On Muslim election campaign groups

Sylvia Ruhl criticses the establishment of Muslim community-oriented election campaign groups, claiming they are sectarian, middle class-led projects that detract from working class solidarity.

There has been much hand-wringing in political circles regarding the planned formation of two electoral groups aimed at influencing the vote of Muslim-Australians at next year’s federal election. These electoral bodies are not and do not claim to be political parties, but rather as campaign groups that aim to mobilise voters in seats with high Muslim populations. Both groups are petty-bourgeois formations feeding off the disillusionment of Muslim-Australians, including those of a working-class background. The groups call for voters to support specific listed candidates according to their individual support for Palestine, rather than the line of their party. As such, their focus is on threatening seats held by Labor MPs in an attempt to pressure the party into taking a more Palestine-sympathetic stance.

The first of these new movements to form was The Muslim Vote, which was announced shortly following Fatima Payman’s departure from the ALP. The Muslim Vote plans to rally around candidates in at least three safe seats in Sydney, as well as educate voters on their local candidates’ stances on Palestine. The group’s outlook says it is one guided by the ethical and moral framework of Islam, requiring followers to “act with integrity, justice, and compassion and drives our efforts to create a more equitable society”.

A second group, Muslim Votes Matter, similarly aims to educate voters on the stances of their local candidates relevant to the Muslim community, focusing most pertinently on the policy response of the Australian government towards Israel’s war on Gaza. Notably, they have bolder ambitions, planning to target all Senate seats, and over 20 lower house seats where they deem Muslims have the deciding vote.

For Muslim voters, more than perhaps any other demographic, the issue of Australia’s forgiving attitude to Israel has become pertinent with Israel’s renewed assault one Gaza, and justifiably so. However, this division appears to simply be the final push for many working-class Muslims to abandon Labor for good.

Of course, such formations should be denounced by communists for what they are: attempts to cohere political careers for individual middle-class Muslims. Aside from being irrational, we also oppose religious bodies in politics for their nature in dividing the working class by giving a religious-identitarian political orientation rather than one of social class to layers of the proletariat.

The reaction to these new formations on the part of the ALP has been knee-jerk calls to keep religion out of politics amidst accusations of “undermining social cohesion”. Of course, any pundits paying attention would know that the orientalist hysteria the ALP is trying to invoke surrounding Muslim community organising in politics is completely and utterly hypocritical. It is no secret that conservative Christian politics have considerable sway on Labor. Social policy in the party has been strongly influenced by its own conservative elements, and their discourse on Israel is generally one that echoes the neurotic crusader-narrative of Christian Zionists.

The Catholic right has even long held outright control over the ALP-affiliated Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA); the retail workers’ union notorious for being in bed with the bosses of one of the largest and most precarious industries in this country. Their leadership has never been afraid to throw their weight around on social issues and holds considerable sway within Labor. Contrasted with groups like Muslim Votes, who, whilst organising an undeniably socially conservative layer, are focused primarily on the necessary cause of Palestine, and secondarily on vague platitudes such as constructing “a more equitable society”. Clearly a much less serious threat to secularism than the ALP itself. It can therefore easily be stated that Laborites do not genuinely fear “religious influence in politics”, rather, that they are simply lashing out at a fraction of their base that is not towing the line.

In fact, one could even say that the current mobilisation of Muslim voters largely feeds off the general disillusionment of the Australian working class with the Labor Party. Labor won the last election for the first time with a decrease in their primary vote, gaining only 32.58% of the vote. Polling since then has mostly indicated their share of the vote will sink by a further 2-3% in 2025, without necessarily causing them to lose on 2PP. This indicates a broad dissatisfaction with Labor across their former working-class base and can easily be confirmed by any interaction with the working class. Regardless of ethnic or religious background, a common sentiment exists of a Labor that has “abandoned its working-class roots”. Without getting into whether Labor ever was anything that could be called a “workers’ party” (a topic for another time), it is clear that Labor has done less for workers over time and has increasingly less real connection to its own working-class base, no less does this include working-class Muslims.

It is also possible, that the aforementioned campaign groups may simply be the beginning of an accelerating abandonment of Labor by the working-class in general. This may have already begun to occur, with the formation of the localist party Western Sydney Community (WSC) by reactionary Independent MP Dai Le. A large, deeply working-class Labor stronghold, western Sydney has increasingly found itself abandoned by the ALP, who do not hesitate to turn their noses up at who were once some of their most reliable supporters.

Different in form to the educational bodies like Muslim Votes, WSC is a political party that aims to win seats in the Labor heartlands of western Sydney for itself. Western Sydney Community is undeniably a party of the local petty-bourgeoisie and are no allies of the working-class. However, it feeds off very real working-class disillusionment. It is difficult to tell how successful the party will be at the next election, though given Dai Le’s local popularity and the fact that WSC already controls ten out of thirteen seats in Fairfield City Council, it would not be surprising if they manage to hasten Labor’s long-term decline in support.