Aug 16, 2026 · 46 min · 12 segments
Have you ever wondered how someone wins an election without the backing of a political party? What would happen if we elected individuals rather than parties? And who were the five independent MPs…
Iqbal MohamedGuestSophieHost
You can disagree with my politics, you can disagree with my faith, you can disagree with the food I eat and how I speak, but you can't ever criticise the sanctity, the purity of my election and how I got to Parliament.
650 people we love to criticise without really knowing who they are.
Every week I sit down with MPs to meet the people behind the politics and build the first ever full portrait of Parliament.
Iqbal Muhammad, independent MP for Dewsbury and Batley since 2024, did something that is meant to be impossible.
He won a general election without a political party behind him.
And not only that, but a couple months before the election, he wasn't even actively involved in politics.
So a local mosque set up its own selection process to choose an independent local candidate.
So if you want to know about an alternative to party politics, about how to win a general election in under a month, and what it means to have a faith-based perspective on the world, then listen to Iqbal's story here, shared for the very first time.
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