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PM Anthony Albanese and his government’s weakness and duplicity since October 7 are wakening a spectre that hasn’t haunted Australian politics for half a century. A beast that once nearly broke the Labor party and is threatening to again.
Sectarian politics.
In the 1950s, divisions between Labor’s working-class Catholics and its communist-sympathetic union powerbrokers led to the infamous “Split”. The Split contributed in no small part to keeping Labor out of power for the next 20 years. Although Whitlam extended the olive branch to Catholics by restoring funding to Catholic schools, the sectarian divisions weren’t fully laid to rest until the early 1980s.
Now, a new sectarian division is threatening to tear Labor apart: Islam.
A Muslim teal-style campaign to oust the ALP in Sydney and Melbourne is seeking candidates as Anthony Albanese’s suspension of Fatima Payman from the Labor caucus exacerbates a rift between the party and the Islamic community.
The spectre of sectarian politics has stalked Australia since 9 October, 2023, when a Muslim mob – with an escort of Greens politicians – stormed a memorial service at the Sydney Opera House chanting “Gas the Jews!” and the NSW Labor government… did nothing. Nor did Anthony Albanese.
In the months since, Albanese has only been weaker and weaker against the onslaught of anti-Semitism. The PM’s weakness was laid bare, last week, when he extended special privileges to a Muslim senator who chanted the genocidal war-cry “From the River to the Sea” and crossed the floor to side with the anti-Semitic Greens. In its 120-year history, Labor’s iron rule has been that crossing the floor is met with immediate expulsion.
Unless the ‘rat’ is Muslim and it’s 2024.
Because the brutal truth is that Labor will do anything and tolerate the most appalling behaviour if it means clinging on to the Muslim vote in Western Sydney.
The Australian revealed in April that Labor powerbrokers feared abandonment by Muslim voters across southwest Sydney and inner-city Melbourne over its Gaza war stance and, in June, how the campaign was spearheaded by Islamic leader Sheik Wesam Charkawi […]
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 29 of the 151 federal electorates have 5 per cent or more people of the Islamic faith – 27 of those 29 seats are held by Labor.
Of those 29, 16 are held by Labor on margins of 10 per cent or more, and at the previous election the party suffered primary vote swings against it of up to 18.5 per cent.
So, that’s up to 13 seats, with margins small enough that a Muslim Split would easily cost Labor the government they won with a century-low 32 per cent of the primary vote. No wonder Albanese hasn’t the guts to enforce Labor’s century-old rule.
Anthony Albanese is resisting further action against rebel senator Fatima Payman despite her openly defying his leadership in parliament, attacking her Labor colleagues and threatening to further destabilise the government by quitting the party […]
Labor MPs have historically been suspended or expelled from the party for abstaining from voting with the party in parliament, while ALP convention is that she should have been kicked out of the party for crossing the floor last week on a Greens motion to immediately recognise Palestine.
While Albo lacks all conviction, the worst are full of passionate intensity.
Muslim Vote mirrors a British campaign – to the extent of sharing a near-identical website, content and brand identity. The British Muslim Vote was established by a former leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a proscribed terror group in many countries including the UK. An Australian Hizb ut-Tahrir backer, who was filmed on 8 October joyously telling a crowd of celebrating Muslims that he was “elated”, is involved in the Muslim Vote campaign in Australia.
The ‘coexist’ mask is off. The Trojan Camel is in the gates and opening its dark underbelly.
And a weak, unprincipled government has waved it in.
