{"id":7004,"date":"2022-05-31T19:44:10","date_gmt":"2022-05-31T19:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ifg.local\/articles\/the-one-thing-muslims-need-to-ask-for-in-the-uk-2019-election\/"},"modified":"2023-08-25T17:10:13","modified_gmt":"2023-08-25T17:10:13","slug":"the-one-thing-muslims-need-to-ask-for-in-the-uk-2019-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.islamicfinanceguru.com\/articles\/the-one-thing-muslims-need-to-ask-for-in-the-uk-2019-election","title":{"rendered":"ONE thing Muslims need to ask for in the UK 2019 Election | IFG"},"content":{"rendered":"

Election season is upon us with its full might and fury. The media, marketing agencies and politicians are in overdrive. This is the month in which literally hundreds of billions are being bought and sold in exchange for votes.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As Muslims living in the UK, we need to be clear about what are thing things that we should be asking politicians for.<\/p>\n

Mend are a great NGO who have developed a whole raft of policy positions to put to politicians. You can access their full election manifesto here<\/a>. One particular pledge we like is name-blind recruitment. This has the potential to have massive impact on Muslim employment rates \u2013 given that a Muslim-sounding name is 3 times less likely [6]<\/a> to be called for interview otherwise.<\/p>\n

But at IFG our domain is much narrower: it is the economic and finance realm. We focus on this as it is what we know best, and we believe that wealth creation is essential for our community\u2019s overarching advancement.<\/p>\n

The One Thing<\/h2>\n

And we got thinking on what is the one<\/em> thing, that would materially change the economic position of Muslims? For context, Muslims are statistically amongst the poorest in society: almost half of the UK Muslims live in the top 10% poorest local authorities.[1]<\/a> Globally, Muslims are about 20% poorer than the rest of the world.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

What is that simple, but tangible and achievable one<\/em> thing that a politician can do which will help to lift a certain number of Muslims out of poverty over time? <\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How can we frame that ask so that it comes across as reasonable, achievable but also meaningful? And crucially, how can we as a UK community really get behind it and stand firm on it?<\/p>\n

\n

The candidate \u201cOne Things\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Before we got into the numbers, we had a brain-dump of all the potential \u201cone things\u201d that we could think of:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n

    Connectivity infrastructure projects across the North and Midlands<\/h3>\n

    (assumption being that as there are large pockets of poor Muslims in the North and Midlands, connectivity helps them to reach areas of economic activity and business. See this following great heatmap showing where the majority of Muslim-heavy constituencies are in the UK geographically, which illustrates the point nicely)[3]<\/a>: \"\"<\/li>\n

  2. \n

    Provide sharia-compliant business loans<\/h3>\n

    (assumption being loans help businesses to grow and this helps communities \u2013 but that sharia-compliant loans not being available is a deterrent to people setting up or growing their businesses. Anecdotally, we know there are plenty of small, family-run shops for example. But not many of these go on to be big. There do however appear to be some sharia-compliant financing available from the government right now<\/a>.)<\/li>\n

  3. \n

    Improve education standards<\/h3>\n

    (assumption being that education is low and higher education leads to better economic outcomes. Here is a U.S. government graphic<\/a> showing the unsurprising effects of more education on median wage and unemployment): \"\"<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      \n
    1. \n

      Support online skills training in places where there are no bricks-and-mortar jobs<\/h3>\n

      (assumption being that in places like London there are so many jobs you\u2019ll find something, but in somewhere like Blackburn, it might be easier if you can access the global online job market instead)<\/li>\n

    2. \n

      Provide sharia-compliant student loans<\/h3>\n

      (assumption being that higher education leads to better economic outcomes)<\/li>\n

    3. \n

      Make it compulsory for workplace pensions to offer an Islamic investment option<\/h3>\n

      (assumption being that Muslims who can save and invest better will have better economic outcomes.
      \nThe average advertised salary in the UK in 2019 is \u00a335,000 and each employer has to contribute a minimum of 3% of that, which is \u00a31050. This is literally free money you get as part of your pension and Muslims who don\u2019t get this will lose out around \u00a3105,000 over 30 years, assuming no further increase in salary and a 6% year-on-year return on the invested amount.
      \nHere is a graphic that shows the amount of money someone who doesn\u2019t have a workplace pension is leaving out on the table): \"\"<\/li>\n

    4. \n

      Support funds and investor networks that are not London-centric and can effectively target the poor ethnic minority geographic pockets<\/h3>\n

      (assumption being that massive transformative change can be brought about in regions through the success of just a handful of companies from that area, and the venture money that goes into the failures also helps grow the economy, the talent-pool ecosystem, and trains up future successful start-up founders.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Unfortunately, current private equity and venture capital firms do not effectively meet demand outside of London. Reporting on some research, the FT said<\/a>, \u201cthe research showed that equity gap was greatest in the East Midlands. There were enough eligible companies there to benefit from as much as \u00a3560m of private equity, according to the researchers, but they received just \u00a359m of investment.\u201d<\/em> This same research pointed to \u00a36.5 billion in unmet private equity investment demand across the UK.)<\/p>\n

      \n

      What criteria we are judging the \u201cone things\u201d against?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

      Okay, so we have a bunch of potential one-things Muslims should focus in on. But what is the metric that we are trying to maximise should the \u201cone thing\u201d<\/em> succeed?<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Financial prosperity (\u201cFP\u201d)<\/strong><\/span> \u2013 wealth creation has a positive impact on a community<\/li>\n
      2. The number of Muslims affected (\u201cMA\u201d)<\/span> \u2013<\/strong> we want to be able to help the widest number of our community with the \u201cone thing\u201d.<\/li>\n
      3. Messaging (\u201cM\u201d)<\/strong><\/span>\u2013 we want people to actually raise this point with their parliamentary candidates. You can\u2019t do that if the thing is so complicated no one can explain it without a Phd.<\/li>\n
      4. Ease of implementation (\u201cI\u201d)<\/strong> <\/span>\u2013 the ask mustn\u2019t be so difficult or remote or expensive for it to be impractical<\/li>\n
      5. Wider appeal(\u201cWA\u201d)<\/strong><\/span> \u2013 this election is for all of the UK and every MP has to represent a wide and often-conflicting electorate. So a campaign that is only going to benefit Muslims isn\u2019t going to have that wider appeal for an MP, making it the sort of thing only really high-density Muslim-area MPs would be interested in.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        For each idea, we have accorded it 1 point for each of the above criteria it ticks. The results are as follows:<\/p>\n

        Idea 1: Connectivity Infrastructure Projects<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

        Score: FP, MA, M, WA \u2013 Total: 4<\/strong><\/p>\n

        Notes: We feel that this will be championed by so many people anyway, that there\u2019s no real strategic value-add to Muslims specifically calling for this as the \u201cone thing\u201d.<\/p>\n

        Idea 2: Sharia-compliant business loans<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

        Score: FP, I \u2013 Total: 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

        Notes: This is, as we intimated, happening already to some extent. A lot more needs to be done, and this is genuinely impactful as an idea, but probably not one most Muslims know enough about to properly campaign for.<\/p>\n

        Idea 3 : Improve education standards<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

        Score: FP, MA, M, I, WA \u2013 Total: 5<\/strong><\/p>\n

        Notes:This is a really impactful \u201cone thing\u201d but the issue we have is that it will, like the infrastructure projects, be well-campaigned for by many others anyway.<\/p>\n

        Idea 4: Online skills training in low-job areas<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

        Score: FP, WA \u2013 Total: 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

        Notes: Implementing this will could be difficult, it doesn\u2019t affect the majority of Muslims, and, frankly, there are plenty of free learning options available these days.<\/p>\n

        Idea 5: Sharia-compliant student loans<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

        Score: FP \u2013 Total: 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

        Notes: As discussed in this article<\/a>, we think you should avoid a student loan as much as you can, but ultimately, if you\u2019ve tried to avoid it as much as you can, you can take it as a necessity. And very practically speaking, we don\u2019t know of a huge amount of Muslims who have decided not to go to university solely due to this reason.<\/p>\n

        Idea 6: Sharia-compliant workplace pension<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

        Score: FP, M (0.5), I \u2013 Total: 2.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

        Notes: Muslims might struggle a little bit to get up to speed quickly to effectively campaign for this point, and many Muslims have companies with providers who do provide sharia-compliant pension options, so we\u2019re not sure this will affect as many Muslims as some of the other options.<\/p>\n

        Idea 7: Promote investing outside of London and in ethnic minority pockets<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

        Score: FP, MA, M, I, WA \u2013 Total: 5<\/strong><\/p>\n

        Notes:<\/p>\n