❓WHAT HAPPENED: Shahid Butt, a convicted terrorist, is running for a seat on Birmingham City Council in England.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Shahid Butt, a 60-year-old Muslim activist and convicted terrorist, and residents of Birmingham’s Sparkhill ward, which is around 84 percent Muslim and 92 percent non-white.
📍WHEN & WHERE: The Sparkhill ward in Birmingham, United Kingdom, with local elections set for May 2026.
💬KEY QUOTE: “Do not take the Jews or Christians as your friends and protectors… Stick with the Muslims, and for good or for worse, hold your ground.” – Shahid Butt
🎯IMPACT: The candidacy has sparked outrage, highlighting concerns over extremism in UK politics and the legal loopholes enabling such figures to stand for election.
A convicted radical Islamic terrorist who planned attacks on a British consulate and an Anglican church is standing for election in one of England’s ethnic enclaves. Shahid Butt, a 60-year-old Muslim activist, is seeking election in Birmingham City Council’s Sparkhill ward.
Butt was arrested in 1999 and later sentenced to five years in prison by a Yemeni court after being found guilty of helping form an armed group that planned attacks on the consulate, a church, and a Swiss-owned hotel. Reporting at the time linked him to an Islamist jihadi group accused of kidnapping 16 Western tourists in 1998. During the 1990s, Butt also joined an Islamic foreign fighters brigade aligned with the Bosnian army, and he was linked to a notorious Birmingham gang in the 1980s.
Now running as a pro-Gaza independent candidate in the Sparkhill ward, where an estimated 92 percent of residents are non-white and 84 percent are Muslim, Butt has urged Muslim youth to “work out at the gym and learn to fight” in preparation for potential attacks, and said on a recent podcast appearance, “Do not take the Jews or Christians as your friends and protectors… Stick with the Muslims, and for good or for worse, hold your ground.”
Councillor Russell Quirk, of Nigel Farage’s Reform Party, said Butt’s past should “disqualify [him] from standing for election.” Representatives of victims of Islamist violence have also condemned the move, with one source, who did not wish to be named, saying, “Allowing someone with this history to run for office undermines everything we stand for in fighting extremism.”
The Butt controversy comes amid heightened communal tensions across Britain, with recent anti-Israel protests occasionally turning violent and Jewish groups warning of increased insecurity. In October, a synagogue was attacked by a Syrian terrorist, leaving multiple dead.
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