Watch: Labour’s Angela Rayner bids to win back Muslim voters with Gaza promises

On the matter of how much our elected representatives desire and  fear the Muslim vote. 

For non UK readers Angela Rayner is the deputy leader of the Labour party, and deputy shadow prime minister. If Labour is elected in July (quite probable) and Sir Kier Starmer were to suddenly have a heart attack (improbable) she would be our Prime Minister. A lot of people scoff at her for snobbish reasons; I can’t bring myself to do so. Not because there but for the grace of God go I as my family were decent, loving and hard-working so I was never going to end up in The Slough of Despond.  But she got where she is via trade union activity, while working at a proper job (so many MPs go from university, to Spad, to MP) in a care home earning to support the children she bore while still a teenager.  Having said that, she is greedy (but I understand why – she’s been genuinely poor) and makes up for lack of academic intelligence by low cunning and guile. 

Her attempts to save tax on the sale of her former council house not withstanding she is in the news today because of a piece of video circulating in which she is pleading,  begging a  meeting of Muslim men in her constituency Ashton-under-Lyne (an industrial town within Great Manchester, into which the better known grooming gang activity of Rochdale and Oldham spilled) to vote for her and the wider Labour party.

From the Telegraph and Order-Order

Angela Rayner has been filmed promising that Labour will do everything in its power to end the suffering in Gaza as the party tries to win back Muslim voters. In a video circulating on social media, Ms Rayner, the Labour deputy leader, can be seen pleading for the support of voters frustrated with the party’s stance on Israel’s war with Hamas.

In the footage, which is believed to have been filmed in Ms Rayner’s Ashton-under-Lyne constituency, she says she would resign as an MP if that could bring about a ceasefire.

Addressing a room of people, she said: “I know that people are angry about what’s happening in the Middle East… If me resigning as an MP now would bring a ceasefire, I would do it. I would do it. If I could affect change…” But she said that was not “in my gift” owing to a “failure of the international community”.

The remarks were first reported by Guido Fawkes, (Order-Order) the political blog, which said it had obtained the leaked tape from a meeting.

She said “And I’ll be honest with you, if Labour get into government, we are limited. I will be honest, I’m not going to promise you… because Biden, who’s the US, who has way more influence, has only got limited influence in that. . . She also said Labour would recognise Palestine as a state if it were elected, saying:  “If Labour get into power, we will recognise Palestine. I will push not only to recognise… there is nothing to recognise at the moment, sadly, it’s decimated. We have to rebuild Palestine, we have to rebuild Gaza, that takes more than just recognising it.”

Note the complete absence of women in the room.  She isn’t wearing a headscarf (I don’t think this took place in a mosque) but her usual miniskirt is replaced by a long dress with long sleeves.  She is competing for votes against Aroma Hassan of George Galloway’s Workers party, who is also for Gaza, but had the good sense to speak here instead about the cost of living crisis.