00, £1,000 of which comes from “offline donations”. The campaign says the money will be used to fund “leaflets, video production, digital advertisement, direct mail, travel expenses and mobilising volunteers”.
The 14 seats it is targeting include that of UK PM Boris Johnson, India-born Alok Sharma, who has been Conservative MP for Reading West since 2010, and Bob Blackman whose constituency Harrow East has a 26% Indian-origin population.
Describing the “campaign story” on “Fundamal”, MPACUK spokesperson Imran Shah wrote: “We target marginal seats where the Muslim vote is larger than the current MP’s majority vote. We are targeting these Conservative politicians because they have a voting and parliamentary history of working against the interests of British Muslim communities. All of them can be kicked out by the Muslim vote in these constituencies.”
Blackman had a 1,757 majority and on Fundamal Shah states that the Muslim population in his area is 13,471, whilst Sharma had a majority of 2,876 and on Fundamal Shah says the Muslim population in his area is 5,023.
“The current government has been exposed as being deeply Islamophobic, racist and xenophobic. Many of their current ministers, such as Boris Johnson and Alok Sharma, have pro-actively defended the crimes against humanity committed by Israel and India against Palestinians and Kashmiris, respectively,” Shah writes. “A general election is our time to get them out of power and replace them with a Corbyn-led government, that has pledged to recognise a Palestinian state, stand up for Kashmir’s self-determination and much more.”
A spokesman for the Electoral Commission said “Money given to non-party campaigners that spend under £20k at elections is not covered by electoral law. Campaigners can raise money through crowdfunding. We don’t regulate the content of campaigns and what campaigners say about one another, but it is an offence to make a false statement of fact about the character of a candidate.”
Mumbai-born British citizen Raj Agarwal (42), an IT engineer, has cancelled his subscription to the Labour party and is now planning on joining the Tories. He says Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is “too lenient on terrorists”. He is helping other British Indians campaign for a non-Indian Tory candidate against Indian-origin Labour candidate Seema Malhotra in Feltham and Heston who has held the seat since 2011. He is also campaigning for Gujarati East African Indian heritage Tory candidate Seena Shah in Labour-held seat Brent and Isleworth.
“Pakistani-origin people have infiltrated the Labour party and now they are trying to push their agenda of Palestine, Kashmir, Pakistan and Khalistan under Jeremy Corbyn and use Labour as a political tool,” he said. “Within Labour there is an anti-India, anti-Hindu campaign supported by these people. Bob Blackman is doing a great job. He is a friend of India, represents India values and is passionate about India. The reason Muslims are targeting him and Alok Sharma is because both are pro-India. That is also why they are targeting Boris. This is an Islamic agenda