Issue #188: The Labour Party Collapse Among UK Muslim Voters

Labour won the election, but lost ground in many seats

On Thursday, July 4th, Americans were celebrating independence day across the nation. People barbecued, hit the beach, and blew stuff up. My Independence Day holiday was actually celebrated on the 5th, however. I spent that Friday driving around North Florida and listening to a series on the American Revolution. Why didn’t I do that on Thursday? Because I spent my 4th of July watching the UK Parliamentary Elections.

That’s right, on the Independence Day in America, the United Kingdom went to the polls. The election marked the end of 14 years of Torie rule; with the left-wing Labour Party capturing a massive landslide, defeating the Tories by 10% and capturing 411 seats. The Tories followed with 121, the Liberal Democrats with 64, and a number of smaller other parties taking up the rest. This article is not, however, meant to go over the detailed election results. Much can be said about the rise of the far-right Reform UK, which took 14% and picked up 5 seats, or the collapse of the Scottish National Party, which fell to just 9 seats.

I dare not even try to compete with some of the excellent UK maps of the results that are out there. This map from a longtime Wikipedia mapmaker best highlights the results in full detail.

Much has also been said about the problem with the UK’s continued use of first-past-the-post voting when they have more than two parties vying for seats. I will leave much of that debate to UK politicos and analysists.

What I am here to talk about instead is the elections that took place in a number of specific districts. While most of the coverage has focused on the broad national results and what they mean, plenty has also been written about the major collapse for the Labour Party in heavily Muslim constituencies. Areas once a solid base of Labour support saw a handful of independents WIN seats and others saw Labour margins greatly reduced. My American followers will no doubt already be thinking of this in the context of the Democratic Party’s struggles over the issue of the Gaza war.

Watching the results unfold that night, I was keenly focused in on these heavily Muslim districts and what the vote would look like. With the results now in, I want to talk about what we saw.

A Very Fraught Subject

Now, a personal note. No issue, as I see it, inflames passion as much as the ongoing war in Gaza. As such, I imagine many readers may wonder if I am aiming to insert a secret spin or narrative in this piece. Let me short-circuit that by laying out these core positions of mine in the order that events unfolded. My goal with this piece is to discuss and important electoral development, but in the name of transparency, here we go.

• The October 7th attack was a monstrous assault on innocent civilians. I reject any notion that anyone is a “settler” and thus open to violence. I also reject efforts to downplay the violence that occurred or make excuses for it. I also reject any notion that Israel should cease to exist. You will never find me supporting the dismantling of a state or the mass removal of any people in any circumstance. Also if you think Hamas gives a crap about Palestinian lives, or is some great freedom fighting force, you are delusional or an anti-Semite.

• The response to the October 7th attack have been a horrifying example of “collective punishment” - carried about a far-right government that is filled with nationalists that seeks to use the attack to justify a cleansing of the Gaza strip. This is not the goal of all Israeli people or politicians, but is clearly the policy of the modern government; which is the most right-wing in the nations history. The Palestinian cause is legit and the people need a proper nation. The war must stop immediately. Every death is an affront to God (the same God that Jews, Muslims, and Christians all believe in).

As the protests in America, especially the campus protests months ago, showed, the issue is one that few are willing to calmly engage on. You either must take a “Israel can do whatever it needs” approach of a “this is a colonial state that should not exist” approach, and I reject both. My devout faith calls on me to reject the deprivation of life we see in the Gaza War and the pre-October repression of the Palestinian people; while also rejecting any notion of categorizing an entire people as “settlers” being treated as enemy combatants. I am also incredibly sensitive to the anti-Semitism that shapes some, but not all, of this rhetoric out there. As a major studier of the Holocaust and European anti-Semitism, I bristle at anyone discounting this history. Likewise I do not view past oppression as justification for carrying out your own oppression in the name of security. People are dying en-mass, and it needs to end.

The same heated rhetoric and simplistic discussion that has drawn ire in America has also taken place in the United Kingdom. As such, coverage around this issue and the races I am going to discuss has been laced with different framing or insinuations. I want to cut through that as much as possible to discuss an important electoral issue.

So if you haven’t already angry closed this newsletter and hit unsubscribe, lets dive in.

The Labour Party amid the Gaza War

Similar to the Democrats in America, the brutality of the Gaza war has led to a great deal of Muslim and/or left-wing anger from the Labour Party base. The UK is home to four million Muslim residents; 6% of the population. The Labour Party has routinely held strongholds in these communities. Israel/Palestine relations are not the only matter of concern for UK Muslims. These voters are broadly economically liberal, favoring a strong and well-funded National Health Service and investments in child care and education. As such, Labour’s move to the right (though broadly still center-left) under leader Kier Starmer has weakened the party with these voters while aiding them in more affluent suburbs. Whether a conflict between Labour’s economic shift and the concerns of voters in these areas would have come to a head is not clear. What is clear, however, is that the vicious attacks on October 7th and the Israeli Government’s response led to a rapid backlash with these voters.

Within weeks of the October 7th attacks, things in Gaza rapidly got out of hand. By mid-October there was already a desperate effort to stop the fighting as the body count rapidly rose in Gaza. Starmer did tremendous damage to Labour standing with Muslim communities when he initially stated Israel was within its rights to cut off water and aid to the Gaza population. Starmer tried to walk-back that comment in the days following and stated a need for compliance with international law, but the damage was done. The controversy led to Starmer attempting damage control by meeting with Muslim leaders and elected officials. In the wake of this controversy, several Muslim councilors resigned from the party. Just a month later, eight Labour front-benchers for the party resigned or were sacked after they backed a ceasefire resolution pushed by the Scottish National Party. The vote would fail but saw 56 Labour MPs vote YES despite the party line being to abstain or vote no. Through this, Starmer pointed out the Labour manifesto and he personally support a Palestinian state and a humanitarian pause. However, as the war in Gaza got increasingly brutal and the civil death toll exploded, these positions were not seen by many in the Muslim community and the broad left as good enough.

Labour’s problem with Muslim voters became clear in May’s local election. While these races; held for councilor seats across parts of the UK, saw Labour take hundreds of districts, it also saw cities with large Muslim populations go to independent candidates. These candidates ran specifically on the issue of not only Gaza, but the economic concerns voters feel. A growing sentiment that the difference between the Tories and Labour was non-existent when it came for issues important to them. Again this also includes economic issues; with Labour’s unwillingness to end the 2-child cap on the child tax credit a major source of left-wing anger. Muslim voters, many who talked about being lifelong Labour members, spoke of feeling “betrayed” by their party.

Coverage of this issue has revealed the same fault-lines that we see in America. Among those angry at Labour, you will find many principled and respectful individuals who care about the loss of life in Gaza. Likewise you will see people espouse anti-Semitic conspiracies and nonsense. On the other side, many will show a support for Israel that downplays the death toll as sad but unavoidable, while the racists have used this issue to argue for banning Muslim immigration and the like. The actions of any individual candidate or person should not be used to frame the entire “side” of this issue.

Now lets talk about George Galloway… unfortunately.

The Galloway Warning Sign

Before those local elections even occurred, the Gaza issue became clearly apparent when former MP George Galloway won the bye-election for the Rochdale Constituency; a district that is around 26% Muslim. This bye-election for a safe-Labour seat was complicated by the fact that the Labour nominee Azhar Ali saw his party support withdrawn after it was revealed he espoused the conspiracy theory that the Israeli Government allowed the 10/7 attack to happen. While Ali retracted that view, it was too late. Galloway, meanwhile, was running under the Workers Party and running exclusively on Gaza. Galloway has been in and out of parliament since the 1980s and is truly nightmare of a human being. His personal and political scandals are far and wide, with a Wikipedia page larger than some Presidents.

Galloway is a Scottish-born, so-called Socialist who may have converted to Islam but he is notoriously cagy on the subject. He has long campaigned on issues regarding Muslim voters; but broadly as an anti-interventionist, something popular during things like the Iraq war. However, Galloway is actually a defender of authoritarian states. He defended China on its Hong Kong crackdowns, defended Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, defended Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad, and said he’d like to live in North Korea. Despite framing himself as a backer of Muslim voters, he has dismissed the genocide of the Uyghurs Muslims happening in China. He is a fraud, a charlatan, and a horribly nasty human being. His supporters, those in the Workers Party, and before that the Respect Party, are also largely abrasive and nasty people.

Galloway also is very socially conservative, and got major controversy this year for say that he didn’t want his kid being taught that homosexuality was the same as straight couples. He is an avowed social conservative and his backing within the Muslim community comes largely from that social conservative bent. Liberal Muslims largely oppose him, and yes there is such divides within the Muslim community in the UK.

You can hear more about Galloway from left-wing streamer Vaush; who covered the LGBT controversy after it broke out.

Galloway’s war within the Muslim community was also seen in the 2015 when he lost his Bradford West constituency. This is the most Muslim constituency in the UK. While he’d initially won in a 2012 bye-election, winning under the Respect Party banner, he was trounced for re-election. In that contest, he secured just 21% of the vote while Labour candidate Naz Shah secured 49%. In the contest, Galloway accused Shah of lying about the fact she’d been forced into an abusive marriage while 15 in Pakistan (after being sent there by her mother to escape her abusive partner). His attack was that she was engaging in islamophobia by painting a negative picture of arranged marriages in Pakistan. There was no lie and the effort from Galloway backfired. It showed Galloway’s complete disregard for Muslim candidates who did not support him. His loss was hailed across the political spectrum.

With all this baggage, the fact that Galloway won that special in Rochdale, getting 39% in a very crowded race, highlighted HOW MUCH TROUBLE Labour was in with voters over Gaza. If Galloway could win, what would happen in the other districts?

The July Election Results

Now, as I said at the start, this article is not to look at the UK elections in detail. I am focusing on the effect of the Muslim vote. First, I wanted to see what were the most heavily Muslim districts in the country; all of this per the UK religion census. All of the biggest Muslim Constituencies are in England proper. Anything with a shade of purple is over 10%.

As the map shows, Muslim voters are heavily concentrated in specific communities; which is not uncommon in any nation for religious or ethnic minorities. Here I do want to acknowledged that yes, this Muslim verbiage covers a broad array of specific ethnic groups. The largest Muslim ethnic group is Pakistani (38%) followed by Bangladeshi (15%). No other nationality tops 10%. I don’t want to imply all Muslim voters think alike or are the same. But for the purposes of this piece, the grouping will show us some notable statistical relevance.

As I mentioned, this community has long been a Labour stronghold; with the first Muslim MP elected in 1997 as a Labour member. In 2019, a low point for the Labour Party; which saw them get trounced by Boris Johnson and the Tories, these heavily-Muslim districts remained firmly in the Labour camp.

The overlap of heavily Muslim districts and Labour support is clear. Until Gaza, much of this was driven by the Labour Party’s economic positions for aiding the working class and support for racial justice.

The Gaza war, as already discussed, upended much of this. Even before the 2024 elections began, an effort to recruit candidates to take on Labour began. Amid this, there was a divide within the community about whether to pressure Labour from within, or from the outside. An excellent look at the effort of Muslim activists and candidates can be watched below. I’d advice watching it to get a more detailed understanding over the economic issues as well and see a calm face of what is normally a very angry issue.

In many of the heavily Muslim districts, Labour members going for re-election were largely pro-Gaza ceasefire. Several were Muslim themselves. Still, plenty of them faced pressure or anger for standing with the Labour Party at all. As a result, even though many of these members would largely have a voting record that matched their constituents; it was their party label that drove them down in the polls.

Much commentary as been said that this reflects a “radicalism” in the Muslim community and the typical racist talking heads talk about “global caliphates” and all that islamophobia nonsense. But as most of my American readers would know, the idea of the Party label dragging down a candidate that otherwise matched the area’s ideology is not new. How many liberal New England Republicans have lost their seats? How many coal country conservative Democrats in West Virginia have been swept away? So this is not a new phenomenon by any means. The simple fact pro-Gaza Muslim Labour members faced challenges is not surprising; it reflects basic politics. How candidates and their supporters act is open to scrutiny, the presence of candidates running at all is not a legitimate case for “radicalization.”

So how did things go on July 4th? The Labour share of the vote nationwide actually only went up a little bit, but thanks to more parties running, that small gain yielded massive seat gains. Using the same color-scale as the 2019 map, here is how 2024 went for Labour.

What you see is two things; Labour increasing its share, crossing 20% in many districts, while clearly not getting the landslides in the Muslim heavy communities. No districts are giving 80%, and only 1 or 2 top 70%. In many Muslim districts the Labour share is well down.

This is even clearer when looking at if Labour gained or lost ground by district. Purple meaning a drop, emerald meaning a rise.

Here things become very clear; massive drops in districts with large Muslim populations.

The correlation is clear statistically. I looked at all districts over 15% Muslim and plotted the Muslim % with the drop in Labour support.

The larger the Muslim share, the bigger the drop, with a .74 correlation.

Amid these drops, while Labour retained nearly all these seats, they in fact lost FOUR to independents running on the issues around Gaza. Several members only held on thanks to splits from multiple independents running. Below I tracked the Top 25 Muslim districts in the UK, all originally held by Labour. I show the 2024 Labour share and the top two independents running. I also included Galloway’s Workers Party, which ran some candidates and backed independents in others. I also tracked the Greens, which broadly became a left-wing protest vote.

The drops for Labour across the districts is profound. The average was a 27% drop, but as you see it was sky high in several of the most heavily Muslim districts. The loss of four seats in this block was a major shift in the politics of these regions. In addition to this four flips, the London seat of Islington North saw former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn win as an independent.

Key Race Notes

All of the districts in my table have a notable story to tell; as do several other districts outside the top 25. I cannot possibly do justice to them all here; and am hardly an expert on the individual seats. I will leave such analysis to British writers. Meanwhile, if you want to see the names and details for any candidates or results, this interactive map has all you need.

There are a few seats I do want to talk about.

In Bradford West, the most Muslim district in the country, Naz Shah, who you will remember from my Galloway section, won re-election with just 31% of the vote. Shah has been a longtime backer of Palestine and has been very critical of the Labour Party’s stance on the conflict. She penned an open letter in January, “To the Children of Gaza, I’m sorry.” However, in a district where the anger at Labour might be the highest, she almost fell simply due to the party label (something she downplayed in her literature). Shah was subjected to nasty personal attacks that were caught on camera; though the attacks drew condemnation from other Muslim leaders. Just days after her victory, Shah was part of a panel on both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Her narrow win has been highlighted as how bad the Labour brand has been damaged within the Muslim community, as she would have surely lost if not for a divided vote.

In East Ham, Labour incumbent Stephen Timms, a white Christian, faces less of a challenge while maintain a strong pro Ceasefire stance from early on. This was a notable example where efforts to oust an incumbent were not as strong despite it being 43% Muslim. Timms, in his victory speech, hailed the lack of a decisive campaign. This was one of the classic examples of a member being able to maintain firm support; no doubt aided by being a very longtime incumbent since 1994. Timms actually was nearly killed in 2010 when an Islamic extremist stabbed him for his initial support of the Iraq war. This has been used by the far-right to scare monger, but Timms had maintained good relations with the Muslim community in his district. His 26% drop was far lower than other districts with a similar Muslim %, and many voters on social media even commented they were voting 3rd party just to show Labour they were unhappy while they knew Timms would would easily anyway. One commentary tagged Timms on twitter saying “nothing personal.”

I cannot possible talk about every race and do them justice. I don’t want to simplify this complex campaign and get something wrong. However, with a great deal of discussion going around about the tone and tenor of campaigns, I wanted to highlight two, One that reflects the good, the other reflecting the bad.

In Leicester South, a major shock was Independent Shockat Adam defeating Shadow Labour Minister Jonathan Ashworth, who would have been in the cabinet had he won. While Ashworth was seen as potentially having a problem, this was still a big get in a seat that is around 31% Muslim. Schockat Adam, an optician, perhaps articulated the view of Muslim voters the best in an article previewing the race. He said

It’s almost like a kick in the teeth from your own brother and family. Labour Party was our family, and unfortunately they didn’t support us at the time when we needed them.

Adam, like many of the other candidates running, discussed what the felt was a betrayal by the Labour Party. Like the others, Shockat also focused his campaign on cost of living concerns, not just Gaza. There concerns about the tilt to the right from the Labour party added onto the anger over Gaza. He also rejected ethnic block voting

“I grew up with people from the Hindu, Sikh, the white community, the Muslim community, It will be an absolute honour for me, from Leicester, who understands the heartbeat of this city, to represent every facet of it.”

As you see, a race like that one, while tense due to the situation, still had a respectable dialog.

This was not the case everywhere. Perhaps best seen in Birmingham Yardley, where Labour MP Jess Phillips held on narrowly in her 37% Muslim seat. Phillips was one of the eight front-benchers who resigned over the ceasefire vote back in November. By all accounts she is strong on the Gaza humanitarian issue.

However, she faced a challenge from Workers Party candidate Jody McIntyre, a Galloway clone if there ever was one. McIntyre and his backers were insanely nasty, harassing, and abusive on the campaign trail. Phillips, a leader on domestic violence issues in Parliament, described the campaign as the worst she ever faced. McIntyre, meanwhile, was uncovered having called transgender people a “danger to society.” Accusations of sexism permeating the McIntyre campaign; with him clearly taking from the more socially conservative Muslim voters.

In Phillips’ victory speech, the McIntyre backers were nasty and heckled the entire time. Phillips gets major girl-boss points for shouting these clowns down.

I want to say something btw. The comments of this video are filled with xenophobic replies: “oh this is multiculturalism” - “oh its only going to get worse.” I am not discussing this race to give credit to any of that crap. Different districts saw different campaigns and in this race is was bitter and mean. In others, it was respectful even when passionate. I highlighted two races to show both sides of this coin exist.

To me, its only fitting McIntyre came from the workers party; reflecting the toxic nature of Galloway’s arm.

And in a great piece of news for everyone, Galloway lost his chance for a full term in Rochdale, losing by 1500 votes. Closer than I’d like, but I’ll take it. Btw he’s now on twitter claiming things were rigged and also saying he wants to push a referendum to get the United Kingdom out of NATO. A lunatic until the end and an example of the toxic elements that can infect an otherwise legit movement (the end of the war in Gaza).

Final Thoughts

Well as I write this section I am already at 3,800 words and feel I’ve barely scratched the surface of this campaign or this issue. As these events have shown, it is an issue that yields strong passion, sometimes constructive and other times destructive. The campaigns in the heavily Muslim UK districts had varying messaging, negativity, positivity, and results; no doubt reflecting the complex issue at hand (to change the party within or not) and the different makeup of these voters both ethnically and economically.

But what was clear across all these seats was that the drop for Labour was clear; backing up the results from the May local elections. How the Labour Party reacts to this remains to be seen. I would venture, however, that more than a few Democratic Party operatives saw these results as their eyes turned to places like Dearborn, Michigan. What happens there in November, likewise, remains to be seen.