MEND report Scotland: Breaking in to politics

Following the MSP open letter calling on Scottish political parties to better engage with Muslim communities we waited for contact from the political parties, with MEND and the community. Eventually it came, political parties started to respond to our call for engagement and representation. The contact was not entirely what we were expecting as much of the response was a whole hearted agreement that political parties wanted to engage, they wanted better representation and they wanted the Muslim community to feel part of their political party. However they did not know where to start, how to connect and how to get involved with the Scottish Muslim community.

Seeing the gap in the communication chain MEND decided that we had to do something to better support political parties to initiate contact.  So to do this we held a webinar MENDReport Scotland: Breaking in to politics, which was live streamed to the MEND community Facebook page on Tuesday 1^st September.

The webinar was hosted by Amjid Bashir and had panellists:

• Qasim Hanif, National Secretary for Scots Asians For Independence SNP;
• Bailie Soryia Siddique, Glasgow Labour Councillor for Southside Central;
• Faten Hameed, Political candidate and campaigner, Scottish Conservative Party;
• Lorna Slater, co Leader Scottish Green party.

Panellists discussed the need for better representation of Muslims in political parties. They spoke on the importance for individuals to get involved in politics, but at a level they are happy with. Wither that is joining a political party, which can be done with a simple form online for most parties, supporting those standing for election or standing for local or national elections.

The webinar can be viewed at https://www.facebook.com/mendcommunity/videos/1215275118807998

The take home message from the event was the importance of all to get involved in politics at all levels.