Zohran Mamdani\u2019s victory to become New York\u2019s first Muslim mayor took place thousands of miles from the UK. But at the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), the campaign was being closely studied.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe actually spent some time with his campaign team to work out what the secret sauce was,\u201d said Dr Wajid Akhter, who took over as secretary general of Britain\u2019s largest and most diverse national Muslim umbrella body last year.<\/p>\n
Akhter, a GP, said he was struck by the Mamdani campaign\u2019s communication strategy<\/a>. \u201cEven when you talk about Gaza, he would bring it back to talking about rent.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking at a busy cafe in east London earlier this month, Akhter said that what stood out most was the scale of grassroots organising central to the Democratic mayor\u2019s win.<\/p>\n Akhter praised Mamdani\u2019s ability to balance digital and traditional campaigning. \u201cIf you just do one side, you\u2019re just another influencer. If you just have a ground campaign, it doesn\u2019t penetrate the masses. If we can marry the two, then I think we\u2019ve got something serious going.\u201d<\/p>\n Zohran Mamdani on the campaign trail in Queens, New York City, last summer. Photograph: Andrew Lichtenstein\/Corbis\/Getty Images<\/p>\n The MCB is attempting to replicate that model, with the launch of an ambitious campaign, Hungry for Change, aimed at registering Muslims to vote and drawing them into grassroots civic action.<\/p>\n They have recruited 200 voter champions across more than 30 areas in the run-up to the local elections, and say they have helped register several thousand people to vote, with internal figures showing 3,377 visits to the government\u2019s registration website. The group hoped to expand the model nationwide by the next general election and remained non-partisan, Akhter said.<\/p>\n There are an estimated 2,000 mosques in the UK, about 500 of which are affiliated with the MCB. The organisation is reshaping how it communicates, with a focus on video, social media and podcasts.<\/p>\n The campaign marks a strategic shift for the long-embattled organisation. Akhter said it had struggled for more than a decade to secure government engagement, dating back to a row in 2009 when the then MCB deputy secretary general, Daud Abdullah, signed a document known as the Istanbul declaration, which advocated attacks on the Royal Navy if it tried to stop arms for Hamas being smuggled into Gaza.<\/p>\n The then Labour government said it would have nothing more to do with the MCB unless Abdullah stepped down. He did resign and the MCB said the views expressed did not represent those of the body, leading to a re-engagement in the last year of Gordon Brown\u2019s government. The incoming coalition government reinstated the policy of disengagement with the MCB in 2010, and it remained in place with consecutive Conservative governments until they left office in 2024.<\/p>\n The policy of disengagement was enforced rigidly. In February 2024, four months into the war in Gaza, the government told the Inter Faith Network it would withdraw funding<\/a> unless it removed a newly elected board member over his links to the MCB. The network refused and was subsequently defunded, a move criticised by faith leaders as political vandalism at a time when interfaith work was urgently needed.<\/p>\n