Britain can have an honest conversation about sectarianism and what it is doing to democracy, or it can continue pretending that nothing is happening.

That was the question at the centre of Stefan Tompson's conversation at Cambridge University with Emma Schubart, a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society who specialises in Islamism, extremism and Muslim sectarian voting.

Schubart believes Britain is witnessing the beginning of a new and deeply troubling form of politics. Candidates seeking election to local councils are increasingly foregrounding conflicts and grievances thousands of miles away. Instead of concentrating on roads, council budgets and bin collections, they campaign over Gaza, Kashmir and political developments in Bangladesh.

The issue is not that British citizens should be indifferent to events abroad. The danger begins when foreign conflicts are used to organise domestic voters into religiously defined political blocs, and when candidates present themselves primarily as representatives of transnational causes rather than the communities they have been elected to serve.

What Is Muslim Sectarian Politics?

Schubart and her colleagues developed what she describes as a deliberately conservative definition of Muslim sectarianism.

It refers to a repeated pattern of behaviour in which a public figure consistently places Muslim transnational grievances at the centre of his or her political identity.

The definition is concerned with political behaviour, not personal faith or ethnicity. A person does not need to be Muslim to qualify as a Muslim sectarian candidate. What matters is the repeated foregrounding of religiously framed international causes in domestic political campaigning.

In Britain, this has increasingly manifested itself through candidates running on a “Gaza ticket.” Kashmir also features prominently in some national and local elections, while political issues connected to Bangladesh are appearing more frequently in local campaigns.

These questions may matter greatly to individual voters. But they have little connection to the actual powers of a British local authority.

A council cannot determine British arms-export policy, resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict or decide the future of Kashmir. It can collect rubbish, maintain roads, manage budgets and provide local services. Yet candidates are increasingly winning council seats by promising to “punish Labour for Gaza” or declaring that an electoral victory has been won “for Gaza.”

That is a fundamental change in the purpose of local politics.

Measuring the Sectarian Vote

Until now, the discussion has largely been driven by anecdotes.

A councillor makes an inflammatory statement, attracts several days of attention and then disappears from the national conversation. One council may debate separating men and women; another candidate may make an extraordinary claim about dogs in public parks. The story generates headlines, but there is rarely any sustained attempt to measure the broader political trend.

Schubart’s research sought to change that. She examined the recent English local elections, in which almost 6,000 council seats were contested. Using publicly available census information, local voter-turnout figures and candidates’ public social-media activity, she attempted to identify the factors associated with Muslim sectarian electoral success.

Schubart personally spent months reviewing the publicly available social-media activity of candidates across England. Her analysis identified three significant predictors.

The first was voter turnout. Wards with higher turnout were more likely to elect at least one candidate who met the study’s definition of Muslim sectarianism. Schubart does not believe this simply reflects the raw number of people casting ballots. She argues that it also captures the organisational strength of sectarian campaigning. These campaigns can use mosques, extended families, community organisations and non-English-language material to mobilise voters extremely effectively.

The second predictor was the proportion of adults under the age of 30. The larger the ward’s young-adult population, the more likely it was to elect a sectarian candidate. Schubart believes this is consistent with wider patterns of radicalisation across Western societies. In some migrant communities, second- and third-generation residents appear more receptive to radical political narratives than the parents and grandparents who originally arrived in Europe. Britain’s Prevent programme has also recorded growing concern about young people being referred over possible Islamist radicalisation.

The third predictor was the proportion of Muslims living in the ward. Unsurprisingly, wards with larger Muslim populations were more likely to elect candidates campaigning around transnational Muslim grievances. Yet this was the weakest predictor by magnitude. That is significant because it suggests that sectarian politics is not drawing support exclusively from Muslim voters. It is also attracting parts of the wider, non-Muslim British electorate.

The Red–Green Alliance

This broader appeal can be understood partly through the Red–Green alliance: the cooperation between Islamist-aligned campaigners and sections of the progressive Left.

The war between Israel and Hamas has been particularly effective in bringing these groups together. The Muslim Brotherhood has long treated the Palestinian issue as a powerful instrument of political mobilisation. In Britain, Gaza has allowed religious sectarians to campaign alongside progressive activists who may share few of their social or religious values.

Schubart was careful not to claim that a particular British political party is formally associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. She did, however, observe that some of the language and tactics used in recent campaigns closely resemble established Brotherhood approaches to the Palestinian question.

This alliance helps explain why the percentage of Muslim residents was a weaker predictor than turnout or the proportion of young adults. Sectarian candidates are receiving support from voters who are not themselves Muslim but have adopted the same political cause.

The scale of the change should not be underestimated. Of the nearly 6,000 council seats examined, 574 were won by candidates whom Schubart classified as Muslim sectarian, approximately one in ten. They represented independent parties operating under various names, followed by the Greens, Liberal Democrats and some Labour candidates.

These councillors have subsequently promoted resolutions concerning Gaza, arms sales, pension investments and boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns. Whatever one’s position on the conflict, these matters lie almost entirely outside the authority of local councils. Their presence in council chambers reveals how effectively a distant war has been turned into an instrument of domestic electoral organisation.

From Local Councils to Parliament

The trend is no longer confined to local government.

Several MPs entered the House of Commons in 2024 after campaigns dominated by Gaza. Some figures associated with this broader political movement have also supported positions including opposition to restricting cousin marriage and calls for British involvement in infrastructure projects such as an airport in Mirpur, Pakistan. Local politics is becoming a testing ground for a wider political strategy.

Schubart believes there is a time delay between what is happening in council elections and what Britain will eventually experience nationally. The organisation has developed first at the local level, where relatively concentrated communities can have a decisive electoral impact.

Success there creates campaign networks, experienced candidates and a demonstration that sectarian mobilisation works. If mainstream parties do not understand what is happening, the same model can be expanded. A political movement that controls council seats today may influence parliamentary blocs tomorrow. Britain may have less time than its leaders assume.

When the Secret Ballot Is Not Secret

One of the most disturbing elements of the conversation concerned family voting. Independent election observers have reported cases in which relatives enter voting booths together or one family member visibly directs another person’s vote. In practice, this can involve an older male relative instructing his wife or adult children how to vote.

This destroys the principle of the secret ballot. A vote cannot be considered genuinely free if it is cast under the supervision or direction of somebody with authority inside the voter’s family.

Family voting is illegal in Britain. The problem is not an absence of law but an apparent failure to enforce it. Observers have documented incidents while explaining that they possess no authority to intervene. Their role is simply to observe and report. Electoral officials identify improper conduct in real time, but responsibility for stopping it appears to belong to nobody.

That says something revealing about the high-trust society Britain once was. The system assumed that citizens would broadly follow democratic rules voluntarily. Election observers existed to confirm the fairness of the process, not to confront organised violations inside polling stations. Those assumptions are no longer sufficient.

Posters reminding voters that family voting is illegal will not solve the problem. Electoral officials must be trained and empowered to protect the independence of every ballot, particularly those cast by women or younger relatives who may be susceptible to family pressure. Democracy cannot survive through observation alone. Laws that are never enforced eventually cease to function as laws.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Patient Strategy

The conversation then turned to the Muslim Brotherhood and the institutional networks behind modern Islamism. The Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928 as an Islamist revival movement. Its ultimate objective, according to Schubart, is the Islamisation of society and the establishment of government under Sharia law.

Its strategy in the West is generally quiet and gradual. Instead of announcing itself through a single organisation bearing the Brotherhood’s name, it works through networks of charities, NGOs, educational bodies, media operations, mosques and political activists. There is no obvious Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in Britain, complete with a publicly identified leader and membership list. That is not how the system operates.

The distinction between formal membership and ideological alignment is therefore important. Schubart would not claim that particular British parliamentarians are Brotherhood members without evidence of membership. She does, however, believe that some repeat recognisably Brotherhood-aligned positions. Some may consciously understand themselves as participants in the Brotherhood’s political project. Others may belong to associated networks or promote its ideas without possessing the language to describe that affiliation. The resulting ambiguity makes the movement difficult to quantify and investigate.

Organisations accused of Brotherhood links can also be highly litigious. Researchers, journalists and public figures may face legal threats if they name particular institutions. Members of Parliament can speak under parliamentary privilege, but even they may still face intimidation. This environment allows a corrosive ideology to spread while making public discussion of its institutional network unusually difficult.

The greatest danger, Schubart argued, is that the Brotherhood advances an undemocratic project through democratic means. Britain understandably wanted minority communities to participate in democratic politics. But its institutions assumed that participants would engage in good faith and accept the principles underpinning the system. Sectarian organisation exploits precisely that trust. Elections become instruments for building religious political power rather than mechanisms through which free individuals choose representatives on equal terms.

The Connection to Extremism

The Brotherhood’s methods in Britain may appear gradual and institutional, but its ideology cannot be separated entirely from the history of jihadist violence. The writings of Brotherhood ideologue Sayyid Qutb have profoundly influenced organisations including al-Qaeda and ISIS. Leading figures involved in the creation of al-Qaeda also emerged from Brotherhood backgrounds. That does not establish a direct operational link between every Brotherhood-aligned organisation and every terrorist attack. The network is fragmented, and the degree of cooperation varies between countries and movements. The ideological relationship, however, is impossible to ignore.

Sunni and Shia Islamists can also cooperate despite their theological differences. Hamas describes itself as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, yet it has received extensive support from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The organisations may disagree over doctrine and leadership, but they can collaborate against common enemies.

Qatar’s Role

Such networks require money, and Qatar has historically been one of the Brotherhood’s most important state sponsors. During the Arab Spring, Doha provided significant support to Brotherhood movements in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria. Qatar viewed political Islam as a means of projecting power far beyond the physical and demographic limits of the Qatari state.

That support contributed to the decision by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt to impose a blockade on Qatar in 2017. Those governments regarded the Muslim Brotherhood as an existential threat. Qatar treated it as a strategic instrument.

Qatar also developed a deep relationship with Hamas. In 2012, the emir became the first foreign head of state to visit Hamas-controlled Gaza and pledged $400 million in assistance. By October 2023, publicly known Qatari assistance to Gaza had reportedly reached approximately $1.8 billion. Senior Hamas figures lived comfortably in Doha for years. Ismail Haniyeh, chairman of Hamas’s political bureau, was based there, and the emir of Qatar attended his funeral in 2024.

Again, this does not mean that every British candidate campaigning over Gaza is controlled or financed by Qatar. Nor does repeating a Brotherhood-aligned argument prove formal membership of the organisation. It does mean that Britain must understand the larger political ecosystem through which foreign governments, Islamist movements, media organisations, charities and domestic activists can reinforce one another. Sectarian voting is not an isolated electoral curiosity. It belongs to a wider struggle over institutions, identity and political allegiance.

Britain Still Has a Choice

When Stefan asked Schubart for the simplest solution, her answer was honesty. Britain must be honest about foreign financial influence, integration failures, Islamist networks and electoral practices that undermine individual freedom. It must also be honest about who suffers when the state refuses to confront these problems.

The country should enforce the laws it already possesses. Family voting and intimidation inside polling stations must lead to intervention rather than passive observation.

Political parties must stop treating organised sectarian groups as convenient reservoirs of votes. Public bodies should examine which organisations they fund or recognise as representatives of entire Muslim communities. Foreign financial flows into charities, religious bodies, educational institutions and political campaigns require much greater transparency.

This scrutiny must be evidence-based and directed at political organisations and conduct, not collectively at Muslims. Many British Muslims reject Islamism and do not want sectarian activists claiming to speak on their behalf. They may be among the first people harmed when government elevates organised extremists as community representatives.

Schubart remains hopeful. There is still much worth defending in the West. Britain’s tradition of individual liberty, democratic participation and equality before the law has not disappeared. The high-trust society that made these institutions possible continues to exist in communities across the country.

But it cannot be protected through denial. Local elections are already revealing what national politics may become. If Britain does not confront sectarian organisation now, council chambers will not be its final destination.

They will have been only the beginning.