Andrew Bolt: Why Fatima Payman may be the sweet face of a dangerous new politics

Senator Fatima Payman’s selection by Labor has blown up in the party’s face and her rebellion tells us we’re at a very dangerous point — the creation of a new politics that could really tear our country apart.

Labor senator Fatima Payman is the sweet face of a brutal danger – a new politics that could really tear our country apart.

Payman is the 29-year-old who Labor, playing its stupid identity politics, apparently picked to seem more diverse.

She’s Muslim! Tick.

She’s a woman! Tick.

She’s young! Tick, tick, tick.

And it’s blown up in Labor’s face.

Now that Payman has been elected for six years on a Labor ticket and a $212,000 salary, she’s breaking Labor’s rules and hinting she’s about to quit the party, possibly for the Greens or, even worse, perhaps a new Muslim party.

Hear the great warning bell?

Labor senator Fatima Payman is the sweet face of a brutal danger. Picture: Martin Ollman

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has so far just suspended Payman from the Labor caucus for refusing to follow Labor’s stand on Palestine. She instead voted with the Greens to immediately recognise a Palestinian state. On Sunday she said she’d do it again.

Her stance is astonishing for two reasons.

First, she should know better than anyone not to do anything that gives comfort, albeit unintended, to Islamist extremists. After all, she’s seen what Islamist extremists did to Afghanistan, forcing her family to flee to Australia.

But here she is, mouthing a slogan endorsed by the Hamas terrorists who’ve beggared Gaza and want Israel wiped out “from the river to the sea”, demanding instant recognition of a Palestinian state of which Hamas nominally rules one half. The other is rule by Islamic extremists who haven’t held elections for 18 years.

The effect of Payman’s naive activism is that Hamas is strengthened. Picture: ABC

Payman may be against Hamas, wanting just an end to the war, but the effect of her naive activism is that Hamas is strengthened.

But, second, what Payman has done to Labor, and potentially Australia, is even worse because – unlike her posturing on Gaza – this will have real consequences.

Payman is now being treated as a martyr by our leading Muslim groups for what she calls her “exile” from Labor for supposedly standing up for Palestinians.

What’s more she’s hailed as evidence that Australia’s main political parties are anti Muslim, and that true Muslims need their own party.

She’s being used as a recruiting tool specifically by a new group called The Muslim Vote, headed by a prominent Sydney Imam, Sheikh Wesam Charkawi who has been attacking Labor leaders and politicians he reckons are too soft on Israel.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has so far just suspended Payman from the Labor caucus for refusing to follow the party’s stand on Palestine. Picture: Martin Ollman

This group, cheered on by the influential Lebanese Muslim Association, says it is open to working with Payman on a Teal-style campaign to get Muslim activists into parliament, and has already called for candidates. Some Labor MPs worry Payman will quit Labor and join this campaign, or set up a similar party herself. Just being “the” Muslim representative in parliament will be damaging.

That’s why she hasn’t been expelled by Labor already for voting against the party. That’s always been the rule – rat on Labor and you’re out.

But not this time, because Labor is terrified of not just offending the Muslim vote or the diversity police by sacking a woman in a hijab. It’s freaking that it would provoke the creation of a new Muslim party.

That’s a particular threat to Labor.

We have 151 seats in parliament’s lower house, and 29 have 5 per cent or more Muslims.

Of those 29 seats, 27 are held by Labor. They include Watson and Blaxland, both held by Ministers, and both with more than 25 per cent Muslim minorities.

More karma. Labor opened our immigration doors very wide and enjoyed the extra votes, yet now is accused of not doing enough for Muslims, not matter how much its bent over for their votes, especially by attacking Israel.

Senator Payman is being used as a recruiting tool specifically by a new group called The Muslim Vote, headed by a prominent Sydney Imam, Sheikh Wesam Charkawi.

The Muslim Vote website has a checklist of Labor MPs in marginal seats with Muslim voters and whacks almost all, including noted panderers,

Sure, laugh at Labor being blown up by its own ethnic politicking, but we all should be alarmed.

A party just for Muslims will be one more barrier to the community’s integration.

It will be a statement that the mainstream parties aren’t for Muslims.

It will – inevitably with such ethnic politics – thrive by promoting Muslim resentments and Muslim identity.

And what pushback would that provoke? Will we then get a hard line white nationalist or Christian party? A Jewish party? A Hindu or Aboriginal one, all stressing what divides us, all acting like victims?

Think of the foreign conflicts, like this Gaza war, that will be imported.

No, Payman’s rebellion tells us we’re at a very dangerous point, where our race or religion defines our politics – and our Australia identity comes last.

Originally published as Andrew Bolt: Why Fatima Payman may be the sweet face of a dangerous new politics