“The new Lord Mayor of Bristol was a Somali REFUGEE,” fumed former academic turned hard right rabble-rouser and Reform candidate Matt Goodwin on Facebook this week, reacting to the news Green councillor Yassin Mohamud is to take on the historic role.
“Yassin Mohamud said that ‘unity was his biggest priority,’ according to the BBC,” wrote Goodwin. “He was sworn into office this May. This is the state of Britain in 2026. We should NOT have former refugees running our cities.”
Leaving aside the fact that Mohamud is not going to be running the city – the office of Lord Mayor is a ceremonial role with duties going little beyond opening fêtes and waving at carnivals, something one might expect a former professor of politics at the University of Kent to know – do all Goodwin’s colleagues share his view?
Mohamud, who has been a popular councillor for five years (unlike Goodwin, whose sole attempt at electoral politics was a flop), came to Bristol 20 years ago from Somalia to join his family, then already living in the city.
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In many ways, then, his story is similar to that of Nadhim Zahawi, who fled to the UK with his family from Iraq when he was nine years old and Saddam Hussein was rising to power. Zahawi went on to serve three teams as a Conservative councillor in Putney before becoming MP for Stratford-on-Avon, a junior minister, education secretary and eventually, if briefly, chancellor. His remarkable story is laid out in his book, The Boy from Baghdad.
If former refugees should not be running our cities, does Goodwin also think they should not be running the economy? And if so, has he discussed it with his colleague Zahawi – who, when defecting from the Tories to Reform in January, said of his new boss Nigel Farage: “If I thought this man sitting next to me in any way had an issue with people of my colour, or my background… I wouldn’t be sitting next to him”?
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