One of the new independent MPs elected on a pro-Gaza platform urged voters to boycott brands that supported Israel.
At a rally held during the general election campaign, Iqbal Mohamed, the newly elected MP for Dewsbury and Batley, encouraged supporters to “go home and find every brand and every product that has been supporting Israel and Zionism from the beginning of time and throw it away... Put the list on your fridge. Tell your children when you go to the shop to buy sweets ‘do not buy this’ and ‘do not buy that’. That is the least we can do.”
In footage of the speech seen by the JC, Mohamed also suggested that leaders who failed to speak up for Palestine should be arrested.
He said: “Every one of our leaders who has stayed silent or been actively complicit by sending arms, services, by supporting Israel, they’re all complicit, they’re all accessories to genocide … they all should be issued with ICCJ [sic] arrest warrants.”
He said that “we cannot forget for one second what is going on, what has been going on for over 75 years” and that “this struggle is for the whole of the world’s soul. Every living thing has a heart and a soul. The soul of the world today is Palestine.”
Although Mohamed called for a “peaceful two state solution for Palestine” earlier in his speech, he also told supporters that “we have been self-harming for too long. We have been complicit indirectly for too long by electing these Zionists, these unjust leaders. It’s time we stopped now.”
Mohamed is one of five independent MPs elected who received the backing of The Muslim Vote (TMV), an influential group set up to drive Muslims away from Labour and towards more radical, anti-Israel candidates.
He defeated former Rachel Reeves adviser Heather Iqbal, who stood for Labour, to win his West Yorkshire seat.
During the general election campaign, the JC revealed that TMV was founded by Islamists who backed violent Palestinian “resistance” two days after the October 7 massacres.
The newly formed constituency of Batley and Dewsbury contains Batley Grammar School, where a teacher was forced into hiding three years ago after he received death threats for showing students a cartoon image of the prophet Mohammed.
Iqbal Mohamed has been contacted for comment.