by A Labor candidate was told she was not a proper Muslim because she had a Western first name, she revealed.
Iqbal Mohamed has hit out at Heather Iqbal in Dewsbury and Batley, following what she described as an “intimidating” campaign.
Ms Iqbal said she was chased down the street by Mr Mohamed’s supporters and shouted that she was a “child murderer” and an “agent of genocide”, while a loudspeaker van blasted the message that Labor was a Zionist party.
In an interview with the Telegraph, Miss Iqbal revealed that she had to stop taking her young son out with her when she knocked on doors because of the heated nature of the campaign.
She said Muslim Labor members in Dewsbury were under huge pressure to quit the party because of its stance on Gaza, and their children were being bullied at school for having a Labor parent.
Her testimony provides a worrying insight into the kind of sectarian politics that is on the rise in parts of the UK following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
The news came as Labor gathered for its annual conference. On Sunday, delegates had to pass a large group of pro-Palestinian activists to enter the venue.
‘Critic my name’
Miss Iqbal said: “I was constantly asked if I was Muslim or not, with constant criticism of my first name, including at open community meetings held by the independent MP.
“Activists and some of my family were chased down the street. In the week of voting, I had a van that would follow me and various activists.
“We would gather to knock on the door, the van would appear 15 minutes later, and he would be shouting ‘genocide agent, child killer’. Who can canvas calmly when that’s happening behind you in the street?
“It’s very upsetting, and it means you can’t democratically set up your stable because wherever you are you feel someone is going against you aggressively.
“It felt like you had to look over your shoulder every day because the language was fixed from the top.”
At the start of the campaign, she took her little son out knocking on the door. “But I was shouted at for being a child killer,” she said. “That was just on a door, but that’s the point about the language filtering down.
“I was shouted at and I felt I can’t take the child out campaigning. That’s not a situation you would put yourself and a child in.”
Mr Iqbal said Mr Mohamed – who sits in a new independent coalition in the Commons with Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labor leader on the Left – had never called on his activists to tone down their behaviour.
“If the independent MP is confident in his views, he shouldn’t have to get his campaign to do things like that,” she said. “I was the only woman running and I felt it was completely tone deaf for the independent MP not to make a point about that. [to his supporters].”
She said: “We have been speaking to the police almost every day because of what happened in the local election where there were 40 or 50 men outside the main polling stations, shouting at people. The week before the general election, I was very intimidated.”
A large Muslim community
Dewsbury, a textile town in West Yorkshire with a proud history of pioneering radicalism, has been a Labor MP for most of the last century. At the last boundary review it was linked with Batley, another Labor stronghold.
But in the Batley and Spen by-election in 2021 George Galloway narrowly won the seat from Labour’s Kim Leadbeater by targeting Muslim sentiments about the Middle East, a sign of problems ahead.
Since the 1960s, Dewsbury has had a large Muslim community concentrated in the Savile Town, Thornhill Lees and Ravensthorpe areas. Batley has an equally large Muslim population.
Mr Mohamed, the pro-Gaza candidate, attracted 15,641 votes to Labour’s 8,707 in the 2024 general election.
Ms Iqbal said there were some Labor members who felt “silenced”.
“They felt they needed to leave the party in a public way because their children were being bullied at school, or abused when they went to the mosque,” she said. “And I think that’s a very sad situation.
“Since the election I’ve seen a number of posts on social media that have talked about how any Labor supporters should be marginalised, cancelled; that they were treacherous, hypocrites. They should not be given jobs in charity or mosques.
“I would like to see Iqbal Mohamed publicly deny these types of posts on social media and actively push against them, and make people feel that there can be a diversity of political views and opposition as in any a healthy democracy.”
Jackie Ramsay, Ms Iqbal’s election agent, said the canvassing team had been reduced significantly because Labor members felt they were being “bullied” into leaving. “When people go to the mosque, people in the community are saying to them: ‘Why are you still in that genocide party?'” she recalled.
Police involvement
Ms Ramsay said she had reported independent supporters to the police three times. On one occasion, when a small group was canvassing in a Muslim area of Batley, an independent supporter ran up and “shouted at us very aggressively that we were not welcome in that area”.
“He collected leaflets from some of the doors that were delivered to us. He said it is an independent district; if we didn’t get out he would call people to get us.
“We were the party of genocide, we were responsible for the death of women and children. We were supporting the killing of children, we were Zionist.” The police were called, but did not come.
Elsewhere in Batley, she said, Miss Iqbal was campaigning with members of her family and a number of other Muslim activists who were affiliated with Labour.
“There was a man who was telling them they were not good Muslims,” Ms Ramsay said. “If they are Muslims they need to reconsider their faith because of the genocide.
“It’s a real mantra. The canvassers were very upset, of course, because they were Muslims and were being attacked around their faith.
“At the door you don’t mind having a conversation with people, what you think is being shouted across the street.”
Later, in the Ravensthorpe area of Dewsbury, Labor activists continued to deliver leaflets by car “with tape pouring out how not to vote Labour, really loudly, coming around the crescent with us”.
“A few days later, a big white van started following us with posters of Iqbal Mohamed on each side. This is three days before polling day,” she said.
“It felt like everywhere we looked the van was behind us, saying Labor are the party of genocide, we’re independents, you don’t want to be voting for Labor who support the killing of women and children.
“In Ravensthorpe one night, there were three teams out and he did a loop on each of the teams. Heather was in one of those teams, and they told her they were going to tell people at the polling stations not to vote for you because you supported genocide.”
Local elections also had an impact
Ms Ramsay stood as a councilor in May’s local election but lost out to an independent in Dewsbury South, which includes predominantly Muslim Savile Town as well as predominantly white Thornhill.
A few months earlier, she said, consultants had been called in to be interviewed by local mosque leaders about their views on the conflict in the Middle East.
But it soon became clear that nothing they could say could undo the impact of Sir Keir Starmer’s devastating interview with LBC in which he said Israel had the right to withhold power and water from Gaza.
“There was really an expectation that we would get out of the Labor Party and then they could support us as councillors,” Ms Ramsay said. “Obviously, I didn’t give up. In the local election campaign, it was quite clear that things were going against us.
“The Labor Party members started to leave. Intimidation was taking place. People of the Muslim faith were expected to leave the ‘party of genocide’ or the ‘party that supports the killing of children’.”
Ms Ramsay added: “Voting day was very difficult for us in the local elections. There were many people with large independent roses outside the polling stations.
“I saw it at Thornhill Lees and Savile Town, where people were saying which box to vote for. You had to run a bit of a gauntlet [to get in].”
Ms Iqbal said: “I think there is a group of people who are taking advantage of the emotions that Gaza brings.
“They don’t just intimidate people into feeling they can’t vote Labor because of their religion. That feeling affects how you feel about your local services or your public policy in general.
“The independents have interfered with something that people feel very suspicious about. I don’t think that means all Muslims think the same or vote the same.”
Mr Mohamed has been contacted for comment.
