Last week’s local elections in the United Kingdom resulted in the unequivocal triumph of Nigel Farage’s right-wing populist Reform UK Party, which picked up 1,451 councillor seats across England, and fared well in elections in left-wing strongholds Scotland and Wales as well.
However, some far-left and Islamist candidates have also gained support, which should give some caution to the right-wingers celebrating the results on the British Isles.
We have reported on the transgender non-UK citizen candidate named Q Manivannan, who was elected to the Scottish Parliament. Furthermore, a number of independent Muslim candidates have also secured over 100 seats for themselves in local councils across England.
‘One of the under-reported stories of the local elections is the steady growth of Muslim independents. Including Lutfur Rahman’s Aspire in Tower Hamlets, east London, at least 100 such councillors were elected last week, adding to the dozens already in place and the four independent Muslim MPs elected in 2024. What links has this new “Islamopopulist” movement to Islamism and other ideologies hostile to democracy?’ the British paper The Spectator writes in an online piece about the phenomenon.
Around 6.5 per cent of the total British population is Muslim, according to the latest estimates. England has the highest concentration of Muslims. By comparison, in Scotland and Wales, only about 2 per cent of the population is that religious minority. In Northern Ireland, that number is just 0.6 per cent, according to the 2021 census.
The Muslim population has been on a steady upward trend in the United Kingdom.
In the 2001 census, only 2.7 per cent of the population were self-identified Muslims; while in the 2011 census, 4.8 per cent of the residents identified as followers of Islam. As we wrote above, today, the size of the Muslim population in the UK is around 6.5 per cent. In the capital city of London, it is even higher, around 16 per cent.
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