UK Election 2024: Labour punished over palestine by muslim voters despite landslide victory
A landslide win for Labour at the UK’s general election has been marred by significant losses to pro-Palestinian independent candidates who chalked up shock wins.
The pro-Palestine Independents picked up five MPs in shock victories as the party lost major seats in constituencies with large Muslim populations. Sir Keir Starmer is now British Prime Minister after Labour won 412 out of 650 parliamentary seats.
But Starmer’s overall vote share was lower than Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour result in 2019, with more than 3 million fewer votes than in 2017. The party’s landslide owes much more to the collapse of the Tory vote, much of which shifted to Nigel Farage’s ultra-right Reform Party.
Despite showing up well in the exit poll, Reform ended with just four MPs – outnumbered by independents supporting Palestine. The Greens also ended up with 4 MPs, helped partly by taking the Muslim vote and running on a pro-Palestinian campaign. According to an analysis, Labour lost an average of 11 points in constituencies where more than 10% of the population is Muslim.
Shadow minister Jonathan Ashworth lost his Leicester South seat; beforehand, it had a majority of 22,000, but he lost to Shockat Adam. The former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn stood as an independent after his suspension from Labour, and he won overwhelmingly, finishing more than 7,000 votes ahead of the Labour candidate. In Ilford North, shadow health secretary Wes Streeting had a scare with his majority slashed from more than 9,000 to 528 by British-Palestinian independent candidate Leanne Mohamad. Even Starmer’s constituency felt the pro-Palestine impact, with activist Andrew Feinstein finishing second and halving Starmer’s majority.
Where Labour lost Muslim votes:
Leicester South:
Independent Shockat Adam turned out to be the surprise victor over Labour shadow minister Jon Ashworth, proclaiming “This is for Gaza” after winning by 979 votes in a constituency where 30 percent of voters are Muslim.
Islington North:
Jeremy Corbyn, the independent, received almost 50 percent of the vote in the London constituency where he has been MP for over 40 years. Afterward, he issued a statement warning Starmer’s incoming Labour government “that dissent cannot be crushed without consequences.”
Blackburn:
34-year-old solicitor Adnan Hussain squeezed out Labour’s Kate Hollern by 132 votes — even though another pro-Palestinian candidate was running, making many assume this seat would have fallen away from Labour.
Dewsbury and Batley:
The independent winner, Iqbal Hussain Mohamed, thrashed Labour’s Heather Iqbal.
Birmingham Perry Barr:
Labour’s Khalid Mahmood, an MP close to right-wing think tank Policy Exchange, lost to independent Ayoub Khan by 507 votes. But although the following Labour MPs held on to their seats, their majorities were slashed dramatically:
Birmingham Ladywood:
Shabana Mahmood saw her majority fall from 33,355 to 3,421.
Birmingham Yardley: Jess Phillips, who quit the Labour frontbench over Gaza to support demands for a ceasefire, saw her majority tumble from 13,141 to 693.
Bethnal Green and Stepney:
Rushanara Ali’s majority over 31,000 was reduced to 1,689. Rounding out several independents and a pro-Gaza Workers Party candidate are running Labour figures close on the night. Meanwhile, in Chingford and Woodford Green, Labour expulsions of former candidate Faiza Shaheen gave Iain Duncan Smith an accessible seat for the Conservatives. Shaheen was a favorite to secure the seat for Labour.
Labor’s stance on Gaza—not least Starmer’s firstly stated support for the Israeli blockade of vital supplies—has been revealed as the single most pressing feature of declining Muslim support. Despite a belated call for a ceasefire in February, the damage to Labour’s relationship with the Muslim community appears far from repaired.
