The UK's top Muslim umbrella body needs to change direction

Changes in the Muslim Council of Britain’s leadership offer something of a gauge on how the activist community in the UK sees its place in national affairs. The current direction of the MCB, which claims to be the “largest and most diverse Muslim representative umbrella body” in the UK, is certainly up for grabs.

For more than 15 years, the MCB has had troubles with the UK government. Starting under former prime minister Gordon Brown in 2009, political leaders and officials have found it difficult to liaise with the organisation on its own terms.

There has been a clamour from the MCB for recognition as a representative body with a significant voice, but successive governments have limited the organisation’s space in consultations and other community liaisons.

As it prepares to select a new secretary general this month, the MCB finds itself in an uncomfortable place – something that is far from resolved and, indeed, has only become more stark over the past 12 months. With new leadership, however, it risks choosing to go deeper in its alienation.

According to research by the think tank Policy Exchange, both leading candidates for the post are allegedly backers of a campaign called the Muslim Vote. This smart marketing campaign set itself up to use the war in Gaza and other conflicts as leverage during the 2024 UK general election campaign. The campaign’s primary target during the election was the Labour party.

While Labour returned to power after 14 years with a huge majority and took the reins of government, the election of a handful of independents in what were otherwise Labour strongholds exposed a vulnerability within the party. Two of the most senior members of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s cabinet, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood and Health Secretary Wes Streeting, came perilously close to losing, too, and will carry that concern every day of their political lives.

The MCB under its current and past leaders already had difficult relations with the Conservative party, and given the direction of leadership under Kemi Badenoch, it is difficult to see any rehabilitation or formal dialogue restarting there. It is safe to say that Ms Badenoch is probably far more interested in how to align with the sudden, active interest that the tech entrepreneur Elon Musk is showing in UK politics than anything on offer from the MCB.

This makes the MCB as a community organisation a failure in the UK political system – especially when there are other bodies that represent their members’ interests and are able to lobby and promote their views with a fair amount of success. Given that the whole purpose of representative councils is to exert its members’ interests, being frozen out is a bad thing for the MCB.

The classic body that was long heralded in these terms was the National Farmers Union, which ensured a steady stream of subsidies from the government to the countryside. There are arguments that the most powerful body in the country today is the National Trust, a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organisation that no government minister would want to cross.

Similar statements have been made before about groups as varied as the Institute of Directors and the Mumsnet internet forum, where politicians are keen to promote family-friendly politics.

The MCB, on the other hand, has often found itself at odds with the government of the day.

When Hazel Blears, the then cabinet secretary for communities, took a stand on the MCB in 2009, she referred to one of the group’s office holders participating in a political protest, the Global Anti-Aggression Campaign, that was considered to be stirring up tension and harmful to social cohesion. Years later, a report prepared in 2015 by the diplomat John Jenkins found that the Muslim Brotherhood had played an important role in “establishing and then running” the MCB.

Last year, the incumbent secretary general Zara Mohammed pointed out that the then Conservative government had been pursuing a longstanding policy of non-engagement with the MCB. To which Lee Rowley, a government minister then, told MPs: “Previous MCB leaders have taken positions that contradict our fundamental values, and these have not been explicitly retracted.”

“Where best practice is not followed, engagement can create risks,” Mr Rowley continued. “It may inadvertently provide a platform or legitimacy for groups or individuals who oppose our shared democratic values and institutions, and allow them to gain greater influence, including in the eyes of those communities to whom they aim to promote their narratives.”

As the MCB’s top officer changes, the Policy Exchange paper on the upcoming transition at the organisation identifies the challenges facing it.

These are coming to terms with the type of society that exists in the UK and how to interact within the country to ensure harmonious social change. Another issue pertains to Iran’s influence in the UK. Allegations that Tehran’s role in prominent community centres in the big cities has tipped over into active threats remain in the spotlight.

On its own terms, the MCB has slid away from its representative influence. Being in active dispute with the major UK political parties and potentially taking on more adversarial positions are not the way to restore its lost ground.