By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, N.B.] Telegraph-Journal
Somewhat overlooked in the massive victory of the Labour Party in the July 5 British general election has been the ability of independents and Green Party candidates to gain votes and win seats based on their opposition to the war in Gaza. Labour lost five seats with large Muslim populations.
Muslims are estimated to form around 6.5 per cent of the population of England and Wales, with around 2 per cent in Scotland. According to a BBC analysis, Labour’s vote was down on average by 23 points in seats where 20 per cent or more of the population identify as Muslim. Well over 80 per cent of Muslims are believed to have voted for Labour in 2019.
When the group The Muslim Vote (TMV) was launched last year, it announced that its goal was to demonstrate that Muslim voters would ‘”no longer tolerate being taken for granted. We are a powerful, united force of 4 million acting in unison.”
Candidates backed by TMV beat Labour in constituencies with a high Muslim electorate across the country, from London’s Islington North, where the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn retained his seat after running as an independent, to Blackburn, where Adnan Hussein won in a town that had been Labour for 69 years. In Yorkshire’s Dewsbury and Batley, Iqbal Hussein Mohamed scored a victory over Labour’s Heather Iqbal of almost 7,000 votes.
In early 2024 Corbyn was barred from running for his seat and announced he would run as an independent. In 2019 Corbyn had been accused by a Labour party branch of personally engaging in anti-Semitic acts on nine occasions. The accusation was featured in a damning 53-page report filed by the Labour Jewish Movement, one of the oldest societies affiliated with the party.
He was suspended from the party, to which he had belonged for 40 years, in 2020. But he kept his seat, winning with 24,120 votes, beating the official Labour candidate Praful Nargund, who secured 16,873 votes.
Corbyn led the charge of the single-issue candidates who campaigned largely against Israel amid the ongoing war in Gaza. “I promise to always stand up for the people of Gaza, and for the only path to a just and lasting peace: an end to the occupation of Palestine,” he announced. He was rewarded with victory, with supporters greeting the news with cries of “free Palestine.”
Jon Ashworth, the shadow (that is, prospective) work and pensions secretary (minister), lost Leicester South to Shockat Adam, another pro-Palestinian independent endorsed by TMV. The constituency, where around 30 per cent of the electorate are Muslim, had been held by Ashworth for 13 years. He previously had a majority of more than 22,000. “This is for the people of Gaza,” Adam declared, holding up a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf.
In nearby Leicester East, the Conservatives benefitted from independent candidate Claudia Webbe, the area’s former Labour MP, picking up several thousand votes. She had been expelled from the party and is a vocal pro-Palestinian campaigner. The Tories won her former seat by 4,426 votes, which was less than the number secured by Webbe.
Other senior Labour figures in London ridings with large Muslim populations only narrowly held their seats. In Bethnal Green and Stepney, in east London, shadow small business minister Rushnara Ali, who was defending a majority of more than 31,000, beat independent candidate Ajmal Masroor by just 1,689 votes.
In Ilford North, Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, came close to defeat by Leanne Mohamad, who is the granddaughter of Palestinian refugees, winning what had been a safe Labour seat by just 528 votes. His majority in 2019 was more than 5,000. Mohamad, a TMV post asserted, is “the community’s real winner. You put Gaza back on the ballot. You’ve created history and given us incredible hope for the future.”
In Birmingham Perry Barr, Labour’s Khalid Mahmood lost to independent Ayoub Khan by 507 votes. But in next-door Birmingham Ladywood, shadow justice secretary Shabana Mahmood held off a challenge from independent candidate Akhmed Yakoob. However, her majority fell from more than 32,000 to 3,421.
One of the few defeats for anti-Labour supporters was that in Rochdale, where the Workers Party’s anti-Zionist firebrand leader George Galloway lost the constituency he had won in a by-election in February to Labour’s Paul Waugh.
The Green Party went from one seat to four, by pushing their Gaza position very strongly, after the party took three new seats, one from Labour and two from the Conservatives, and held their existing Brighton Pavilion constituency. They expanded their representation beyond their usual urban heartlands.
The party’s co-leader Carla Denyer unseated Labour’s prospective culture, media and sport secretary, Thangam Debbonaire, to win Bristol Central by more than 10,000 votes. The party took North Herefordshire by more than 5,000 votes, a more rural seat where the sitting MP was Conservative, Bill Wiggin, had a 25,000 majority in 2019. Denyer’s fellow leader, Adrian Ramsay, competing against the Tories in the new seat of Waveney Valley, won as well, with nearly 42 per cent of the vote.
The Greens have called for a “full bilateral cease-fire” and the suspension of arms exports to Israel. Labour backs a cease-fire, but not the end of arms exports, and Keir Starmer, the new Prime Minister, faces pressure to take a tougher line on Israel’s military operations. In its manifesto, Labour has committed to recognising a Palestinian state.
Will the new Labour government toughen its position in response to these results? We shall see.
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