On August 17, 2026, the Muslim Leadership Foundation (MLF) published a well thought-out, thought-provoking article on Substack titled: Why Hasn’t Britain Produced Its Own Mamdani or El-Sayed? by Sayed Alkadiri, director of MLFUK CIC, the organisation behind MLF, which I read with great interest while holidaying in Morocco. Last year (2025), I was invited to the MLF’s Summer Reception, in which the speakers spoke eloquently and was great listening. Admittedly, in my own myopic vision, I wasn’t too familiar with MLF until I was invited, so I took some time to look into their work and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of what they were doing. After the Summer Reception, I reached out to them to offer support, but I didn’t get a response back. Nevertheless, I liked what I saw and was keen to keep an eye on their work. It is then that I noticed some signs of needing refinement, such as how they can avoid identity politics, better ground their courses on a more intellectually and theologically robust footing and being truer to the spirit of Islam. I don’t think these failings that I observed were conscious or deliberate; rather, it seemed to me an almost inevitable, though avoidable with training and guidance, by-product of operating within a polarised political environment.
Having been on Substack for a few weeks now, I have seen all sorts of nonsense which I mostly ignore with a shrug, mindful of Brandolini’s Law or otherwise known as the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle (principle: it takes far more effort to refute nonsense than it does to produce it). But MLF is a reputable organisation doing serious work, so I felt it was worth engaging with their article and putting together a considered response that might, hopefully, be of some value to them.
Having read the article closely and comparing it with the themes of my own work on British Muslim identity, leadership, political strategy, representation, maqasid (objectives), values-based leadership, distinction between access and actual influence and so on, I think the article is good but ultimately incomplete. Its diagnosis is sharper than most public commentary on British Muslim politics by Muslims, which I greatly welcome, but I think it stops a level too early. It identifies the political symptoms without fully explaining the institutional and intellectual causes.
In light of this gap, below is a series of points that I would like to make.
Point 1: British Muslims have become better at producing representation than producing political power
This is an important distinction, and the author, Sayed Alkadiri, articulates it well. The line between proximity to power and actual influence is particularly strong. The article rightly asks: “If political capital is continually accumulated for a future moment, what is it ultimately being accumulated for?”
But I would like to push the argument further because the article essentially presents a choice between: (1) assimilation leading to establishment careerism; and (2) communalism leading to protest politics and says we need something beyond both. I agree, we do need something beyond this dichotomy. That missing third category is what I would call “purpose-driven, institution-building Muslim leadership.”
But before we can talk meaningfully about Muslim political power, we need to ask a more fundamental question: what do we actually mean by power? For me definitions always matter and the root of all beginnings. Power is not simply the number of MPs you have, how often you are invited to Downing Street, or how close you are to ministers. Nor is it simply the ability to mobilise a voting bloc at an election. These are forms of political capital, access and leverage, but they are not necessarily power in its fullest sense.
Power for me is the capacity to shape outcomes: to influence what is discussed, what is considered possible, which policies are adopted, how institutions behave, and ultimately how society understands itself. It involves not only having a seat at the table, but having sufficient intellectual, institutional, political, economic and moral capital to shape what happens at the table.
And this is where I think the MLF article leaves an important gap. It diagnoses the problem of political capital, representation and influence, but it doesn’t really articulate an Islamic conception of power. What should power be for? What makes the exercise of power legitimate? What responsibilities accompany it? And what does Islam say about the relationship between power, justice and the public good? And so on.
An Islamic conception of leadership cannot simply be a Muslim version of the prevailing notions of competition for power. The question cannot merely be, “How do Muslims acquire more power?” It has to be, “What is a believer’s mas’uliyyah (responsibility), once they have it, and how do they use it to advance maslahah, the genuine public good?” That distinction is crucial. Otherwise, we risk simply reproducing the same model of political power that we criticise, replacing one form of identity-based competition with another.
If, as believers, we have yaqin (certainty) that the din represents a middle and balanced path (wasatiyyah) then this principle can provide a manhaj, or framework, for thinking about this question. The answer need not be assimilation into the establishment, nor perpetual opposition to it. It can be engagement without capitulation, confidence without triumphalism, institution-building without communal isolation, and so on.
Now, I probably wouldn’t be commenting on this article if “Muslim” wasn’t in the name of MLF. But precisely because MLF presents itself as a Muslim leadership organisation, I think it is entirely legitimate, and indeed necessary, for people like me to engage critically with the ideas it puts forward. If we are going to use the word “Muslim” in our institutions, leadership programmes and political discourse, then we should be prepared to ask what that actually means in practice.
This is why I think building reputable institutions is so important. It was one of the seven points in the charter I articulated in my book, Being British Muslims: Beyond Ethnocentric Religion and Identity Politics. The book is now a few years old, but, as I argued then, the questions it addresses are likely to remain relevant to this generation well into the 2050s.
Institutions matter because individuals come and go. MPs lose elections. Ministers leave office. Governments change. Political fashions shift. But institutions can accumulate knowledge, credibility, relationships, resources and expertise over decades. That is how a community moves from representation to genuine capacity.
So perhaps the question we should be asking is not “Why hasn’t Britain produced its own Mamdani?” but rather “Why haven’t British Muslims yet built the intellectual and institutional ecosystem capable of producing leaders who can exercise power with purpose, rather than simply gain access to it?”
But even here, I would caution Sayed Alkadiri that it would be unfair to say that British Muslim politicians haven’t been influential. In my view many have, and many have also injected faith-driven ethics into what they have done when in power, which shouldn’t be ignored simply because they haven’t “unapologetically” used the language of religion like Mamdani and El-Sayal.
The public role of religion, and the way religious identity is expressed in public life, is far more nuanced in Britain than it is in America. There can be something distinctly un-British about going around declaring, “I am unapologetically Muslim.” This problem of religious identity is not exclusive to Muslims. Britain is a far more secular country. It goes as far back as Isaac Newton (and probably way before him), who as an MP dared not say he was a monotheist in public. In more recent memory, Tim Farron found his evangelical convictions became a persistent political liability; Nadine Dorries described Westminster as corrosive to her Christian faith; and David Cameron was famously cautious about discussing his own faith publicly. Yet figures like Stephen Timms showed that it is possible to integrate a serious Christian faith into public service without making religious identity the organising principle of one’s politics.
The reason for this is partly because Britain is a more customarily secular country where it shies away from overtly referring to religious sources for power. It can come across as confrontational or performative, and, I would argue, the British sensibility does not take well to boasting about religion. In America the First Amendment gives freedom of religion an explicit constitutional status, whereas Britain’s arrangement is quite different: it has no single written constitutional provision equivalent to the First Amendment, and the Church of England remains established. This perhaps gives some more leeway to speak openly about religion and not to mention more people believe in God and identify with organised religion in America than in the UK.
As a believer, it is less about being seen to be Muslim and more about doing the Musliming. “Muslim” is inherently an active term: it describes a person who submits, rather than simply a static identity or ethnicity. So, I do sympathise with the British sensibility. In any case, ultimately, our Muslimness is not something we can presume to have secured in the sight of God (Allah). It is for God to accept, and that should cultivate a degree of humility rather than triumphalism. In that sense of humility, it synergises with this specific British custom, and in that sense it may even be seen as a kind of political custom (‘urfi).
The comparison with America is also problematic because America is, in many respects, built around contradictions. Those contradictions create a huge degree of dynamism, producing some of the most inspiring, creative and admirable aspects of American society alongside some of its most troubling, egregious and ugly ones. You can have the Bible Belt and evangelical Christianity existing alongside Playboy, rampant consumerism and an intensely wasteful and hedonistic popular culture. That isn’t simply my characterisation; it is a tension that Professor Christopher Bigsby discusses in his work on American culture, which I referred to in my own book in 2019.
Those contradictions aren’t necessarily a weakness of the American model. In some respects, they are precisely what gives American society its extraordinary energy and capacity for reinvention. But it does mean that American religious identity and political expression cannot simply be imported into Britain as a template for British Muslims. And the reasons for why a Mamdani might not be possible in the UK, may have more to do with the history and culture embedded in the psyche of the UK than inherent functional problems of “British party selection, a parliamentary career, the machinery of Westminster advancement.”
We have to understand this stuff better first, which I think the MLF article tries to do but doesn’t quite hit the mark.
Point 2: the article is right about the representation trap but it offers an incomplete picture
The MLF article argues that British Muslims spent decades quite understandably pursuing representation: MPs, councillors, ministers, mayors etc. But once representation becomes established, counting Muslim officeholders becomes a poor measure of political success. I totally agree with is, but…
In my mind I distinguish between presence (1st stage) leading to participation (2nd stage) leading to influence (3rd stage) leading to transformation (4th stage). An MP being Muslim demonstrates presence. An MP having access to a minister demonstrates participation/access. An MP changing policy demonstrates influence. And ultimately, changing the intellectual or political direction of the country is transformation.
The article gets to the third stage but doesn’t really theorise the fourth, which matters because otherwise we risk replacing “How many Muslims are in Parliament?” with “How many Muslims have changed policy?” when the deeper question should be “What political, intellectual and institutional capacity have British Muslims built that enables them to shape the country irrespective of which individual Muslim happens to hold office?”
And that capacity can take many forms. It could mean having Muslim institutions capable of consistently producing high-quality policy ideas and influencing governments. It could mean raising the professional and civic standards of Muslim organisations so that they become trusted contributors to national life. It could mean developing a generation of British Muslims who have internalised what Dr Sherman Jackson calls the “Islamic Secular,” a conception in which engagement with the state, economy, science and other spheres of public life does not require abandoning Islam, even though those spheres are not necessarily governed directly by ahkam al-shari’yyah. Jackson’s argument is precisely that the non-shar’i does not have to mean the non-Islamic: there can be a realm of worldly activity that remains within the broader Islamic moral and theological horizon without being directly determined by revealed law.
In other words, political capacity may be much less visible than having MPs or winning elections or showing up distinctly as Muslims. It might manifest itself in better institutions, higher standards, stronger civic participation, better-run businesses and charities, serious intellectual production, greater professional excellence, and a deeply embedded sense among British Muslims of what it means to contribute to the flourishing of Britain.
Point 3: the article’s critique of “access = influence” is excellent
I endorse the author’s observation that “Muslim institutions have their own version of this temptation: confusing access with influence.” It has become far too easy to treat a photograph with a minister, an invitation to Downing Street, a parliamentary reception or a meeting with a senior politician as evidence of political influence.
These things can be useful, sometimes very useful. Relationships matter in politics, and you can’t influence people you have no relationship with. But I do worry that, too often, the relationship itself becomes the objective. I see people pursuing access without any clearly articulated strategy behind it, or without the deeper intellectual and theological grounding needed to know what they want to achieve. Sometimes it can become little more than competitive signalling: look who I met, look where I was invited, look who knows me.
And to be fair, who wouldn’t enjoy taking photograph with someone powerful? It gives us a sense of importance, something to talk about, and perhaps something to plaster across LinkedIn. There is nothing inherently wrong with that done with good intentions, taste and in a proper way. The problem arises when the photograph itself becomes the measure of success.
Access is an input, not an outcome. My own work around Muslim institutional leadership has made me particularly conscious of this distinction. The important question isn’t simply “Did we meet the minister?” it is “What changed because we met the minister?”
And even this isn’t quite enough. When I meet MPs or people who work in policy, my objective is to leave them with something they did not have before they met me: a different way of understanding an issue, a piece of evidence, a policy idea, a new perspective, or a reason to reconsider an existing position.
A sophisticated Muslim leadership should begin with clarity of purpose: what are we trying to achieve, why do we want it, and what evidence supports our position? It should then understand where the real decision-making power lies, assess what leverage it actually possesses, and identify the coalitions it needs to build to achieve its objectives. Engagement should be focused on securing a specific change or concession, rather than simply establishing a relationship. Most importantly, it should measure its success not by the number of meetings it has secured, but by what actually changed as a result of those meetings and whether that change advanced the original objective.
The MLF article gets close to this insight, but I think it stops short of developing it into a proper model of political engagement. If we are serious about Muslim leadership, we need to stop counting the number of doors we have been invited through and start measuring what we have actually achieved once we are inside.
Point 4: where the article is too Westminster-centric
This is one of the article’s weaknesses, where Sayed Alkadiri literally asks: “Why hasn’t Westminster produced a British Mamdani?” But I think that question itself may be slightly miss-framed. Mamdani wasn’t simply produced by an electoral system. He was produced by a combination of political ideas, ideological formation, grassroots organising, highly effective campaigning, networking, constituency-building, Mamdani’s personal charisma and ability to land the message, and articulating compelling narrative about ordinary people’s material interests – rent in New York, cost of living issues and so on. The article recognises some of this, particularly when it says that Mamdani built a constituency around rent, childcare and buses rather than simply Muslim representation. But then it returns heavily to “Westminster problem” as the explanation for the UK.
Doing so makes it another version of the familiar “the British system is the problem” argument. Whether we like it or not, or whether it is good or not, it is how the British system is. I see activists and would-be change-makers far too often fall into the trap of believing that they must challenge the establishment, and that, at the extreme end, this necessarily means rejecting or blaming the system. Whilst the MLF article is careful in balancing blame, the problem is that, as soon as one frame’s the idea of “Westminster is the problem” which the article does, it automatically risks triggering precisely the pre-exiting political biases we should be trying to transcend. It encourages people to interpret the argument through an already familiar left-versus-right, establishment-versus-outsider framework, rather than engaging with the more difficult question of how institutions can actually be changed. That, in my view, is not particularly Prophetic in its method.
I know iconoclasts use this language from Farage on the right to Zack Polanski on the left. But the fact that both ends of the political spectrum use it should perhaps make us more cautious about adopting it uncritically. There needs to be far greater realism about the context in which meaningful change actually happens. Institutions that have evolved over centuries cannot simply be dismissed, blamed or deconstructed; they have to be understood, navigated, influenced and, where necessary, reformed.
I keep making the same analogy to people: if you are looking to influence a mosque committee, you don’t begin by listing everything you think is wrong with them to their face, or even to say to them “you are the problem.” You first seek to understand them, build relationship and establish trust. God makes this point in many places in the Qur’an: “come to a common word between us and you” (Qur’an, 3:64).
Political change is not fundamentally different. If your starting point is blame or contempt for the very institutions and people you hope to influence, you are making the task of persuasion much harder. I think the more uncomfortable question is: “Where are the British Muslim institutions that are systematically developing the next generation of political thinkers, organisers, communicators, policy entrepreneurs and institution-builders?”
Don’t get me wrong, either. I’m not arguing that we need more iconoclasts like Mamdani, which I don’t think the MLF article is suggesting either. But in pitting Mamdani as a benchmark, there is a real danger in romanticising the role of the political outsider simply because they challenge established norms. Get the wrong kind of iconoclast, and the consequences can be devastating with reputational and political damage for another generation of British Muslims as a whole. We are still reeling from the radical Islamist political groups that became the preeminent intercalators for British Muslims and operated on our streets and outside our mosques in the 1990s and 2000s.
Point 5: the relevance of “examined life” idea
The problem isn’t merely that British Muslim politicians are optimising for career advancement. The deeper problem is what are they optimising for?
If the objective function is selection as a candidate leading to being elected as MP leading to promotion leading to ministerial office leading to Cabinet appointment, then the system can produce extraordinarily successful individuals who nevertheless produce relatively little collective transformation. This is essentially the article’s point about “political capital gets banked indefinitely.”
But from an Islamic framework, there is an even deeper critique here. In the Islamic paradigm, leadership isn’t merely about maximising one’s position. It is about niyyah (good intention), amanah (trustworthiness), mas’uliyyah (responsibility/accountability/duty) and maslahah (benefit).
So the question I would ask is: “what is the purpose of political power?” which changes the whole conversation. The problem isn’t that a Muslim politician becomes Home Secretary or party chair. The problem isn’t that they compromise. The problem isn’t even necessarily that their views change. The question is: “what conception of the public good is governing their exercise of power?”In my forthcoming book Qur’anic Liberty: Text, Context and Practice, among lots of other things, I look at how secular and Islamic governance can have huge overlaps, where the justificatory reasoning can be different, but the functional outcomes can be the same.
The likes of Shabana Mahmood and Sadiq Khan have also demonstrated that it is possible to be publicly and “unapologetically” Muslim while operating successfully within British political life. Mahmood has spoken openly about Islam being “the absolute core” of her life and about drawing her sense of duty and public service from her faith. More recently, as Home Secretary, she has said that as a practising Muslim she believes she is ultimately accountable to God for what she does as a politician.
Khan, too, has been open about fasting during Ramadan and about the role his faith plays in his life, while being careful to distinguish between being a Muslim public servant and presenting himself as a “Muslim politician.” In his own words, he has argued that City Hall is not a pulpit, while also seeing his position as an opportunity to build bridges between Muslims and people of other faiths.
And there have certainly been occasions when their religious identity or public expression of it has attracted criticism. Khan’s participation in Muslim prayer at the 2026 Trafalgar Square Open Iftar, for example, prompted the extraordinary accusation from Conservative shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy that mass Muslim prayer in public was an “act of domination.”
The lesson, however, is not that Muslims should retreat from expressing their faith. Rather, it is that religious conviction can be expressed confidently without turning religious identity into a political ideology or a badge of communal superiority or a tribe. That distinction is important for British Muslim leadership. There is a difference between saying “my faith informs my sense of duty and how I serve the public” and saying, “I am a Muslim politician and therefore I represent Muslims.” The former can be a source of moral purpose and public service; the latter risks reducing politics to identity.
In fact, I think this is one of the areas where Mahmood and Khan offer a more interesting model than the kind of overtly identity-driven politics we see in America. They demonstrate that one can be visibly Muslim without making Muslimness the entirety of one’s politics. The challenge is to articulate what one’s faith contributes to public life, justice, responsibility, service, dignity, compassion and a commitment to the common good etc. rather than simply asserting one’s identity.
Point 6: Shabana Mahmood section is problematic
Sayed Alkadiri, the author, uses Mahmood as the principal example of the representation-versus-influence dilemma. The article’s question, “Has proximity to power allowed Mahmood to shape the state, or has proximity to the state reshaped her politics?” is rhetorically strong. Analytically, however, it risks implying that any shift in political position amounts to establishment capture, which is too simplistic in my view. Politics is rarely binary. It is natural for people’s views to change, especially in government, where responsibilities become real, decisions involve trade-offs, and the information and options available to politicians are different from those available to campaigners. Moving from activism to governance often requires a different form of judgement: one focused on workable decisions, political consensus and the practical limits of delivery. Without consensus, little can be achieved, and opponents, the media and public pressure can quickly wear down even well-intentioned reform. Governing also often takes place behind closed doors, away from public view. The article recognises some of this, but its framing still subtly privileges outsider authenticity over insider responsibility.
This is where the sociologist Anthony Giddens’ theory of structuration offers a useful lens. Giddens challenges the simple distinction between structure and agency. We tend to think of individuals either as autonomous actors who shape the world around them, or as products of the structures and institutions in which they operate. His argument is more subtle, in that people shape structures through their actions, but those structures simultaneously shape the choices available to people.
A better test in my view would be to have one’s own maqasid (objectives)-oriented approach. The article seeks to hint that the measure of success is to ask “Has the politician become less radical?” However, a better question to ask would be “Has the politician’s exercise of power producing greater maslahah?” When one asks this question, in the context of Palestine, yes there can be more to do for the UK like a complete arms embargo and removing trade relations and so on, but the cold truth, as heart breaking as it is to write this, is that Palestinians will likely suffer until neighbouring Arab countries decide to protect them and apply real pressure on Israel and the US.
Point 7: the article’s treatment of independent MPs is good but it understates the terrible damage “Muslim Vote” campaigning has done
I think the author is intellectually honest in acknowledging that the 2024 Muslim electoral revolt demonstrated that Muslim voters could punish parties.
But then, when it asks the more difficult question: “Can they convert that electoral punishment into sustained political power?” the realism of political power comes to the fore. Electoral success does not mean polity capacity. To translate electoral influence into lasting policy change requires more than numbers; it requires parliamentary consensus and, often, broader coalitions that extend beyond one’s own political group or constituency. For a community comprising around 5% of the UK population, even if British Muslims were to hold 10% of parliamentary seats (that’s 65 MPs – more than the entire SNP party at their height), and vote as a single, unified bloc, that numerical strength would not by itself amount to meaningful policy capacity. It would still require building alliances across party and ideological lines to turn representation into durable political outcomes.
Indeed, the evidence I see suggests that bloc voting is counterproductive. When a political bloc is perceived as acting mainly in pursuit of sectional interests, it invites resistance from those outside it and encourages other actors, including Reform, the Conservatives and others on the right, to mobilise against it. Politics often produces counter-reactions: when one group is seen as gaining disproportionate influence, rival forces are likely to organise in response.
The rise of the so-called “Muslim Vote” therefore carries a paradox. The more it is perceived as a distinct political bloc, the greater the incentive for other political forces to define themselves in opposition to it. Rather than simply increasing Muslim influence, it could contribute to a wider polarisation of the political landscape, including a further shift to the right as parties seek to capture voters who feel threatened by, or resistant to, the emergence of a distinct communal voting bloc.
I have written extensively against the “Muslim Vote” in 2019 and 2024. These articles and papers have been read widely across the policy groups and political spectrum.
But where I think the MLF article falls seriously short is in failing to acknowledge the danger inherent in framing the rise of Muslim MPs through the lens of “Muslim Vote.” However effective this may be electorally, it risks reinforcing precisely the politics of division that we should be trying to transcend. It creates the perception that Muslims are simply another tribal bloc pursuing sectional interests, no different, in the eyes of others, from the far right on one side or the far left on the other.
No matter how sincerely these Independent “Muslim MPs” insist they represent the interests of the whole country and are committed to the idea of one British nation, the manner in which they are elected matters. The article does not make this point very well. If their electoral success is perceived primarily as the product of “Muslim Vote,” it becomes easy for opponents to construct a narrative that Muslims are engaged in a form of identity politics: “they are organising as Muslims, they are gaining power as Muslims, and ultimately they want to impose Islam on the rest of us.”
I sometimes understand, even if I do not endorse, why this perception emerges. As believers we are quick to describe ourselves as “British Muslims,” and speak about our identity as Muslims before God (even if this is in form rather than substance), but we are not always as convincing when it comes to demonstrating what that identity means in practice for the kind of Britain we want to build. If our Muslim identity is largely expressed through ethnic interests, electoral mobilisation, religious polemics and identity politics, rather than through a coherent contribution to the common good, then we should not be surprised when others interpret it as tribalism rather than as a positive ethical contribution to British public life.
Unfortunately, the MLF article doesn’t discuss this dynamic. It is part of the wider group think that pervades among British Muslim activism, and one that few are working to change.
Point 8: the article underestimates the importance of Muslim civil society
This is perhaps the biggest omission from the article given its subject. It focuses overwhelmingly on politicians. But politicians are ultimately downstream of political culture. If we want different Muslim politicians, we need to think about the ecosystem that produces them. It is not enough to want different Muslim politicians. We also need different Muslim intellectuals, policy thinkers, journalists, academics, lawyers, economists, entrepreneurs, civil society leaders, philanthropists, communicators and institutional leaders. And, crucially, we need people in all these fields who are genuinely literate in Islam.
This is not to suggest that every Muslim professional needs to be a scholar, or that there is only one legitimate Islamic position on any given political question. Nor should being Muslim become a qualification for speaking on every issue affecting Muslims. But there is an important difference between being a Muslim who happens to hold a view and developing a view that has been seriously tested against the intellectual, ethical and moral tradition of Islam.
At present, I am not convinced that we have enough of the latter. And that becomes problematic when people speak publicly as Muslims or invoke their Muslim identity as part of the authority behind what they are saying, while their actual analysis has little discernible connection to Islamic intellectual tradition. The danger is that “Islamic” becomes an adjective attached to an essentially imported political worldview, rather than a substantive intellectual framework that informs how an issue is understood.
This can create a peculiar situation in which Muslims are highly represented in public life but underrepresented in the production of distinctly Muslim intellectual thought. We end up borrowing our political categories from the left, the right, liberalism, conservatism, socialism or nationalism, and then retrospectively giving them an Islamic vocabulary. That is very different from asking what our own religious tradition has to contribute to contemporary political thought. Of course, Islamic perspectives may converge or even synergise with ideas emerging from other intellectual traditions. But there is an important difference between arriving at a position independently and then discovering that it aligns with other secular thought, and beginning with an status quo secular political ideology and retrofitting an Islamic justification onto it.
When the underlying political theology has not been properly worked through, individuals can be left intellectually stranded: they may know what position they are expected to support, but not why they should support it from within an Islamic framework, or where the limits of that support lie. This makes it difficult to distinguish between what Islam actually requires, what it merely permits, and what is simply a political preference that happens to be compatible with one’s faith.
The consequence is not merely intellectual. It affects the quality of Muslim political leadership itself. Politicians need intellectual ecosystems around them, people capable of asking difficult questions, developing policy, testing assumptions, providing historical perspective and distinguishing between what genuinely Islamic is, what is culturally inherited and what is simply the prevailing politics of the day.
Without that ecosystem, we risk producing Muslim politicians who are perfectly capable of navigating British politics but who have little substantive Islamic intellectual framework for determining what they should ultimately be navigating towards.
And that, I think, is a much deeper problem than the absence of a British Muslim Mamdani. Before asking why we haven’t produced the right Muslim politicians, perhaps we should ask whether we have produced the intellectual and institutional ecosystem capable of producing them.