Labour’s support among Britain’s Muslims fell by nearly a third at this year's general election over its stance on the war in Gaza, figures show.
Despite Labour’s landslide victory, securing a 174-seat majority, four independent pro-Palestinian candidates had shock wins in the election, including taking the seat of shadow secretary of state for work and pensions Jonathan Ashworth.
Another independent candidate, British-Palestinian Leanne Mohamad, came within 500 votes of defeating Wes Streeting, who is now Health Secretary.
The data produced in a report into the attitudes of Britain’s ethnic minorities by think tank UK in a Changing Europe reveals the extent to which many Muslim voters switched from their long-standing allegiance to Labour.
Labour’s Muslim vote fell by 28 per cent at the general election, described by the report authors as “a remarkable shift in political support”. In five of seven seats Labour lost, more than 25 per cent of the population are Muslim.
About 12 per cent of British Muslims voted for the Green Party, which won four seats, on the back of a campaign which focused on Gaza, including calling for a complete ban on arms sales to Israel, whose actions it called “genocide”.
“On the face of it, all these results seem to confirm the fears of many leading Labour figures that the party’s ambiguous stance on the conflict in Gaza angered voters in some of its most diverse constituencies, especially those with large Muslim populations,” says the report.
One of the report’s authors, Sophie Stowers, told The National the change in voting was “really significant”.
“By far the largest drop in Labour support of any ethnic group is in British Asian Muslims,” said Ms Stowers, a research associate. “We know that a lot of it is because of the party's response to the Gaza situation. When we ask people how they voted at the last election in 2019, we see that that shift in Labour support obviously wasn't really going then.”
Ms Stowers said that among British ethnic minorities in general there were shifts in economic and social attitudes. For example, many Muslim voters are socially conservative but believe in left-wing economic policies.
Many Muslims returned to Labour after the 2005 general election when the Second Gulf War meant many deserted the party, but that drift may not necessarily happen this time.
“If the axis of our politics tends to be around those cultural issues, there is a chance that a lot of British Muslim voters may look elsewhere, be that to independent candidates, to the Green Party or whatever alternative,” she said.
Labour’s problems with Muslim voters over Gaza came into sharp focus when leader Keir Starmer failed to back an unconditional ceasefire. He also gave a radio interview in which he appeared to suggest it was acceptable for Israel to withhold power and water from the territory.
Amid weekly large pro-Palestinian marches in London, the party also faced criticism for not supporting a ceasefire in Gaza but mirrored the former Tory government’s stance of backing a pause in fighting to allow humanitarian aid to flow.
Labour eventually tabled an amendment in the House of Commons calling for a ceasefire in February but by then polls began to show Muslims slipping away from the party, as a network of independent candidates was formed.
On election night in July, Shockat Adam declared “this is for Gaza”, as he toppled Labour front-bencher Mr Ashworth in Leicester South. Iqbal Mohamed, an independent who made calls for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war a key focus of his campaign, was elected in Dewsbury and Batley.
Former Liberal Democrat member Ayoub Khan, who resigned from that party after saying it prevented him from speaking out over Gaza, beat Labour by 507 votes in Birmingham Perry Barr. The former ultra-safe Labour seat of Blackburn backed independent candidate Adnan Hussain, who described his victory as a “protest vote on the back of a genocide”.
Regionally, Labour support among ethnic minority voters fell by 14 per cent in the West Midlands, and Yorkshire and the Humber, and 13 per cent in the East Midlands, all with constituencies where the party lost large numbers of Muslim voters to pro-Palestinian independents on election night.
Minorities report: the attitudes of Britain’s ethnic minority population also highlights a shift in voting patterns among the Hindu population.
The Conservative’s only gain on election night, one the report says “shocked most observers”, was in Leicester East, the constituency with the largest Hindu population in the UK.
Leicester East witnessed the biggest swing from Labour to the Conservatives of any seat in which ethnic minorities make up more than a quarter of the electorate, the report says.
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