Not just about Gaza: the Muslim voters turning from Labour to the Greens

Campaigning in Newcastle before next month’s local elections shows the rise of the far right, the climate and cost of living are concerning voters as much as the Middle East Mohammed Suleman, a self-described “straight-talking Geordie”, doesn’t love politics. The taxi driver and businessman prefers to focus on community initiatives. But when the time came, he voted Labour as the lesser of two evils. A month into the war, which a UN committee would later describe as a genocide, Suleman, and others at his local mosque, began a petition calling on their Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West Labour MP, Chi Onwurah, to vote for a ceasefire. He knew it was largely symbolic, but it represented something important: that the children of Palestine, who looked like his and were raised in the same faith, mattered. “And the best she could do was abstain,” Suleman said. “That’s when I blew my top.” Suleman was speaking before heading out canvassing in Arthur’s Hill, to the west of Newcastle. The city is often described as segregated: a white working-class east and a more diverse west, both long central to Labour’s base. But while Labour has spent years trying to win over “hero voters” in the east