Despite colossal victory, Labour loses several seats, challenged in others by pro-Palestinian independents
While the British Labour Party scored a landslide victory, it has lost several of its safe seats to independent, pro-Palestinian candidates, while it saw its vote dip in several others, the BBC finds.
In total, five seats with large Muslim populations were lost by Labour, with one going to Conservatives and the rest to independents, according to the report.
Labour’s vote was down in electorates where over 10% of the population identifies as Muslim by an average of 11 points, the report says.
In the Leicester South constituency, Shadow Minister Jonathan Ashworth has lost his seat, which he held for 13 years, to independent Shockat Adam, where 30% of voters are Muslim.
Adam told supporters his win “is for Gaza,” the BBC says.
Labour’s Khalid Mahmood also lost his seat to independent Ayoub Khan in Birmingham Perry Bar, while seats usually dominated by the party were also taken by in Dewsbury, Batley, and Blackburn by independents whose campaign focused on the Israel-Hamas war, according to the BBC.
Candidates were backed by The Muslim Vote campaign group, which aimed to influence the outcome in seats where the Muslim population was large enough that it could hold sway.
TMV co-founders signed a pledge days after Hamas’s October 7 massacre, which sparked the ongoing war, to “reaffirm the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to resist Israeli military occupation, including the right to armed struggle,” The Jewish Chronicle reports.
A Labour Party source told The Chronicle that TMV’s success was concerning but it was too soon to say what kind of impact it would have on the incoming government’s policy.
Recently elected Prime Minister Keir Starmer has come under internal pressure over his stance on the war in Gaza from more far-left elements within the party and its supporters, which they deem to be not critical enough of Israel. Last month, the party pledged to recognize a Palestinian state as part of a peace process.
