The complicated alliance between the left and Muslim voters

Gorton and Denton is an electoral district in Greater Manchester. Where there were once mines and textile industries, there is now poverty. Elections were held in Gorton and Denton on Thursday, and the seat went to the Greens, followed by the far-right Reform Party, and in third place, Labour. The Conservatives didn't even show up. The result demonstrates how the political map of the United Kingdom is changing. But there's something even more interesting: the Greens won thanks to the Muslim vote.

Europe has a problem with Islam. Quite often, the "immigration problem" is discussed generically so that the already sensitized recipient understands that the reference is very specific: "Muslims." Obviously, there is a collective problem with Islamist radicalism and its atrocities.

But there is something deeper, an otherness that a part of society considers insurmountable. From the usual "Muslims don't integrate" to the conspiracy theory of the "great population replacement," subscribed to by everyone from Marine Le Pen to Donald Trump when he speaks about European decline, from Oriana Fallaci's furious Islamophobic pronouncements to Michel Huellebecq's resignation in his novel "Submission," the debate is real. And it emboldens the far right.

Let's return to Gorton and Denton, where 47% of the population is Muslim (mostly of Pakistani origin). Gorton and Denton has always been a Labour stronghold. Until now. Why did the Greens win? Because of Gaza.

The Green candidate, Hannah Spencer, distributed thousands of leaflets in Urdu with the following message: "Let's push back the falling walls once more. Labour must be punished for Gaza. Reform must be defeated, and you must vote for the Greens. Vote for the Greens so that Muslims have a strong voice."

And the Muslim electorate in the constituency, which had largely abstained in the 2024 general election, turned out in force for Hannah Spencer. During the campaign, both Labour and the far-right Reform had accused the Greens of "fomenting hatred."

The fact is that Muslim voters exist. They are a considerable force in the United Kingdom and an even more considerable one in France, the European country with the largest Muslim community: almost seven million people.

The old social balances are crumbling in the face of the new reality. La France Insoumise, the radical left-wing party founded and led by former socialist Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has been courting the Muslim electorate for years. It seems somewhat absurd to speak of a "Muslim electorate" as if it were a homogeneous entity, although there are issues that clearly mobilize it. Gaza, for example. Or respect for their religious practices.

In this way, a party as secular and feminist as La France Insoumise is forced to abandon that stance when issues such as the hijab, the niqab, and the burka, or the patriarchal structure that generally characterizes Muslim communities, are addressed. Another consequence of the alliance between leftists and Muslims is a rise in antisemitism. (Both Jews and Palestinians are Semites, but we all understand who is being targeted when we talk about antisemitism.)

In the Gorton and Denton campaign, the Greens have talked more about halal meat, mosques, and Islamophobia than about ecology.

Nazir Afzal, dean of the University of Manchester, a former prosecutor, and a Muslim (not entirely typical: he's a vegetarian and has a dog), published an article in "The Guardian" on Friday in which, on the occasion of Ramadan, he complained that he and every other British Muslim had to face daily "hostility, suspicion, discrimination, abuse," and, quite frequently, "violence and exclusion."

The "Muslim question" is growing in importance. Both in politics and on the street.