Labour Figure brands Party ‘Incapable of Tackling Racism’

A leading Labour figure has claimed the party was “incapable of tackling racism and Islamophobia” following the far-right riots.

Mish Rahman, a member of Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC), accused Sir Keir Starmer and his party of showing double standards by failing to categorise the violence as “terrorism”.

His comment follows nationwide riots which were sparked by misinformation that claimed the suspect in the Southport stabbing, where three girls were killed in a knife attack, was a Muslim.

The subsequent violence included far-right mobs attacking hotels that were housing asylum seekers.

Mr Rahman claimed Labour’s reluctance to call the violent attacks as acts of terrorism suggests “it is only terrorism when only committed by a Muslim”.

He also accused the Conservative Party of “intentionally stoking division and hatred” but he added that he believed Labour was yet to show it has the solutions and understanding to tackle racism.

Instead, Mr Rahman has urged Sir Keir to use more compassionate language when discussing migration.

Meanwhile, Neil Basu, Britain’s former head of counter-terrorism, said the police should have treated the riots as terrorism at the start of the unrest.

It is not the first time Mr Rahman has clashed with the Labour Party.

During the General Election campaign, he branded the party “institutionally Islamophobic and racist” after former Labour candidate Faiza Shaheen was blocked from standing for the party.

In February 2024, he criticised Sir Keir for praising the “courage” Alexei Navalny, who died at the Polar Wolf penal colony in Kharp, about 1,200 miles northeast of Moscow.

Just after his mystery death was revealed, Mr Rahman criticised Mr Navalny over a 2007 video where he compared Muslims in Chechnya to “cockroaches”.

He wrote on X: “A case of my enemy’s enemy is my friend.

“Ignoring the fact that Navalny was a far-right Nazi sympathiser… Starmer’s ignorance has no bounds.”

Mr Rahman had retweeted the Labour leader’s post which said:

“Alexei Navalny showed incredible, impossible courage in his fight for Russian democracy.

“His death is terrible news for the Russian people. My thoughts are with his friends and family, as well as his supporters across the world.”

Mr Rahman was elected to the NEC in 2022 with the backing of the Corbynite grassroots group Momentum.