‘This is what a councillor is supposed to do’: Mothin Ali on false accusations of rioting

12 comments

1. Sorry, were they not rioting? Were the videos lies?

2. Sorry, were they not rioting? Were the videos lies?

3. Sectarian politician who has repeatedly stoked division in his local area claims he has no responsibility for division between the community and local services.

   Get this prat out of public office.

4. Pretty shameful how people have reacted to this to be honest. All video footage shows Councillor Ali trying to *stop* the riot, and yet the narrative was established very quickly that he was in some way responsible. For example /u/itsjustchat in this very thread.

   Furthermore, for those exclusively blaming Arabs (although they’ll usually say ‘Muslims’) for the riot, many of the rioters depicted in the video footage were white.

5. Pretty clear he wasn’t involved here, but when you start off on the wrong foot claiming you’re fighting for Gaza when you should be focused on bin collections, you’re going to have to really work to rebuild the image.

   Especially when you and your crew look like they’re filming a hostage video when you win the election.

   The fact he shouts Islamophobia every time someone took issue with it didn’t help him either.

6. [removed]

7. I’m not sure it is. He was very brave and put himself in potential danger. That’s not a councillor’s job as it shouldn’t have happened.

   Then again, a rabbi and his young family shouldn’t be living in hiding in part because of posts that he made online.

8. This is a good man. He put his life on the line to stop the rioting.

9. I saw an interview he did whilst the riots were going on and couldn’t agree with him. He was trying to make it out as though the riots were justified because the local community were angry and felt abandoned by the government. Trying to shift the blame away from the idiots rioting.

10. Quite a few members of this sub were bursting to get on here and condemn him

    Odd, that

11. >supposed to do

    I understand he was trying to do the right thing, but for anyone else in a similar situation the best thing to do is not to attend at all. The more people on the street, the more sociopathic members of society feel emboldened to do nutty shit like light a bus on fire.

    That said, as soon as the doorstep gawpers come outside to see what the commotion is, it’s basically inevitable some shit is getting smashed up that night.

12. Can you blame the public? The average person sees his election victory speech talking about Gaza with a photo of the Palestinian flag in the background. Palestinians protests have been going on in the UK for months now and have caused some chaos. Ergo we see riots in Leeds and his face and the general public put 2 and 2 together. If he was really trying to mend the peace for local services maybe his election victory speech should have talked about how he going to help public services instead of talking about a conflict miles away that don’t concern a local councillor.