A man convicted of Islamist terrorism and who has repeatedly targeted Jews and Israel is now seeking elected office in one of Britain’s largest cities.
At the center of the controversy is Shahid Butt, a 60-year-old independent candidate running for Birmingham City Council. In a statement Friday, the Campaign Against Antisemitism said Butt’s bid raises urgent questions about political accountability and public safety in Birmingham.
“A convicted terrorist who advocated for confrontation with Israeli fans and players at the Maccabi Tel Aviv match is running for a seat on Birmingham City Council,” the group said, referring to tensions surrounding a November soccer match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Aston Villa. “What is happening in Birmingham?”
The criticism centers on Butt’s past and his recent activism. In 1999, a Yemeni court convicted Butt of participating in a plot to bomb the British consulate and an Anglican church in Yemen. He served five years in prison. Butt has long denied the charges, saying his confession was extracted under duress.
More recently, Butt urged “all Muslims” to descend on Villa Park in November to protest the presence of Maccabi Tel Aviv players — a match that ultimately saw Israeli fans barred from attending amid security concerns. The decision to exclude those fans later became a flashpoint in a broader controversy over policing and communal tensions in the city.
“This should shock every voter in Birmingham,” the Hertfordshire Friends of Israel said in a statement last week. “It’s astonishing that someone with Shahid Butt’s history is even eligible to stand for public office.”
Birmingham, the U.K.’s second-largest city, has seen its Muslim population more than double over two decades — from 14 percent in 2001 to roughly 30 percent in 2021, according to census data — a demographic shift that has increasingly intersected with debates over foreign policy, policing, and community cohesion.
Danny Stone, CEO of the Antisemitism Policy Trust, said Butt’s conduct during the Maccabi Tel Aviv episode illustrates how local politics can be pulled into sectarian disputes imported from abroad. Speaking to TalkTV on Thursday, Stone warned that when such conflicts dominate civic life, “the results will be bad for all of us.”
Last month, Birmingham’s chief police officer, Craig Guildford, retired amid allegations that his force misled the public and manufactured evidence to justify banning Israeli fans, citing threats from Muslim and other anti-Israel agitators.
Butt’s candidacy has also triggered criticism from local politicians, particularly within Reform UK, the party led nationally by Nigel Farage.
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Slowly but surely, western democracies are paying dearly for their political correctness – Britain has already seen a [non-Jewish] member of parliament been murdered due to his pro-Israel support, and that was BEFORE OCT 7! Another Jewish member of parliament had his office torched and did not stand for re-election out-of-fear for his safety.