Independent candidate Nosheen Khalid sounds weary. There are just hours left before voters in Alum Rock go to the polls to decide who they want to represent them on Birmingham City Council, the biggest unitary local authority in Europe. A bitter exchange of views in the street between campaign groups has made the headlines.
Police were called after an altercation involving campaigners and candidates from Labour and the Independent movement in the city on Sunday night, with rivals engaged in a fierce 'exchange of views', with fingers pointed and insults exchanged. Both parties later blamed the other for escalating tensions, but it was an image neither side wished to see in a community that gets more than its share of barbs and attacks from outsiders quick to demonise its majority Muslim population.
Councillor Mariam Khan, the sitting Labour member for Alum Rock, expressed frustration, claiming a 'peaceful' interaction had escalated because of the intervention of Khalid's running mate Shaukat Mahmood. Both women put out explainer TikTok videos to make their case. It was a visible sign of the tension between the two sides that has been brewing throughout the campaign.
The Battle Lines
On one side of the election divide here and across the city stands Labour, currently attacked from all sides with national and local issues providing a double whammy of attack points, from its handling of geopolitical issues, the cost of living and the leadership of Keir Starmer, to more visible local issues. Financial mismanagement, the bin strike, the state of the roads and streets, and the closure of public services and sale of assets have triggered anger citywide.
Khan, currently part of the Labour Cabinet leadership of the council, is joined by Ansar Ali Khan as her running mate. They are pressing locals to have faith that they will serve them better than any alternative. On the other side stands the Independent duo. The Green Party has also got its sights on the area via candidates Ahamad Hussain and David Bloxham, but they have been much less visible.
Independent Vision
I walked the neighbourhood's main street, Alum Rock Road, with Khalid and Mahmood earlier in the campaign, and they made a powerful case for change. "We have a little tagline, rebuilding Alum Rock together, and I think together is the important thing," said Nosheen, 39, a hijab-wearing mother of three who has lived in the community all her life. "For a very long time, people in Alum Rock have felt disenfranchised, that they don't really have representatives that raise their voices for them."
"We work with community groups and the wonderful people doing wonderful work here, who are often overlooked or feel their voices are not heard," she said. "I think the councillor role is to close the loop and make sure that everybody's working together to get the maximum benefit for Alum Rock." A third-generation immigrant, Nosheen's grandfather moved to Birmingham in the 1950s, and she has had a long connection to the area.
She was a Labour activist until 2023, including sitting on the local government committee for the West Midlands and was an election agent, but never stood for office. She quit, she says, because she was disillusioned after the end of the Jeremy Corbyn leadership era and its aftermath. Corbyn had aligned with her views, and those of others in Alum Rock and elsewhere, on geopolitical issues, including the fate of Palestine. She stood alongside Corbyn as he joined Your Party-endorsed Independent candidates at a rally in Victoria Square on Tuesday night to press for change, urging voters to back them.
Personal Cost
Since announcing her candidacy, she says she has endured an uncomfortable and challenging amount of abuse, both from outside and inside her faith. "But as thankless a job as it is, the abuse that comes with it, you've got to say 'do we allow Alum Rock to carry on down the trajectory it's currently going on, which is just deprivation upon deprivation and complete decimation of public services' or instead 'I'm going to at least try to change it, at whatever personal cost that might be.'"
She said the area was for too long 'discriminated against' as an area that was the cause of its own problems, yet it deserved a service that was at least on a par with other parts of the city. "I was doing a litter pick and I found a bag of machetes. You know, these are not things that we should be having to come across. This shouldn't be the norm. If it's not the norm in Edgbaston, or Sutton Coldfield, it shouldn't be the norm in Alum Rock either," she said.
Racism and Cost of Living
Racism was also at troubling levels against individuals and whole communities like Alum Rock, she said. "Certain language has become normalised. That language has a real-time impact on people's lives and sense of self. If you're telling kids they're 'the other' and not like other 'British' kids, then you're asking them to integrate at the same time; if you're telling them that their mums, because they wear hijab, are not British. This all has real impacts."
She said it is clear that the cost-of-living crisis was hitting so many communities and people hard, and as a result people were eager to 'find a bogeyman'. "Somebody has to be blamed for why people can't pay their bills and why they can't afford rent, and why they can't get doctor's appointments, and why when they try to apply for a school place, every school is oversubscribed. It doesn't help that mainstream parties are using rhetoric that we would have considered far right a couple of years back, so these ideas are legitimised."
Labour councillors have represented the area for more than a decade, she said. Councillor Mariam Khan has been part of the Cabinet, with a brief including health and social care, yet 'health inequalities are worsening.' Khalid's running mate Mahmood will celebrate his 55th birthday on polling day. He was also born and raised in Alum Rock, and has five brothers and a sister. He is well known in the area, and was also a long-time Labour activist and campaigner. He is a welfare officer at a major local mosque, chaired and founded the area's Mega Mela event, and supports multi-faith and education organisations.
He said the duo were unashamedly pro-Palestine but 'that's not the sum of who we are,' he said. Dismissing the Independent movement generally as being 'all about Gaza' was demeaning to the focus they also put on local issues. "This election is run on local issues as far as we are concerned," he said. "That's what we want people to judge us on," he added.
Labour's Response
For their part, the Labour duo are making a big effort to resist the challenge. In recent social media posts, Mariam Khan has put it succinctly: "If you want local services delivered by people who have experience, a proven track record and the ability to represent you without spreading misinformation, please vote Labour."
West Midlands Police said later of the Sunday night incident: "We were called to reports of disorder on Alum Rock Road, shortly after 8.20pm last night (Sun). No arrests have been made at this stage and our enquiries continue."
Candidates in Alum Rock are as follows (voters can elect two):
- Ahamad Hussain and David Bloxham, Green Party
- Monica Hardie and Barbara Wood, Local Conservatives
- Asia Hussain and Wajid Malhotra, Liberal Democrats
- Nosheen Khalid and Shaukat Mahmood, Independents
- Thomas McPake and Karen Strangward, Reform UK
