{"id":15634,"date":"2026-04-17T04:45:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T04:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/15634\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T04:45:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T04:45:35","slug":"local-elections-muslim-council-of-britain-signs-up-2100-voters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/15634\/","title":{"rendered":"Local elections: Muslim Council of Britain signs up 2,100 voters"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FourLotifa Begum (left) with a Hungry For Change voter registration sign in London at the Together Alliance March Against the Far Right on 28 March 2026. Photograph courtesy of the Muslim Council of Britain<\/p>\n

The organisation visited mosques and community groups in key cities to help people register via the government website<\/p>\n

\"Weronika\"Weronika<\/p>\n

The Muslim Council of Britain<\/a> (MCB) has registered more than 2,100 new voters in cities across England<\/a> to vote in the upcoming local elections.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The organisation\u2019s Hungry for Change<\/a> campaign, launched in January, has focused on outreach in mosques and local communities, particularly throughout the month of Ramadan<\/a>. More than 100 volunteers participated in the drive in cities including Birmingham, London, Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds.<\/p>\n

Local elections will take place on 7 May for 136 English local authorities, as well as for the devolved governments of Scotland<\/a> and Wales<\/a>. The deadline for voter registration<\/a> is 20 April.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had volunteers giving out QR codes to members of the community as they came for Jummah prayers,\u201d said MCB public affairs manager Lotifa Begum. \u201cSome volunteers were able to bring their laptops and help people sign up. Particularly for the older generation, there exists a digital barrier. It really helps having somebody who speaks their local language able to help them register. It makes a huge difference to making democratic participation more accessible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Begum said that the rise of rightwing populist parties such as Reform UK<\/a> and the steady increase<\/a> in Islamophobic incidents have fuelled Muslim voters\u2019 anxieties about the future of their hometowns and made this election feel more significant.<\/p>\n

A poll<\/a> conducted by JL Partners on behalf of the Telegraph published on Wednesday projected major Labour losses to Reform, particularly in Wales and the so-called \u201cRed Wall\u201d regions of England.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are seeing an all-time high on attacks on faith communities, in particular Muslims, and I think that\u2019s being fuelled by the narrative of the far right,\u201d Begum said. \u201cIf we don\u2019t engage our communities, they will not recognise the agency and the power that they have.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Grassroots engagement and the involvement of young people were key to the success of the campaign, Begum said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes a massive difference to have mosques, imams, leaders, activists, encouraging people to not waste their vote,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Alongside registration drives in mosques, the MCB also organised regional and online events, including webinars<\/a> with representatives of the Electoral Commission<\/a> and organisations such as YouElect<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the events, we asked a good cross-section of the British Muslim community why they feel it is important to vote,\u201d Begum said. \u201cThey listed issues like tackling Islamophobia, lack of youth funding, knife-related crimes and housing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The campaign has received praise and support from the Electoral Commission, but Begum said it had been limited by financial constraints. \u201cGiven the right resources,\u201d she said, \u201cI think faith communities could achieve so much more in terms of civic engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lotifa Begum (left) with a Hungry For Change voter registration sign in London at the Together Alliance March…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[991,13,1360,173,722,27,1074,7402,2562,6733,5,7403],"class_list":{"0":"post-15634","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-elections","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-leeds","13":"tag-london","14":"tag-manchester","15":"tag-muslim-council-of-britain","16":"tag-political-parties","17":"tag-sheffield","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-uk-elections"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116418230572367139","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}