Islamic Identity Politics Is Taking Hold of Europe

Amongst the "progressive enablers" are the governments of Europe. The people of Europe need to awaken and take back their countries from the jihad!

From The European Conservative

By Lauren Smith

Fuelled by Islamists and their progressive enablers, sectarianism is creeping into the mainstream.

Across Europe, a new kind of politics is taking root. It is sectarian, identitarian, and increasingly shaped by the demands of Islamist interest groups, cloaked in the demands of progressivism and tolerance. 

Sweden is a case in point. Jamal el-Haj, a Lebanese-born Swedish politician, was expelled from the Social Democratic Party last year after it was revealed he had intervened in an asylum case on behalf of a fundamentalist imam back in 2017. He had also previously attended a conference in Malmö in the spring of 2023 that had connections to Hamas, the Islamist terror group and perpetrators of the October 7th pogrom in southern Israel later that year.

Since being booted by the Social Democrats, el-Haj has been busy crafting a new party that better suits his beliefs. Paperwork dated from last month shows that el-Haj registered the creation of the so-called Unity Party, which he deems necessary to represent “the many who no longer recognise themselves in today’s Sweden,” especially those of migrant origin. El-Haj has so far maintained that the party will be secular, stressing that the Unity Party is aimed at “the entire Swedish population—not just Muslims or immigrants.” It will rather focus on international solidarity, humanism, environmental responsibility, and economic equality. Pro-Palestine activism will also no doubt play a leading role. Despite claims of the party being based around purely secular values, it has been noted that el-Haj held numerous meetings with imams, some in his home, about its formation. The organisation’s inner circle also comprises primarily Muslim religious leaders.

Judging by el-Haj’s track record, this new party of his will serve as nothing more than a platform for what is essentially Muslim identity politics. He has routinely prioritised representing Muslims in Malmö, rather than the entire constituency that elected him. Justifying his decision to attend the Hamas-linked conference, el-Haj said: “This is about my identity, about my DNA, about my family’s existence. Not taking part would have meant betraying myself, my family and the whole Palestinian people.”

This is a grim indication of the reality that sectarianism is on the rise all over Europe. In few places is this more pronounced than the UK. Last week, former Labour MP Zarah Sultana and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn announced they would be founding a new far-left party. This yet unnamed party—which may be led either by Corbyn or by the pair as co-leaders—will focus on various left-wing issues, from expanding the size of the welfare state to opposing what Sultana calls “a genocide in Gaza.”

Any more details about the party are scant. Not, it seems, that they’re needed. Polling from this week showed that 18% of Brits would consider voting for a far-left Corbyn party. This would, theoretically, place it behind both Reform UK and Labour, but ahead of the Conservative Party, which is currently sitting at 16%. (However, it should be noted that the same poll also found that most Brits would still rather vote for the established parties over Corbyn and Sultana’s.) Unsurprisingly, Labour and Green voters were particularly keen, with 31% and 58% respectively saying they’d be open to voting for a Corbyn party. Support was especially concentrated in London, at 29%—this is likely due to the fact that the UK’s capital city is simultaneously one of the most liberal and the most religiously conservative areas in the country. That covers both the woke Left and the Muslim identitarian factions of what will no doubt be the fledgling party’s core audience.

If the Corbyn party does manage to get off the ground and make it to the next election in 2029, there is reason to believe it could fuel the fire of a growing sectarianism. We already saw in the 2024 General Election how Muslims across the country were mobilised to bring Labour—and specifically pro-Palestine MPs—into power. Organisations such as The Muslim Vote (TMV) emerged, a campaign group dedicated to putting “Muslim issues at the forefront” of British politics. During the election, TMV pointed British Muslims where to cast their vote, based on where candidates stood on the Israel-Hamas war. This led to TMV endorsing contenders who espoused blatant antisemitism, along with dubious conspiracy theories about Israel. TMV’s campaign itself was supported by Islamist extremist organisations and figures, such as Islamic scholar Sheikh Haitham al-Haddad, who has questioned the death toll of October 7th and tried to argue that Hamas treated its hostages fairly. What these types have to say about Zarah Sultana’s belief that “trans rights are human rights” remains to be seen.

This brand of pernicious sectarianism is taking root across the continent. Last year, just in time for the European Parliamentary elections, a new European alliance called the Free Palestine Party (FPP) was launched in Brussels. One of the FPP’s members, also based in Brussels, is Team Fouad Ahidar (TFA), a Belgian political party founded in February last year. Despite being a very young party, TFA managed to win over 16% of the Flemish vote in last June’s regional elections, giving them three seats (though two of these MPs have since left the party). The party focusses heavily on issues surrounding Sharia law, as well as, of course, railing against Israel. Founder and leader Fouad Ahidar once dismissed October 7th as “a minor reaction by part of Hamas.” 

France is surely next in line to suffer this same fate. There already exists the Union of French Muslim Democrats (also a member of the FPP), but this party has received very limited electoral success. However, as a recent government report has proven, the Muslim Brotherhood is constantly expanding its influence over France. Schools, local authorities, cultural institutions, and practically every other sphere of French society have been infiltrated by the Islamist lobby. The French government, at least, appears to be doing something about this, rather than allowing it to fester any longer. Whether this crackdown will actually be effective, or if France will descend into some Houellebecqian dystopia, remains to be seen.

The war in Gaza has created the perfect opportunity for Islamic identity politics to thrive. Aided and abetted by pro-Palestine leftists, Islamist parties and campaigns are able to mobilise Muslims in Europe as a single bloc, directing them to put an ‘X’ in the box of the candidate from the most similar religious or ethnic background to them. We saw a similar alliance crop up recently with the reemergence of what are effectively blasphemy laws. Western European nations are being strong-armed into taking criminal action against those who burn the Quran—or, in some cases, even simply criticise Islam or Islamism—because their woke worldview places Muslims near the very top of the victim hierarchy.

This is the new sectarian bargain. Leftists get to posture as virtuous anti-racists, while Islamists are given free rein to implement their own backward, fundamentalist ideology. As our unassimilated Muslim populations continue to climb, through both mass migration and a high birthrate, their electoral power will only grow with them. If Europe doesn’t wake up soon, it may well be too late to reverse this rising tide of sectarianism. We are facing not so much a clash of civilisations, but rather a slow, self-inflicted surrender.