Amid Labour's 'Burnham bounce', right-wing press rummages for 'Muslim links'

As Andy Burnham enjoys an early surge in support following his appointment as Britain's prime minister, another battle is unfolding beyond Westminster.

With Labour climbing in the polls after more than a year trailing Nigel Farage's Reform UK, sections of Britain's right-wing press have turned their attention to Burnham's ministers and their links to Muslim organisations, reviving attacks that critics say seek to portray engagement with British Muslims as politically suspect.

"The use of Muslims and links to Muslims and Islam as a smear to discredit a politician, policy, party or government has become normalised," Aaron Winter, a sociologist at Lancaster University who studies racism and the far right, told The New Arab.

"Islamophobia or anti-Muslim hate have become normalised and mainstreamed - along with the far right - in British society, politics and media over the past two decades," Winter added.

The latest flashpoint came on Wednesday, when three opinion polls showed Labour enjoying what some dubbed as the "Burnham Bounce", marking the party's first sustained lead since Burnham entered Downing Street. Prior to this, Reform UK had topped almost every poll for more than a year.

On the same day, conservative-leaning newspaper The Telegraph published a report highlighting Equalities Minister Stephen Timms' appearance at a 2025 Labour Muslim Network panel discussion alongside Miqdaad Versi, a spokesperson for the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB).

The newspaper, which is staunchly pro-Israel, suggested the event was at odds with a longstanding government policy of non-engagement with the organisation.

The MCB swiftly rejected that characterisation in a statement shared with TNA on Wednesday.

The organisation said a series of freedom of information requests submitted to government departments had found that "no such policy appears to exist in writing at any government department approached".

"This so-called policy of non-engagement is a historic relic. It was built to appease those who trade in Islamophobia, and it survives only by recycling decades-old allegations that have never withstood scrutiny," the group said.

The MCB added that Burnham, Defence Secretary John Healey and Timms himself had all engaged with the organisation over the years.

For Mustafa Al-Dabbagh, the MCB's assistant secretary general, the debate says more about the government's political choices than the organisation itself.

"If the Government doesn't want to engage with the most representative, democratically elected Muslim body in this country, that's their loss, not ours," Al-Dabbagh told The New Arab.

"Muslims are part of Britain's demographic dividend, its youngest and among its fastest-growing communities. This so-called disengagement policy is a relic of the past, one that doesn't even exist in writing, just decades-old lies dressed up as policy," he added.

Muslims as a smear

According to The Telegraph, Conservative politicians are now urging Burnham - who has himself previously engaged with the MCB - to publicly distance himself from Timms' appearance alongside the organisation.

The report is the latest in a series of articles scrutinising members of Burnham's government over past interactions with Muslim organisations and Palestinians.

Last week, the newspaper criticised Solicitor General and MP Andrew Slaughter for meeting members of Hamas during a parliamentary delegation to the occupied Palestinian territories in 2010, more than a decade before the group's political wing was proscribed by the UK government. During the same visit, Slaughter also met members of Fatah, the movement led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Earlier this month, The Spectator argued that Burnham should not allow Labour Muslim Network chair Ali Milani "near power".

The Corbyn playbook

Winter said the pattern reflected a broader political strategy that echoed the attacks directed at Jeremy Corbyn's Labour leadership, particularly over its support for Palestinian rights.

"This appears to be an attempt to re-open the Corbyn era antisemitism/anti-Zionism issue," he said, describing it as an effort to implicate "the PM, Labour Party and government in support for terrorism against Israel and terrorism more broadly".

More fundamentally, he argued, British political discourse had reached a point where relationships with Muslim organisations themselves were increasingly treated as grounds for suspicion.

"The use of Muslims and links to Muslims and Islam as a smear to discredit a politician, policy, party or government has become normalised as Islamophobia or anti-Muslim hate have become normalised and mainstreamed - along with the far right - in British society, politics and media over the past two decades," Winter said.

He argued that sections of Britain's political class and media had helped shift public discourse further to the right.

"This attack on Burnham and his appointments can be seen to be an attempt to push Burnham to the right, create space for a Tory revival, and mobilise support for Reform and wider far-right politics," he said.

"He is not being given a chance to settle in and establish his politics – which are not very left or radical anyway. This is partly because of both internal party and external political pressures."

'Broader pattern' of media Islamophobia

The Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) says that  is part of a broader trend, in which "sections of the media have normalised framing Muslims and Muslim civic engagement as inherently suspect".

"The repeated use of an individual's Muslim identity, or simply their association with Muslims or mainstream Muslim organisations, as grounds for political suspicion should concern anyone who values fair and responsible journalism. Increasingly, we are seeing public figures subjected to insinuation rather than evidence, where engaging with Muslim communities or organisations is presented as proof of questionable judgement or divided loyalties," CfMM Director Rizwana Hamid told The New Arab.

"Such reporting reinforces the notion that Muslims occupy a uniquely problematic place in public life and that contact with Muslim organisations requires explanation or justification in a way that engagement with other faith or community groups does not," she added.

Earlier this month, the CfMM published a study on over 4,000 articles in The Spectator, finding that more than 2,100 pieces were either "biased" or "very biased" against Muslims.

"Journalists have an important role in holding those in power to account, but that scrutiny should be based on evidence and public interest, not on guilt by association or the normalisation of anti-Muslim narratives," Hamid says.