Labour ‘pandering’ to extremism to win votes in Birmingham, insiders say

One senior party source said that Labour’s pandering to extremism throws into doubt its “zero tolerance for antisemitism” – undermining the government’s support for Britain’s Jewish community after a string of attacks.

The revelations come as the party is braced for massive losses at the ballot box next month, with the Greens and left-wing independents seeking to use the conflict in Gaza to attack Labour.

Birmingham is set to be a particularly fiercely fought battleground.

Labour faces a huge challenge for control of the city council – the largest local authority in Europe – with one poll suggesting the party could lose control of the city, which it has held since 2010.

Concerns over extremism in Birmingham were starkly highlighted last year when Israeli football fans were banned, in a scandal which led to the exit of the city’s most senior police officer.

Nonetheless party insiders fear a coalition of pro-Gaza independents allied with George Galloway’s Workers’ Party could take a significant number of votes, and possibly form a significant block of councillors.

But senior Labour sources are worried that their own candidates could cause the party embarrassment.

The JC can reveal that in October 2023 Liaqat Ali, a candidate for Labour in Yardley West and Stechford ward (in Labour MP Jess Phillips’s constituency) led chants of “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, which the prime minister has previously told the JC he believes to be antisemitic.

Questions are being asked about the quality of Labour candidates being selected, with one source accusing the party’s regional office of “taking out” candidates that it didn’t like without sufficient reasoning.

A senior source from the party who spoke to the JC suggested that part of the reasoning for deselecting existing councillors is to pander to more hardline elements within the Pakistani community in Birmingham.

Another Labour source labelled the decision to block experienced councillors, including the former chief whip Fred Grindrod as well as councillors including Jane Jones and Basharat Mahmood, as “absolutely disgraceful”, which they claimed constituted “infighting for no reason”.

“Now we’re putting up people as candidates who have no real understanding of the party and have done no work on policies and don’t understand the work it takes to campaign to win”, the source added.

In August last year, the Labour Party denied reports of “nepotism” after the Birmingham Mail reported that a number of sitting councillors had been de-selected to make way for other candidates, including the daughter of Birmingham Erdington MP Paulette Hamilton.

Last year, the JC revealed that Birmingham Labour councillor Bushra Bi had accused the prime minister of being biased in favour of Israel because his wife is Jewish. She later apologised for her claims.

The utterances of some Labour figures in Birmingham when it comes to Israel has been the source of many awkward headlines for the party over the years.

Waseem Zaffar MBE, who died in January this year as a result of a heart attack, backed the decision to ban fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv from being able to see their side play local team Aston Villa in a European football fixture last year. In 2016 he was reprimanded by the party for claiming that British support for Israel fuelled support for extremist groups like ISIS.

The senior Labour source in Birmingham questioned the regional party’s priorities and suggested they were harming the party nationally: “Candidates who have expressed themselves in terms that the prime minister has said is antisemitic have been allowed to stand while candidates of sound politics have been taken out for entirely political reasons – to pander to questionable characters within the Pakistani community in Birmingham.

“How can we credibly say that we have zero tolerance for antisemitism as a party when a councillor who suggests the prime minister is biased in favour of Israel because his wife is Jewish is allowed to re-run for office and another chants ‘from the river to the sea’?

“We need to oppose, rather than pander to, the sorts of politics that got Birmingham in the national news for all the wrong reasons over the Maccabi fan ban.”

Among Labour’s rivals, the Independent Candidate Alliance are set to be a possibly decisive electoral force in Birmingham.

They are fronted by Akhmed Yakoob, a social-media savvy lawyer known for his sports cars and vehement opposition to Israel and Zionism.

He came within a few thousand votes of unseating Shabana Mahmood at the last general election and placed third in the 2024 elections for mayor of the West Midlands.

In March, Sky News recorded Yakoob – who has previously asserted that Muslims cannot be antisemitic – telling voters that “the Zionists control everything”.

Some of the Alliance candidates themselves have drawn controversy.

Shahid Butt is a former Jihadi who was convicted of terrorism offences in Yemen in 1999 in connection with an alleged plot to blow up the British consulate. He says his conviction was based on a confession extracted under torture and that he is innocent.

Other candidates include Ousman Noor, an “anti-Zionist human rights lawyer” who declared that he backed “armed resistance” against the “Zionist entity” and chanted “long life the intifada” at a rally in September 2025.

Another candidate, Rehab Talukdar, standing in Small Heath ward said he would “get rid of the genocide complicit council completely from this town”.

The senior Labour source in Birmingham expressed concern that Yakoob could end up as wielding significant influence on Birmingham council after the election, forcing divisive issues onto the council’s political agenda if no party is victorious and Labour might look to the votes of his councillors to stay in power, something emphatically denied by the party.

They told the JC: "Even if Akhmed Yakoob's coalition of extremists don't win control of the council, there is a huge danger of them having a significant influence in the council chamber. If there isn't any party in overall control of the council, then there is an awful scenario of Akhmed Yakoob – someone who believes he was chosen by Allah to ‘challenge the Zionist regime’ – being a kingmaker in Europe’s largest local authority.”

The source also pointed an accusing finger at their own party for failure to confront Yakoob’s style of politics and thinking: “The Labour Party – senior figures both nationally and locally – have too often tried to pander to Yakoob’s politics rather than challenge them. Conspiratorial thinking about Israel is rife in the Labour Party and officials and even, sadly, frontbenchers, would rather put their fingers in their ears than confront reality.”

The Labour Party vehemently denied that it was considering a coalition with Yakoob.

For all the attention-grabbing antics of Yakoob’s candidates, a different Labour figure the JC spoke to speculated that their bark was significantly worse than their bite.

They described Yakoob’s independents candidates as “low quality”, adding that “a lot of them can’t speak English properly”, adding: “I don't think there's going to be a huge success there, although they think they're going to take over the council.”

Instead, they suggested that the main threat to Labour might come from more established parties: “I'd be surprised if his lot get more than 10 seats. I don't think they will get that many seats. I think the Greens will come through, yeah, quite in a large-scale. Lib Dems and Reform are also a threat.”

With a grim national picture for Labour, in freefall in the polls and in a campaign dominated by Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to appoint Lord Mandelson to be his US ambassador, many in the party are bracing themselves for a bloodbath up and down the country.

However, in Birmingham, the party’s record in charge makes it even more vulnerable.

Khalid Mahmood, former Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, told the JC: “We’ve had a very weak Labour group, and the leadership hasn’t really delivered. There has been too much internal squabbling and people trying to position themselves for positions within the Labour group and the council, rather than actually delivering.”

Rubbish has been piling up in Birmingham, where bin services are a major local concern (Photo: Getty)Getty Images

The party’s record in office, where the council has been declared bankruptcy and a long-standing bin strike remains unresolved, along with anti-car policies which, Mahmood claims, have created a challenging environment for Labour.

“Bin services haven't been normal for over a year now, and that's really, really having a bad effect, as well as an increase in council tax and eight years of anti-car policies, including a ‘clean air zone’ which penalises people on lower incomes who might have older cars”.

However, he claims that a significant blame for the bankruptcy shouldn’t be solely blamed on Labour, but on the civil service and local government staff as well.

A Labour Party spokesperson told the JC: “All complaints are assessed thoroughly and in line with our established procedures.

“In Birmingham, Labour has selected a strong and diverse team of candidates who reflect the city they serve – including a Royal Navy reservist, small business owners, NHS staff, and dedicated community volunteers working with food banks and local schools. They are focused on delivering for Birmingham and are out every day listening to residents and addressing local priorities.

“By contrast, Akhmed Yaqoob and the so-called independents offer no credible plan for Birmingham’s future and risk dividing communities rather than bringing them together. Labour will always stand against division and extremism, and we are clear that we will not enter into any deals with this man.”