This should not be happening in Britain

On the worrying rise of an ugly new sectarianism

---

Matt Goodwin’s newsletter goes to 78,100 subscribers from 181 countries. Like our stuff? Then for the equivalent of buying us a pint become a paying supporter. Help us make a difference while gaining access to the full archive, exclusive weekly posts, events, discounts, comments and the knowledge you’re supporting independent writers who are challenging the broken status-quo and speaking up for the forgotten majority. You can also join us on YouTube, Insta, TikTok, X and Facebook.

---

This is an expanded version of a (paywalled) essay by Matt in today’s Daily Mail and one of our weekly exclusive posts for paid subscribers. Upgrade to access everything.

---

Here’s a question few people are asking in Westminster.

Why are Labour politicians, who are supposed to represent this country, campaigning for an airport in Pakistan while rubbish and chaos piles up in their own constituency?

As I write this, mounds of bin bags continue to pile up on Birmingham’s festering streets. Fly-tipping is rife, as are the rats – some as big as cats – that scurry through the streets.

More than six weeks after Birmingham’s binmen went on strike, parts of Britain’s second city genuinely look like a Third World slum.

It is, in short, a national disaster.

---

What happened to Birmingham?

---

And, if anything were to spur a local Member of Parliament into action, you would have thought that such a reeking monument to civic failure would do it.

Not, however, for Tahir Ali, the Labour MP for Hall Green and Moseley.

Despite his constituency being at the very centre of the strike, his focus is not on the desperate plight of his voters but far, far away. Five and a half thousand miles away, to be precise, in the Pakistani region of Kashmir.

Last week, Ali was recorded at a campaign event, lobbying for a new airport to be built in the city of … Mirpur.

Standing before a vast Kashmiri flag and a voluble male-dominated audience and speaking in Punjabi rather than English, Ali proclaimed: ‘We will fulfil the demands of the Kashmiri people … all of us are working for the same goal, for Kashmir.’

He went on to cite constituents who have friends and family in Mirpur and must drive three hours to Islamabad to take an international flight. No doubt that’s unfortunate for them, but his constituents here in England have other priorities.

This would almost be farcical if it were not so shocking.

For the reality is that this rampant sectarianism – there is no other word for it - is a vivid example of a worsening problem in British politics and one that we can no longer afford to ignore.

Because what’s happening in Tahir Ali’s seat in Birmingham is just the tip of a very big and a very ugly iceberg …