The election saw the number of Muslims in parliament rise from 4 to 8. Muhammad Sarwar has left parliament and his son Anas Sarwar is now the MP for Glasgow Central after a comfortable victory over Osama Saeed for the Scottish National Party. Shahid Malik for Labour in Dewsbury lost to Simon Reevell of the Conservatives by over a thousand votes. However, Sadiq Khan retained his seat for Tooting and Khalid Mahmood held his seat in Birmingham Perry Bar. The six newcomers are Rushanara Ali, Shabana Mahmood, Anas Sarwar, Yasmin Qureshi, Sajid Javid and Rehman Chishti.

 Rushanara Ali for Labour fought off a challenge from Ajmal Masrur for the Liberal Democrats and Abjol Miah for Respect. Rushanara Ali looks likely to be most talented of the new members of parliament. Having studied politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford university she has worked for the Foreign Office, the Home Office and has been Associate Director at the Young Foundation under Geoff Mulgan. If she can forge constructive partnerships with the local Muslim community, then she could become a catalyst for major improvements for a community that ranks amongst the most deprived in the country. Shabana Mahmood, another Oxford graduate, a barrister and the daughter of the local Labour party chairman, won in Clare Short’s former seat of Birmingham Ladywood with a comfortable majority. Yasmin Qureshi, also a barrister, won in Bolton South East again with a comfortable majority. Sajid Javid won for the Tories in Bromsgrove, Julie Kirkbride’s former constituency. Javid has previously been a Vice President for Chase Manhattan Bank. Rehman Chishti practices as a barrister and has previously been an advisor to Benazir Bhutto.

The trend in political representation seems similar to the wider trend today of ‘careerist politicians’. The political parties have been unable to integrate grassroots activists into their representative mechanisms on the national stage. This raises the problem of how effective these politicians will be in reflecting Muslim concerns to the respective parties. It could instead turn into a situation in which Muslim MPs are used to manage rather than voice Muslim concerns. This would be unhealthy for democracy. It is also an indictment of sorts of the government’s prevent strategy. If the government and other parties were serious about tackling underlying causes of discontent then they would have geared up to ensure effective representation at this general election. It is too early to say, but it looks increasingly unlikely that this has been achieved.

The current political question is ‘how useless is the British electoral system?’ Well, as the debate on electoral reform highlights how the wishes of the majority can be lost within an antiquated system, the results on Muslim MPs shows that the electoral system is also not very good at providing a voice for the least favoured. But the question on Muslim MPs also shows that it is not just the electoral system that is at fault. It is also the role of the political parties. It seems that the heaving bureaucracies of the political parties are also standing in the way of democratic progress. Three Labour candidates in major urban areas were the children of local Labour leaders: Shabana Mahmood in Birmingham, Maryam Khan (who lost in Bury South) in Manchester and Anas Sarwar in Glasgow.