Why is a Labour MP calling for military action against Israel?

Remind me who Tahir Ali represents again? The Labour MP is a tireless campaigner for a new international airport – not in his Birmingham constituency or even the UK, but in Mirpur, Pakistan. The last time he was in the news, Ali was demanding to know when the government was going to get around to introducing Islamic blasphemy laws. And now he wants to go to war with Israel.

In the House of Commons on Monday, Ali got to his feet to address a debate on Palestine and Israel. ‘Previous governments’, he said, ‘have intervened in the Middle East to take action on human-rights abuses and protect international trade routes’. After clearing his throat, Ali cut to the chase: ‘Isn’t it time that military action is taken against Israel?’

Ali later tried to backtrack after Labour higher-ups attacked him for freelancing on defence and foreign policy. On Wednesday, Ali claimed his speech gave the wrong ‘impression’ and that he absolutely did not ‘support the use of military force’ against the Jewish State. We should take this later statement with a mine’s worth of salt. He literally asked the government to take military action against Israel. That he now claims this is not what he meant is the sign of someone worried about his political career.

This is only the latest in a long line of curious stands taken by Ali, MP for Hall Green and Moseley since 2019. Take the supposedly pressing issue of Mirpur’s international airport. According to Ali, the absence of this airport ‘causes significant issues to a number of my constituents, who are having to drive over three hours to get to the nearest airport in Pakistan’. He has promised to ‘continue to push for this cause, and pursue this issue until permission is granted for a new airport’.

For a British MP to make an airport in Pakistan a significant focus is bad enough. Even worse is that this, too, came with a sectarian sting in the tail. Addressing the ‘Mirpur Airport Demand Grand Conference’ in Birmingham last year, Ali accused ‘Indian media agencies’ of thwarting the project. He blamed the influence of the ‘Indian lobby’ among Conservative MPs for the airport not getting the attention it should have.

Israel and India aren’t Ali’s only targets. Criticism of Islam has also been firmly on his agenda. At Prime Minister’s Questions in 2024, Ali probed then prime minister Keir Starmer on whether he would ‘commit to introducing measures to prohibit the desecration of all religious texts and the prophets of the Abrahamic religions’. But it seemed that Ali had one religion in particular in mind. He went out of his way to tell parliament that he was speaking during ‘Islamophobia Awareness Month’, and reminded colleagues of a recent UN resolution condemning the ‘desecration’ of the Koran.

What else does Ali get up to when he isn’t regaling the Mirpur Airport Demand Grand Conference, encouraging war with Israel, or calling for an Islamic blasphemy law? He sits on five All-Party Parliamentary Groups – on Kashmir, Kuwait, Oman, Turkey and Yemen. Until 2022, he was the vice chair of the Palestine All-Party Parliamentary Group. In July 2025, he broke with the party line in refusing to proscribe Palestine Action. And he has voted to uphold International Criminal Court arrest warrants against ‘Israeli war criminals’, while supporting Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) policies against Israel.

Ali’s pan-Islamic obsessions are in stark contrast to his interest in local affairs. On supposedly piddling matters such as Birmingham’s bankruptcy, its almost two-year-long bin strikes and the fact that 55 per cent of children in his constituency live in poverty – the highest rate in the UK – Ali has displayed markedly less interest. According to the Guardian, Ali has been notably indifferent to issues such as welfare reform or budget cuts.

It is now depressingly common for parliamentary candidates to produce election material in foreign languages – notably Urdu – and to aggravate religious grievances, particularly when appealing to Muslim voters. More than 500 Muslim sectarians were elected in May’s council elections, according to the Henry Jackson Society. One of them rode a horse through the streets of Birmingham to celebrate. In Tower Hamlets, multiple councillors have pledged their intention to run in Bangladesh’s upcoming elections. What, we are right to ask, is happening to British politics?

For now, we might be able to laugh off Tahir Ali’s call for military action against Israel. But the rising sectarianism in British politics poses a very serious problem indeed.