Fraught West Midlands meeting sees former MP Khalid Mahmood accused of ‘altercation’ with right-wing Birmingham councillor
The Labour party has held an emergency meeting with Kashmiri Labour figures in the West Midlands about the backlash among Kashmiris against the Labour government’s support for and active participation in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, according to local Labour sources.
So fraught was this meeting that witnesses have alleged that it led to an altercation between former Birmingham Perry Barr MP Khalid Mahmood and well-known right-wing Birmingham councillor Waseem Zaffar. Mahmood was contacted about the incident two days ago, but did not respond to deny that it took place or otherwise comment.
At the same time, Skwawkbox also contacted Labour’s West Midlands regional director Sam Donoghue about the crisis meeting and the altercation, but he had not responded by the time of writing.
Labour is right to be worried. The Starmer government’s collusion in genocide – which extends to running spy flights over Gaza for the Israeli regime and guaranteeing immunity to Israeli’s implicated in crimes of genocide and extermination as well as to waging a ‘lawfare’ war on journalists and protesters who expose Israel’s mass murder – has led to a string of crushing defeats in by-elections around the country, including in the West Midlands. The region has a large population of Kashmiri voters, including some 150,000 in Birmingham alone.
Khalid Mahmood was himself ousted in Perry Barr at the last general election by independent Muslim MP Ayoub Khan, who made Labour’s complicity in genocide a central part of his campaign.
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Labour’s 2019 Party Conference unanimously passed an emergency motion that said the people of Kashmir should be given the right of self-determination in accordance with UN resolutions. It called for international observers to enter the region.
Starmer IMMEDIATELY revoked the motion the first month he became leader.
The defeated motion pointed out that the Indian government ‘hindered’ journalism, kept elected Kashmiri politicians under detention, revoked Articles 370 and 35A of its own Constitution and subtly imposed restrictions on the rights of Opposition – measures which the UK Starmer Government is copying today. Collusion with genocide and mounting a ‘lawfare’ war on journalism and freedom of speech makes the LINO ‘Labour’ Government indistinguishable from the far-right Modi Government which Corbyn’s 2019 Labour Conference had denounced.
“The defeated motion pointed out….”
Oooops, shoulda said “The Starmer-revoked motion pointed out….