Ali joined the
Labour Party at the age of eighteen, but left and joined the Green Party in 2020, following the beginning of
Keir Starmer's leadership of the Labour Party. He began campaigning for election as the Green Party candidate for the
Gipton and Harehills ward of
Leeds City Council in
2022; Ali was elected in the
2024 Leeds City Council election. This result was interpreted by Ali and some other commentators as a sign of local voters' dissatisfaction with the Labour Party's stance on the
Gaza war. Ali described his local election victory a win for the people of
Gaza amidst the Israeli invasion: "We will not be silenced. We will raise the voice of Gaza. We will raise the voice of Palestine." Following this, he shouted the
Takbir, which means "God is the greatest" in Arabic. He was investigated for the comments made in his victory speech. Ali is an anti-racism campaigner. He started the
DigItOut campaign, which aims to end racism in horticulture. This was a response to his own experiences of racism in the gardening world, including abuse he received on his YouTube channel, which worsened after the publication in 2021 of the findings of the
Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities. He is a long-standing critic of the UK government's
Prevent counter-terrorism strategy, arguing that it embeds Islamophobia. As of 2024, he was campaigning to make Leeds what he called a "city of belonging", modelled on the concept of a
City of Sanctuary. the following year saw him campaigning for improved consultation regarding changes to road layouts in his ward. For the
2024 West Yorkshire mayoral election, Ali was also nominated by his party to be the Green Party's pick to be deputy
Mayor of West Yorkshire in the event that the Green Party won. However, the Greens came third. In June 2025, Ali announced he was standing to be
deputy leader of the Green Party in the
upcoming election; he was elected in September that year.
Gaza After the
October 7 attacks, Ali had said that people should "support the right of
indigenous people to fight back" and said that "they are not victims, they are occupiers, they are
colonialists, they are European colonialists". The
Green Party stated that it would investigate Ali's comments. Ali was erroneously accused of taking part in the unrest by some far-right political commentators, Following the unrest, Ali organised community meetings, particularly developing his contacts with the local
Roma community.
Electoral performance May 2024 May 2023 May 2022 ==Personal life==