Residents and business owners on Manchester's Curry Mile have rejected claims made by the far-right Restore party in videos filmed ahead of the Greater Manchester mayoral election, calling them unfair and divisive.
Restore's claims
In a video, Marlon West, the Restore candidate in the election, said: "If I'm honest with you, it's like being in a different country... The crime rate down here is really high." Rupert Lowe, the party's leader and Yarmouth MP, later added: "You look at the number of barbers shops and what appears to be, in my view, illegal trading going on here... The question is what are trading standards doing? What are the police doing? It's undermining legal businesses who are paying taxes."
Another clip featured activist Montgomery Toms describing Rusholme as an area that has been 'demographically replaced' before arguing with a cyclist who accused him of racism. The videos have had millions of views, with the Toms clip watched 3.5 million times on X alone.
Local reaction
Saman Surchi, 45, who has run businesses on the Curry Mile for 15 years, said: "It's not right. They say about illegal businesses, we are all legal businesses, we are all paying bills, we all have employees, families here for a long time. The UK is here for everyone, all cultures all religions, all different people. We are in Britain and we are British and we are happy to be here."
Sherko Montazeri, who manages a hairdressing equipment supplies shop, said: "They just want to use other people to get more votes, to get more power, more money. It's not fair, but what can you do? In this shop we are all immigrants. Maybe 1% of the immigrant community causes problems, 99% is not like that. We all emigrated to this country to live our lives, work, pay taxes. We're not stealing jobs, stealing benefits - it's not like that."
Changing street
The Curry Mile has changed dramatically over the years, with many old restaurants replaced by shisha bars, kebab shops and barbers. Immigrants from Afghanistan, Palestine, Somalia, Iran and Libya have joined the Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi businesspeople who have made up the majority of shops and eateries for decades.
Robert Wilson, 65, who has lived in Rusholme all his life, said: "When I was growing up, there was only two Asian shops... And now you've got the Bangladeshi community that came in and now you've got the Turkish and you've got all the kebab houses. It's changing all the time. I don't know if I can keep up with it anymore, honestly." He added that he feels "very victimized" walking the streets as a white man, saying: "I feel that I shouldn't be here, because they've made it like their area."
Morgan Lindop, 25, who moved to Rusholme a year ago, said: "Everyone loves the Curry Mile. I really like it. It feels pretty safe, everyone is really friendly... Sometimes it's a bit rough. There are a lot of homeless people round here, but that's not just a Rusholme problem, it's a problem everywhere in Manchester."
Political response
Former Rusholme councillor Rabnawaz Akbar blamed some of the area's issues on '14 years of austerity' but accused Restore of using Rusholme to 'sow seeds of division'. He said: "Of course, diversity is a strength... It's divisive politics. It's not about bringing communities together, it's about sowing seeds of division."
Armia Rostami said Rusholme had issues with crime but was no different to other parts of the city: "You can say what you want, everybody's got their own opinion, but at the end of the day it's a nice place... Everywhere's got crime - it's not just here."
Gillian Gosling, 73, a volunteer at Alexandria Library, said: "I enjoy it because it's vibrant, it's multicultural... I think the best parts of British society show how multicultural societies can work if we all respect each other and are polite to each other and respect each other's religious and cultural beliefs."
