LEO MCKINSTRY: How the accountant elected as a Green councillor presented himself as a campaigner for local unity... but was quite the opposite

The Leeds branch of the Green Party presented Mothin Ali, one of its city council candidates in last week's local elections, as a benign, humanitarian campaigner for local unity and social justice.

According to the party's publicity, Ali, an accountant by profession, is passionate about 'tackling anti-social behaviour and community well-being', as illustrated by his involvement with horticultural projects, his activism against drug-dealing and his voluntary work at his mosque.

He was portrayed as a man who devoted himself to improving his neighbourhood and challenging bigotry.

The editor of Garden News, Simon Caney, whose weekly magazine regularly features articles by Ali, recently proclaimed: 'As gardeners we should all want a better, more sustainable world but that can't be achieved until we have a society that celebrates diversity and inclusivity.'

But the reality behind this bucolic, gentle image could not be more different, and it was fully exposed at the declaration of the municipal results in Leeds at the end of last week.

In the ward of Gipton and Harehills, Mothin Ali received just over 3,000 votes, winning the seat easily.

But instead of taking the chance to promise action on environmental issues such as hedgerows and pollution, Ali used his victory speech to express his uncompromising support for the Palestinian cause. 'We will not be silenced. We will raise the voice of Gaza. We will raise the voice of Palestine. Allahu akbar!' he cried.

Ali hailed his election as really 'a win for the people of Gaza', an echo of black Labour candidate Paul Boateng's boast when he was elected an MP in 1983: 'Tonight, Brent South. Tomorrow, Soweto.'

But Ali's inflammatory rhetoric belies the claims in his election campaign literature about 'inclusion' and 'community'.

A 42-year old graduate of Leeds Beckett university, he runs his own accountancy firm, which goes by the name of 'My Leeds Accountant'.

Married to Bangladeshi-born Selina, 36, whom he describes as 'the boss', he has three children: daughter Khadija and sons Tayyib and Zaky.

He likes to call himself 'an accountant by day and an Islamic teacher by night' and is a qualified 'Mufti' – an expert in Islamic law.

Much of his time outside his profession, however, is taken up with his enthusiasm for horticulture. A keen user of social media, he has since 2009 run an online video channel called 'My Family Garden' which is said to have 53,000 subscribers.

But in the hands of a political obsessive such as Ali, even gardening advice is turned into another tool of his political ideology. So in 2020, he established the campaign group Dig It Out, which he boasts is Britain's 'first horticultural equality and inclusion organisation'.

The group's mission is to work 'throughout horticulture, gardening and farming communities to challenge discrimination, encourage inclusive practices and argue for positive change'.

The group's website trumpets it as a 'safe space where victims of racial abuse can openly share their experiences with the hope that this will encourage more of us to speak out'.

Tellingly, he was a supporter of the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn, but he defected to the Greens when Keir Starmer took over and took on the Left-wing anti-Semites.

Indeed, there are fears among Jewish groups that the Green Party is now becoming a haven for pedlars of bigotry, as growing numbers of militant Muslims abandon their traditional support for Labour because of Gaza.

Certainly Mothin Ali's case is not unique.

In Bristol, several Green councillors have spoken of the 'Zionist enemy police', the 'Palestinian resistance' and Israel's 'apartheid', while throughout the country, but especially in the North, Muslim pro-Palestinian campaigners have been elected as independents.