It’s hard to know exactly what to make of this story in The Times. The headline claims that ‘Muslim voters rank Gaza over the economy in local election poll’. They double down on this claim in the first paragraph, telling us ‘the war in Gaza ranks above the economy in determining how Muslim voters will cast their ballots’. That us until you get to the second paragraph, where we’re told ‘a quarter of Muslim voters in key battleground areas said the conflict would determine their vote’.
Now, I don’t think you have to be much of an expert psephologist or particularly well up on polling to recognise that a quarter of Muslims is not most Muslims. What is more, a quarter of Muslims ‘in key battleground areas’ is not even a quarter of all Muslims. Which means the headline and opening paragraph are somewhat misleading. In fact, the sub-head is the most misleading of all in claiming ‘a survey suggests that people in London, Manchester and the West Midlands want to punish Labour over the issue [of Gaza] and back Greens or independents’. But, we soon realise it’s not most people, or even lots of people, but a quarter of Muslims in some areas.
Now, let’s just put that into some context. There are about as many Muslims in the UK as there are evangelicals (depending on the figures you rely on). I strongly suspect nobody would bat an eyelid at hearing evangelicals wanted to punish a particular party at the ballot box; there simply aren’t enough of us to care. When you discover it’s only a quarter of us, who cares even less! When you eventually work out it’s a quarter of us in a handful of regions, the point loses all lustre. But we stick the word Muslim on those sentences and people begin to get up in arms about it.
Perhaps most telling of all, The Times notes that a quarter of Muslims in key battleground areas (so, not all that many people in the grand scheme of things) would place Gaza as their key voting issue ‘compared to only 5 per cent of the public overall’. In other words, hardly anyone is actually making Gaza the key issue and 95% of the British public do not. That is to say, it is not actually a key issue for the most part. It will tell, at best, in a handful of council wards.
None of that is to say there won’t be a shift away from the mainstream parties. There are all manner of reasons why people might choose to move away from the traditional parties of government. The Gorton & Denton by-election made clear the rise in support from Greens and Reform, but despite the sour-grapes claims by those who lost, it was evident this was not driven exclusively by Muslims concerned solely about Gaza. Certainly, the Green campaign was not exclusively or mainly focused on this issue and their support reached well beyond the Muslim community in the area.
The rest of the article highlighted – presumably for those who have lived in a box their whole lives – that *shock horror* Muslims generally have different social attitudes to the rest of the country. Who knew! We may or may not agree with some of those social attitudes, but it really does beggar belief that anybody wouldn’t yet be aware that this is the case.
The article seems to be a clear case of rage baiting. It is attempting to foment anti-Muslim sentiment for reasons that I cannot entirely grasp. Fomenting those sentiments using data that doesn’t really support the position being pushed; namely, that a minority of Muslims in a few areas think Gaza is the most important issue on which they ought to vote.
I think it is worth being aware of this kind of reporting, that frequently floats around, whenever particular groups and their opinions are mentioned. It happens on all sides of the political divide as those inclined to use particular groups to make specific points spin data to support whatever it is they are hoping to say.
I agree it’s spin and inaccurate wording. I’m not convinced it is about rage baiting. Rather it’s an attempt to analyse potential political performance and strategy. It’s a reason why Labour councillors are particularly vulnerable from both ends of the spectrum. Whilst this is a minority position it is enough to swing councils and later constituencies in key areas. Mainstream parties are reaping the world wind of course. Professional campaign chiefs likely to Crosby pioneered the idea that you target a very small number of swing voters in key seats. It also helps explain the strategy of the Green Party right now. They won’t win in many places in a traditional eco agenda. If you want net zero you have Ed Milliband. At the same time s the issue of antisemitism is not salient in terms of voters so parties can sadly tolerate this within their ranks
I’m not convinced by your analysis here. The plan to target key demographics in swing seats predates the likes of Lynton Crosby. This is not new.
The whole article would perhaps give you a different perspective if you were able to read it. And if you are a regular Times reader, I’m afraid rage bait has become increasingly common, particularly it has to be said, where it concerns Muslims specifically. They seem quite keen to whip up culture war issues and are very happy to do so whenever Muslim people can be used to do it.
Yes it’s possible that the whole article does that – you would have to give more of a flavour as it’s behind a paywall and I’m up to my limit of rage bait newspaper subscriptions. Agree that targeting predates Crosby but he took it up to another level on terms of the belief that esp 2016 could be won in a few constituencies and turn on a few thousand votes. What it means is that the main parties cannot complain when they are hit at their own game. And other parties will be playing the same game. E g Reform UK know full well that the proposal to put detention centers in Green voting constituencies 1. Would not be legally possible 2. Is incoherent with a policy of stopping the boats and reducing immigration all together 3. Won’t persuade people in those constituencies to change their vote. However they know it will play well with people in their target areas who might be having second thoughts about Reform and be tempted to drift back to the Tories or Labour.