A senior Green Party official has suggested that campaigners should “dress moderately” to appeal to Muslim voters.

Speaking at a fringe event at the Green conference in Brighton on Friday afternoon, Asma Alam, who works as the party’s executive campaigns coordinator, instructed campaigners to “wear a keffiyeh” and to “greet people with as-salamu alaykum” when interacting with Muslim voters. She also said that talking about Gaza and the Green Party’s position on the war with Israel while campaigning was important to winning votes.

Later in the event, Alam claimed that mosques had provided her with “undercover” endorsements. If registered as a charity, mosques, like churches and temples, are not allowed to endorse political candidates. She went on to say that the mosque had been so disappointed by the Labour Party that it “broke free” and announced that “we need to vote Green.”

Alam is a Green councillor for the Burnage ward of Manchester who has served in her national party role since September 2025. She joined the Greens in 2023 and shortly afterwards, in January 2024, set up the Muslim Greens Network, which aims to broaden the party’s outreach in Muslim communities.

The news comes as the Green Party faces backlash for a “Zionism is Racism” motion, which would become party policy if it is approved by members on Sunday. If passed, it would mean that members who support the right for a Jewish state to exist could face internal disciplinary action. Party leader Zack Polanski has not explicitly endorsed the motion, but at a campaign event last week claimed that Zionism was racist. Ex-party leader Caroline Lucas has criticized the motion, claiming that it is “divisive” and risks alienating Jewish voters.

The Green Party has previously been criticized for its appeals to Muslim voters. In recent weeks, Polanski has faced similar criticism from political commentators for his campaign ahead of next week’s Holborn and St. Pancras by-election, where he appeared in a video speaking Urdu. At the Gorton and Denton by-election earlier this year, the Greens received backlash from opposition parties when candidate Hannah Spencer urged Muslim voters to “make Labour pay” for its policy on Gaza. She was also criticized for appearing on leaflets written in Urdu, and for wearing a keffiyeh.