Draft:Pro-Palestinian activism in the 2024 United Kingdom general election

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During the 2024 United Kingdom general election, the topic of the invasion of Gaza by Israeli forces was a major point of contention and discussion for various parties and extraparliamentary groups and organisations. The victorious Labour Party was especially criticised over previous stances on the conflict, and saw losses in vote share and seats in areas throughout England with large Muslim populations - with several Labour politicians, some senior, losing their seats or seeing their majorities precipitously reduced.

Six independent candidates were elected at the general election - the most elected at a general election since XXXX - four of which were so-called 'Gaza Independents', and another the re-election of veteran MP Jeremy Corbyn. These five all gained their seats from the Labour Party, with Palestine a key part of their campaigns.^[1][2]

The performance of the independents drew concern over their deleterious impact on the Labour vote, in particular as to the ongoing relationship between Muslim voters and the Labour party, and whether the party addressing issues - in government - that were the priorities of the electorate in general would be sufficient to ensure support returned, or at least maintained and did not deteriorate further. Contrasts were also made to Labour's ability to improve their support and image among Jewish voters, after years of antisemitism allegations, and also within the context of Islamophobic behaviours and attitudes in many of Britain's established political parties.^{[not verified in body]}

Politics lecturers and writers Timothy Peace and Parveen Akhtar argue that "[t]here is no such thing as a cohesive “Muslim vote” in the UK" - with "often a political divide between generations" - and that for "decades, Labour remained the party of choice for many British Muslims, but this had more to do with other factors including class and race".^[3] Research into the 1997 general election found "ethnic concentration and identification - rather than Labour's social policy positions - accounted for party choice among immigrant [communities]", and that "parties looking to attract [their] votes cannot simply appeal to [them] on economic interest grounds alone".^[4] In the context of the 2024 general election, Peace and Akhtar wrote that in spite of "caveats about the absence of a Muslim vote, history shows that Muslims will use the ballot box to send messages on both domestic and foreign policy issues", such as at, and in the run-up to, the 2005 general election - at which the governing Labour party saw its seat count plummet.^[3][4] Labour suffered electorally in the aftermath of Britain's involvement in the Iraq war, with it having "eroded trust in the broader agenda of the government among large numbers of its voters",^[5] but it was contended that the "conventional wisdom ... that Iraq explains the loss of Labour seats during the general election" is flawed, and "the Iraq effect was localized" (there being "no national trend during the elections", with a patchwork of Labour holding "vulnerable seats" and losing more safer ones).^[6]

There has long been a strong, potentially "disproportionate",^[7] relationship between Labour and ethnic minority communities^[8], stretching back to, at least, the 1960s due to first generation Muslims largely being factory workers and thus generating "strong links" with unions. By this time, "large communities from the West Indies, India and Pakistan were already established in London and several industrial cities" such as Birmingham and "many Lancashire and Yorkshire mill towns such as Bradford"; "large voting strengths were thus established over time" there, which "gravitated towards the Labour party and created strong political influences in many local government areas".^[9] This "affiliation" with Labour was "almost exclusive" until the early 2000s, when "dissatisfaction" with foreign policy decisions and liberalisation on gay rights saw a "gradual increase in support for the other two mainstream parties". At the 2003 local elections, Labour's drop in support was believed to be partly attributable to abandonment by Muslim voters, compounded by a boycott of the party - due to the Iraq war - encouraged by the Muslim Association of Britain.^[10]

This was also demonstrated at the 2005 general election; political scientist Sir John Curtice spoke of how Labour suffered "quite heavily amongst areas with substantial Muslim communities" due to the Iraq War, and "[2024] is not the first time that there has been a bridge between some people at least in the Muslim community and the willingness to vote for Labour."^[11] The "Muslim protest vote against the Iraq war helped to swing several constituencies against Labour"; some Labour MPs, including the then-Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, "had to fight tooth and nail to retain supposedly "safe" seats".^[3] Curtice also wrote that the Liberal Democrats "opposed the Iraq war and picked up a lot of that vote";^[11] despite being seen as a party for whom it would be generally electorally inefficient to attract Labour voters, they nevertheless tacked to the left on some matters during the years of the New Labour government and was successful in "gain[ing] protest votes" due to Britain's involvement in the war.^[12] The party notably won the safe Labour constituency of Brent East in a 2003 by-election - "when many Muslims voted against Labo[u]r in protest of the war" - and at the 2005 general election, Labour was estimated to have won 32% of the Muslim vote compared to over 70% in the previous two general election victories. It was suggested this was "a direct result of the Iraq war and draws a sharp limit on previous assumptions of common ground between Islam and Blair's Labo[u]r Party", but "there are only 17 electoral constituencies in Britain, out of 646, where a complete shift of the immigrant vote would be sufficient to unseat the incumbent MP".^[13]

George Galloway speaking at the Stop the War march in February 2003.

More minor, fringe parties, usually unable to gain significant traction under the first-past-the-post system,^[14] did see some strength as a result of ill feeling towards such an issue, however, with the formation of the Respect Party in the aftermath of the large mobilisations and protests under the Stop the War Coalition umbrella. The Coalition was "dominated" by the Socialist Workers Party,^[15] which Respect was largely formed out of and controlled by; George Galloway's involvement with the new party "gave it electability". While it was achieved no electoral representation from the 2004 local and European elections, it "enjoyed a strong showing in those areas of the country, such as East London and the Midlands, with large Muslim populations",^[16] and at the 2005 general election was the catalyst for the "[t]he major upset in that election"; George Galloway winning Bethnal Green and Bow in east London, unseating Labour incumbent Oona King - who had voted to support British involvement in the Iraq war - by "campaigning on an anti-war stance"^[3], as well as "an appeal to ethnic and religious prejudice".^[6] (Elsewhere, two sitting Labour MPs in Birmingham saw their majorities cut by over 35%).^[17] During his victory speech, he "dedicated his votes to the people of Iraq and warned Mr. Blair that 'all the people you have killed and all the loss of life have come back to haunt you, and the best thing the Labour party can do is sack you tomorrow morning.'"^[18]

Even though "any sort of organised Muslim backing was only ever conditional, it was always recognised that Muslim anti-war feelings were key to its support and success". Respect chose Tower Hamlets as their "main battleground", due to the substantial Muslim population (it is "home to around one-fifth of Britain's Bangladeshi population and is viewed as the cultural 'heartland' of the British Bangladeshi community"^[19]) and MP King's pro-Iraq war views. Galloway repeatedly stressed the party was concentrating on appealing to "Bengali voters through their Muslim identity", and Labour - aware of the party's threat and how Bengali voters constituted over half of the electorate - did the same, resulting in many voters not of an ethnic minority background feeling ignored; nevertheless, Respect, both during the election campaign and at subsequent local elections (such as in Newham too^[20]), campaigned on issues that transcended racial identity and divides.^[21][22] However, Respect's appeal in general may not have been entirely due to its opposition to the Iraq war - even if it "constitutes its origin and the primary theme that has galvanized the greatest numbers under its banner"^[23] - having "opposed the economic reforms implemented under previous [Conservative] and [L]abour governments and campaigned for their withdrawal". Researcher Christoph Ardnt suggested this demonstrates "that although left-socialist parties are marginalised under a [first-past-the-post] system, they may benefit from disaffection with Third Way social democracy under certain favourable context conditions"; however, "[t]his was not a lasting development", with Respect losing Bethnal Green and Bow at the 2010 election and becoming "marginalised due to internal quarrels after 2005".^[14] By 2010, Respect had "become a localised minor party" that struggled to field candidates even in areas of historic success and "stronghold[s] of political Islam [such as] in Birmingham", as "[m]any Muslims in its few strongholds have returned to Labour".^[24]

The ability for Respect to appeal on broad economic and social grounds - as "more than a one-issue party" - beyond its unifying anti-war was message was questioned. The party's foundations in support among Muslim voters drew fears that - as it would be reliant upon "Muslim votes and activism to deliver electoral results and successful grassroots activity" - the party would have to sacrifice established views on "traditional left-wing issues [and] socioeconomic interests" that would clash with "voters' sectarian interests ... in an effort to attract and sustain Muslim support along ethnic and religious lines", such as on rights for women and queer individuals.^[25] Eran Benedek and Sarah Glynn, in their respective journals, agreed Respect was left to "rely on opportunism" rather than building a proper base, and there was a "fundamental misconception that it would be possible to combine two different ways of understanding the world" to create a "shared vision for the future", causing the party to be "ideologically stillborn". Respect split in 2008, owing to ideological differences over the extent to which socialist policies should be prioritised within the party; the party "sidelined Left arguments from the start, precluding development of a Left political consciousness" and thus having "bequeathed a legacy of disunity and distrust amongst what remains of the left, and encouraged a wider politics that builds on and reinforces ethnic division". Glynn further argued that "[w]hen relatively weak Left organizations campaign alongside religious groups, they inevitably risk helping to boost those groups and religious ideas at the expense of themselves" with people "encouraged to take political action through their religious identity rather than as independent individuals, religious morality supplant[ing] potential socialist understandings, and religious loyalties cut[ting] across class-based organization". Glynn claimed such "type of political mobilization provides no basis for the development of a socialist political consciousness, and allows left political ideology to be sidelined as irrelevant and destructive of consensus."^[26] It was elsewhere argued centre-left parties wholesale have difficulty in simultaneously appealing to Muslim and more traditional working class voters, as "the tradeoff between including immigrant-origin minorities on the one hand while holding on to existing constituencies on the other is especially pronounced when it comes to Muslims" due to how "Muslims tend to be of relatively lower socioeconomic status, a position that can pit them against other low-income voters (traditionally core supporters of the Left)" with "voters who harbo[u]r such prejudice disproportionately belong[ing] to the working class" and so "further complicates the Left's outreach to an expanding Muslim electorate".^[7]

By the 2010 general election, the view is held that the 'Iraq war effect' had "disappeared", and that the war was not something that any longer particularly harmed Labour among Muslim voters. However, it was suggested that the Afghanistan war may have been a breaking point for some Muslim voters; as the war was supported across the parties represented at Westminster, "[f]or loyal Labour Muslim voters with long-standing suspicions about the Conservative party, this meant a betrayal on a highly salient political issue without a clear alternative", and thus "British foreign policy may have had a more lasting impact on political attitudes insofar as it represented, for some Muslims, a permanent detachment from the Labour party and greater scepticism towards politicians in general."^[17]

Labour's fraying relationship with Muslim communities was demonstrated in the 2021 Batley and Spen by-election - in which George Galloway was a prominent candidate - with Labour's candidate Kim Leadbeater harassed by campaigners in the street over her party's position on LGBTQ+ education in schools, a contentious topic among Muslim communities, highlighted by protests in the Birmingham town of Sparkhill throughout 2019.^{[citation needed]}

Following the 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel and Israel's subsequent invasion of the Gaza Strip, the Labour Party's position on the Israel-Hamas war was subject to intense scrutiny from different parts of the British populace. Left-wing, and Muslim voters expressed their anger at comments Starmer had made on LBC tacitly approving Israel's withdrawal of electricity and water to the Gaza Strip, as well as the party's decision not to support a motion in Parliament put forward by the Scottish National Party to call for a ceasefire.^[27] In mid-October 2023, a handful of Labour councillors quit the party, including Manchester councillor Amna Abdullatif - the first Arab Muslim woman elected to the city council - citing what she deemed "horrifying comments" made by "Keir Starmer and a number of his senior frontbench ... about Israel having the right to withhold fuel, water, food and electricity from the 2.2 million Palestinians trapped in Gaza, effectively endorsing a war crime".^[28]

The Guardian wrote in late October of how Starmer being able to distance the party under his leadership from Corbyn's - by "repudiating much of the legacy of his predecessor - but by "failing to put any distance between Labour and the Conservatives on an issue of importance to British voters, they believe he has played into Tory hands", and that "Labour is far more deeply divided on the question of how to handle the crisis, caught between a desire to move away from the antisemitism of the Corbyn years and the need to show solidarity with Palestinians and their own Muslim supporters". Despite receiving "plaudits from the right for his staunch defence of Israel, insisting the country had a right to defend itself from attacks from Gaza, and refusing to speak up against some of Israel's military tactics in the region", and that despite councillor resignations, Starmer had intiially "avoided any high-profile rebellions from within the parliamentary party". Despite this, his direction was critiqued by several members of his Shadow Cabinet, with Shabana Mahmood, Louise Haigh and Wes Streeting in particular warning that "Labour was at risk of appearing callous and of losing Muslim votes". There was also relative uproar after a "senior Labour source had been quoted as saying the resignations of Labour councillors was a sign the party was 'shaking off the fleas'." The chair of Labour Friends of Israel, Steve McCabe said that Starmer's "handling has been spot on", and that the party should ignore those who "warn you they are not going to vote Labour, from the day you are elected" and "accept there is a group of people out there who spend their time looking for reasons to leave and I would treat those comments with scepticism."^[29]

On 31 October 2023, Starmer made a speech in which he outlined that Israel must commit to international law, but said he did "not believe that it is the correct position now" to call for a ceasefire, claiming Hamas would use the "freeze [in] the conflict" to "start preparing for future violence immediately", and he advocated a temporary "humanitarian pause" instead. At the time, several senior Labour politicians - including the mayors of Greater Manchester and London, the leader of Scottish Labour, and over a dozen shadow frontbench members - had called for a ceasefire. Starmer also refused to support the UN judgement that Israel had committed war crimes.^[30] The next day, 330 Labour councillors - two-thirds of which were not Muslim - signed a letter addressed to Starmer urging him to call for a ceasefire, and that "the party's refusal to back the policy, ... is 'harming communities across the UK'".^[31] Later in the week, eleven Labour councillors in Burnley - including the council leader - quit the Labour group, citing Starmer's refusal to call for a ceasefire.^[32]

Hamza Yusuf wrote in the New Internationalist that "rather than offer an alternative and push for Israel to be held to account for a litany of war crimes, instead ensured a consensus of zealous support in Westminster for Israel's systematic ethnic cleansing of Gaza", citing examples of successive attempts by senior figures in the party to not label Israel's actions as war crimes. He outlined how this was not apposite with the public's view of the conflict, with polls showing majority support for the calling of a ceasefire and the cessation of arms sales to Israel.^[33]

In February 2024, a by-election took place in Rochdale, a constituency in Greater Manchester, following the death of Labour incumbent Tony Lloyd. Labour's candidate, Azhar Ali, was revealed to have made comments at a local party meeting claiming that the Israeli government had prior knowledge of the 7 October attacks and enabled them in order to have "the green light to do whatever they bloody want". Within a few days, Labour suspended him as their candidate - but after nominations had closed, and therefore he remained on the ballot; this also took place with the Green Party and its candidate.^{[citation needed]}

30% of Rochdale's population are Muslim, and with a track record of supporting the Palestinian cause with election wins in electorates in London and Bradford with substantial Muslim populations, politics lecturers and writers Timothy Peace and Parveen Akhtar judged it "unsurprising" Galloway chose the constituency "in his bid to return as an MP". It was argued this by-election was the "first where the issue of Gaza was explicitly raised on the campaign trail", and many Muslim - and non-Muslim voters - used it as a "chance to express their anger". Both said that by dropping Ali as their candidate, it harmed Labour's "standing among Muslim voters, in Rochdale and beyond", as "Labour's position on the conflict has been seen as too lenient towards Israel by many Muslim voters and Labour Muslim politicians". They concluded Galloway's victory would "certainly put pressure on Starmer and the Labour party to take voters' concerns about Gaza seriously" and that while the result "may not indicate more electoral consequences for the party, ... it does suggest moral ones."^[3]

In his victory speech, Galloway pointedly said "Keir Starmer, this is for Gaza", saying that Labour and the Conservatives represented "two cheeks of the same backside".^{[citation needed]}

By these elections, over 100 Labour councillors had left the party over its position on the Gaza conflict,^[34] and support for Labour among Muslim voters suffered. In the fifty-eight wards where over a fifth of residents identified as Muslim, the party's share of the vote was 21pts down on 2021 (the last set of local elections most of the seats up in 2024 were contested).^[35]

Labour's focus in the 2024 local elections was primarily on winning back support in areas of England that the party had lost in the years preceding the 2019 elections, specifically - as politics professor Rob Ford defined - "leave areas, more rural areas, more Tory areas, whiter areas" that had seen voter attrition under Corbyn's leadership (during which the party pivoted to the left and to Remain), areas in which this set of local elections saw them having "done better across the board". He caveated this with "trouble brewing up on their left flank", as Labour lost significant support in heavily Muslim areas and to a lesser extent in areas generally progressive-leaning and with a substantial number of students. Ford labelled this "progress at a price"; such sacrifice of urban areas where Labour had "traditionally done well" in order to shore up the party in "the more marginal parts of the country" was reported to be recognised internally, but also a party strategy.^[36]

The Financial Times remarked that the decline in support in "some areas with larger proportions of Muslim voters" was "a sign of the damage done by the party's [slowly] evolving position on the Israel-Hamas war", due to which it potentially jeopardised its chances in the West Midlands mayoral election,^[34] where the party had hopes to unseat Conservative incumbent Andy Street, considered "one of the poster boys of local Tory government".^[37] There was significant speculation Labour candidate Richard Parker could lose, primarily due to disaffected core voters opting for pro-Palestine independent Akmed Yakoob instead. Labour gained support in some areas of the region, but declined severely in Birmingham; a party source admitted Yakoob had garnered almost three-quarters of the vote in certain "inner city wards" there and had already declared that "in wards with lots of Muslim residents pretty much all of them are lost".^[34] Yakoob, who was endorsed by George Galloway,^[38][39] had appealed to "traditionally Labour-voting Muslims" who believed the party had "essentially supported Israeli collective punishment of Gazans, and largely overlooked the planned creation of further illegal settlements in the West Bank".^[40] During the campaign, Labour strongly condemned remarks made by a party source who labelled Hamas as the "real villains" because of the risk to Parker's campaign by Yakoob standing. Rakib Eshan of The Spectator wrote that this "provided a telling insight into the way some in the Labour party believe they are 'owed' the votes of British Muslims".^[40]

Labour won the election, by just over 1,500 votes, with Yakoob courting just under 12% of the vote;^[34] in Birmingham alone - where 30% of the population are Muslim^[41] - this was 20% - the highest out of any borough. Both the FT and The Spectator warned of how the re-election of several key Labour figures in the forthcoming general election could be jeopardised, namely Wes Streeting and Shabana Mahmood, with Yakoob having announced his intention to stand against the latter in her constituency,^[34] and that it Labour should be concerned that Yakoob - who lacked much coverage in mainstream media and did not possess "the scale of resources available to him that establishment-party candidates usually enjoy" - had "managed to win nearly 43,000 votes in Birmingham (compared to Labour's 80,000 votes)." Eshan pondered about whether British Muslims "need to take stock and ask themselves why they supported the party for as long and enthusiastically as they did", and that "the 'Gaza effect' [could] broaden into a wider conversation in Muslim communities about their fundamental tensions with the Labour party"; examples were the party deprioritising support for local, family businesses in "tight-knit, working class communities" for relationships with "big business", and allowing liberal voices on LGBTQ+ issues to "dominate". He questioned if, consequently, there was "space for religious social conservatism" in the party under Starmer's leadership.^[40]

Notably, Labour lost overall control of Oldham Council in the north-west of England after thirteen years, losing seats to independent candidates who "had run on a pro-Palestine ticket". Labour's national election co-ordinator, Pat McFadden, admitted the party's performance could be partly attributed to its position on Israel's actions in Gaza "in some places" - and that the party "will work hard to win back voters" who have left the party over the issue^[40] - but that "very local factors" causing loss of support stretching back years (specifically the council's handling of a child sex abuse scandal) were compounding any impact a 'Gaza effect' had there.^[34] Council leader Arooj Shah also attributed this to the party's loss in support, and that the Gaza conflict had added to the "toxic politics" and "pattern of divisiveness" that had taken root in the town in recent years, but that this was also common in "most Northern milltowns", which - also owing to austerity^[42] - have seen a "rise of independents because people think mainstream parties aren't the answer."^[43]

Nick Peel, Labour's council leader in Bolton, was more forthright, saying the fall in support - for both Labour and the Conservatives - was a "direct result of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Palestine".^[34] Labour lost two councillors there - one to the Greens, another to an independent^[43] - and failed to gain control of the council as hoped.^[42] Then-shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones, also conceded that the party losing Muslim support was a matter of concern, and that in areas with first-time independent candidacies that they had "attracted voters that we would want in the Labour family", and it meant "we've got more work to do to listen to and learn from and support voters across the country and try to persuade them to vote for Labour when they get the chance."^[37] When asked about the effect on Labour's success by voters rejecting the party due to its position on the conflict, Starmer spoke less directly about how he was "concerned wherever we lose votes" and concentrated on where they had won support,^[34] in "bellwether councils".^[40] Momentum, a left-wing intra-party pressure group that was at its peak under Corbyn and had declined in influence under Starmer, stated that it "should set alarm bells ringing", that "[a]ny party which takes its core vote for granted risks disaster sooner or later", and Starmer "should respond by getting off the fence" to support suspending arms sales to Israel and both recognise and condemn Israel's "ongoing war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank".^[37] Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer said she found Gaza was a doorstep issue, and claimed that Muslim voters moving across to her party was behind their success in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where they gained their first seats on the council.^[44]

According to BBC analysis, the Greens benefitted from a loss in Labour support in wards with "large" Muslim populations; Labour's "vote share in those areas fell 16 per cent compared with 2021, whereas it made 5 per cent gains nationwide".^[40] Other BBC analysis found that in fifty-eight wards where over a fifth of residents were Muslim, the party's share of the vote was "21% down on 2021, the last time most seats were contested".^[44] Political scientist Will Jennings reported that in "neighbourhoods with a Muslim population smaller than two per cent, its average vote share has gone up by an average of 1.5 per cent compared with last year," while in "council wards where more than five per cent of the population identifies as Muslim, the party has suffered reverses, seeing its support decline by 2.2 per cent".^[37]

The Workers Party won four seats on Labour-controlled councils; two in Rochdale, one in Calderdale, and one in Manchester; in the latter, the party's victorious candidate defeated the council's Labour deputy leader.^[44] This was below the party's hopes - having aimed to significantly eat into Labour's majority on Rochdale council, which Galloway had declared in his by-election victory speech - but Galloway nevertheless said he was "a happy man ... as happy as inside Keir Starmer is unhappy because he's lost a very key part of the demographic make-up."^[45]

BBC News said that while impact on Labour in a general election was yet "unclear", there was "some evidence the biggest drops in support are largely confined to areas where the party's support was already very strong", but that "any adverse reaction was less prominent in London", which it attributed to mayor Sadiq Khan having called for a ceasefire before Starmer. In London, Labour's vote was "up by three points on average in parts of London where more than 15% identify as Muslim, compared with 4.5% where the proportion is less than this".^[44] Arguing more concretely, political research director of pollster Savanta, Chris Hopkins, said the swing from Labour in areas where it had suffered one was not "large enough at this stage to affect them at a general election”. John Curtice concluded that the local election results pointed to "'a battle between Labour and the Greens' for progressive or left-wing voters [...] particularly ... among younger people, particularly in university towns, [and] perhaps also among some of the Muslim communities".^[42]

In her constituency of Bradford West - a majority-Muslim constituency - incumbent Muslim Labour MP Naz Shah said there was a sense of "betrayal" among Muslim voters to her party, a party they would habitually support and vote for, but believe is "no longer their home". She, akin to "colleagues in other fiercely pro-Palestinian constituencies" had "minimised Labour Party branding on her election material". Despite being - according to journalist Sam Blewitt - one of Parliament's "most prominent Muslim MPs [and] has been a longtime advocate of Palestinian rights, [Shah] now finds herself begging voters not to withdraw their support". It was reported West Yorkshire Police were investigating after Shah was being filmed and followed by someone labelling her a "dirty, dirty Zionist" and "genocide supporter". Blewitt said that the "multiple independent candidates running against Shah on pro-Gaza tickets will likely split the opposing vote" and cause her to hold her seat, but "her majority could well be shredded in a result opponents hope will send a strong message to the Labour leadership".^[46]

In Bristol Central, incumbent Labour MP Thangam Debbonaire was fighting off the Green's candidate, the party co-leader Carla Denyer. Debbonaire argued that how "Labour should be voting while in opposition is beside the point", and that a "party of protest can protest about motions which [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and Hamas have taken precisely no notice."^[46]

This section needs expansion with: more on individual candidate campaigns. You can help by adding to it. (July 2024)

An organisation called The Muslim Vote endorsed the four successful Independent candidates, as well as others including Corbyn and Galloway. Its coordinator, Abubakr Nanabawa explained that "[w]e really have seen Muslim communities stand up and say that, you know, if you want to represent us, then you have to represent our policy positions, [which] goes beyond Gaza", citing the two-child benefit cap and the state of the NHS as one of the two most frequently raised issues of Muslims "across the country".^[47] Originally, the organisation endorsed three Labour politicians - Afzal Kan, Naz Shah, and Yasmin Qureshi - who were "among those to defy Starmer" by voting for a motion in favour of supporting an immediate ceasefire in November 2023. After "a lot of feedback from the community" it revoked these, and announced it would endorse no candidate from Labour or the Conservatives due to leadership positions on "the continuing genocide in Gaza".^[48]

It was reported the organisation thought there were "almost 100 [seats] where Muslim voters can sway the outcome", predominantly marginal seats fought between the Conservatives and Labour, but over twenty-five "where a unified Muslim vote could determine who the MP is, beyond the two main parties". Prospect reported it was "especially focusing on the 55 constituencies with a Muslim electorate over 10 per cent, where an MP abstained or voted against backing a ceasefire in Gaza", and its endorsement of independents and third-party candidates in such places were "[b]ased on feedback from local communities".^[49] With specific regard to its campaign in Ilford North, The Guardian reported that "feeling strongly about Palestine is one thing and getting people to act on it during an airless and uninspiring election campaign is another", and that they "had a truck just outside the park with a rolling digital-advertising banner urging passersby to channel their frustration and register to vote". They summed up their "campaign's challenge [as] to reconcile two impulses: high feeling about Gaza and low engagement with electoral politics", and that "Palestine has become a political frustration, distancing people from not only the Labour party but also mainstream politics in general. But the issue has also served as a bridge, a way to build solidarity and ties between loosely connected people who share broadly similar minority profiles, living conditions and experiences of precarity."^[50]

In response to the so-called 'Gaza Independents', Hamza Yusuf wrote that "a memo is spreading that appears unequivocal: voters won't be tricked into backing representatives that have been complicit in a genocide, and are keen to create new people-powered movements to counter them."^[33]

Birmingham Perry Barr

Ayoub Khan was a Liberal Democrat councillor, but quit the party "after being told he had to 'hush up' about Gaza if he wanted to be a candidate for the constituency" and was criticised "by the party leadership for posting a TikTok video that questioned the credibility of what happened during the Hamas attack on 7 October". He was influenced to stand "'following the reluctance to be silenced on the topic of Gaza'" and "the cost of living, crime, antisocial behaviour, homelessness, unemployment, and health services would all be 'key priorities' for him if elected".^[51]

Birmingham Ladywood

Akmed Yakoob announced his decision to stand in the constituency in early May, having previously proclaiming that voters were "fed up" of the traditional political parties and he was an "alternative". He was reported to have spoken on a TikTok video he produced that he had contributed to the "beginning of the end of the Labour Party in the Midlands and Birmingham".^[52]

Birmingham Yardley

...

Blackburn

The victorious candidate in Blackburn was supported by 4BwD (Blackburn with Darwen) group on the local council, which constituted councillors that had resigned from Labour, and currently are the opposition to the Labour administration.^[53] Adnan Hussain, as well as on Palestine, campaigned on "helping small businesses and enterprises in his community create better opportunities for young people and support vulnerable people".^[51]

Dewsbury and Batley

Independent candidate Iqbal Mohamed was selected via a local primary process, which was run by an "independent panel" of "community groups dissatisfied with the status quo", namely the North Kirkless Community Action Group and Independent Kirklees. The panel initially shortlisted nine, which was reduced to four that took part in hustings.^[53] Mohamed's selection resulted in other independent candidates for the constituency pulling out, while it was reported Labour had been accused of "attempting to split the seat's Muslim vote by fielding Heather Iqbal, who is from nearby Bradford".^[54] Mohamed spoke of his intention to "fight not only for a ceasefire and a two-state solution, but also to tackle the cost-of-living crisis, fight to save the NHS and Dewsbury hospital, fund all essential services, town regeneration, safer streets and environmental and consumer safety and protection".^[51]

Holborn and St Pancras

Independent candidate Andrew Feinstein opined that the voters he encountered who "care about Gaza [was] much wider than" just Muslims, due to the "progressive" nature of the constituency. He told The New Arab that "[a]ll young people I speak to, regardless of background ... [Gaza is] the first issue they ask me about".^[48]

Ilford North

Independent candidate Leanne Mohamad, a British Palestinian and formerly a Labour member, said her "top priorities" were to "bring about a ceasefire in Gaza and implement an arms embargo against Israel".^[50] She insisted throughout her campaign that she was not a protest vote, but had a realistic chance to win. Her grandparents were displaced by the Nakba. Prospect summed up her support in that "Muslims here seem to like her because she’s Palestinian. Non-Muslims like her because she’s local".^[49] Nesrine Malik in The Guardian labelled her a "real contender" due to the decline in incumbent MP Wes Streeting's majority in the past two elections, as well as an estimate by the group endorsing her, The Muslim Vote, that the number of Muslims living in the constituency were five times his majority at the 2019 election.^[50]

Leicester South

Shockat Adam said that if he was elected, he "would give the people of Gaza 'a voice and call out for their safety and call out for the cessation of selling of arms to Israel'. He also stated that on top of campaigning on Palestine, he was "also concerned with protecting the NHS, promoting affordable housing, helping the youth and education, enhancing the city's business landscape, educating community safety and crime prevention, as well as tackling the cost-of-living crisis."^[51] Adam has a history of work in the community, having become chair of Leicester's branch of Muslim Engagement and Development in 2018, at which he campaigned for Leicester Council to adopt a new Islamophobia definition, as well as supporting Black Lives Matter and Islamic burials conducted according to COVID rules in 2020. The group has been criticised for refusing to label the 2017 Westminster attack as terrorism, and was "identified by Michael Gove as 'of concern' as he outlined a new definition of extremism", something Adam rejected. He campaigned for former Labour MP Claudia Webbe in 2019.

He was disturbed by Starmer's comments in the LBC interview in which he said "Israel had the right to defend itself by cutting off power and water from the Gaza strip", the clip of which "went viral within the Muslim community of Leicester". Adam called Sunak and Starmer "two cheeks of the same mouthpiece" after both men "expressed concern about pro-Palestine protests". He spoke at a rally in November 2023 naming several mainstream politicians and declaring that "we will not believe your lies in the media ... we will remember this, and we will not forget this". Adam's brother Ismail Adam "helped organise rallies of tens of thousands across the country through Friends of Al-Aqsa and, closer to home, 'helped arrange a conversation for Jonathan Ashworth with organisations and mosques in Leicester'", a reportedly "combustive meeting in which the MP failed to persuade the room of his position."

Adam was also endorsed by another organisation in late June, YouElect - a "'non-profit organisation' whose stated goal is combating political disengagement and promoting voter registration" in Leicester - which declared Adam its "top rated candidate" after conducting "rigorous research", and funded adverts for his campaign on social media. It was later revealed that YouElect's founder was Ismail Adam; although he no longer runs the organisation, and reportedly holds no position of power in it, he continues to partake in campaign material.^[55]

At the general election in 2019, over 80% of Muslim voters supported the Labour party,^[56] which The New Arab commented was "reinforcing the historic links that were forged after the mass migration of workers from Pakistan in the 1950s and 1960s."^[57] In early June 2024, a poll of Muslim voters - conducted by Savanta for Hyphen - found this was at 63%, and the party had lost "almost a quarter of its Muslim vote to other parties" since the 2019 election. It also found that "Muslims and the wider population were largely aligned on the policy issues most important to them" at the general election, with the NHS, inflation, the cost of living and the economy ranked as the issues of the greatest priority among both groups.^[35] Sunder Katwala, director of thinktank British Future, remarked this demonstrated that while evidence of Labour "slip[ping] backwards in support among that demographic group in particular was of a 'surprisingly big impact' at the local elections, such evidence in the national polling [was] of a surprisingly small impact", and concluded that "might be because voters are thinking strategically about the use of different elections."^[58] Shabna Begum, head of the Runnymede Trust (a think tank dedicated to race equality), warned of thinking of "Muslims as a bloc vote, as a monolith community", and that "the war in Gaza is not the only issue Muslim people across the country care about, and neither can we assume that such a diverse community of people will share the same perspectives on those other issues which matter to them."^[11] Timothy Peace added that the "swing towards Labour from former Conservative voters showed that the 'Muslim vote' [...] resembles the national vote", and Muslims are "like everyone else — there are middle-class Muslims, working-class Muslims, and Muslims who voted Conservative because they want lower taxes".^[35]

However, the poll also found 44% of Muslims said the Israel-Gaza conflict was among their five biggest concerns, with 21% ranking it their "most important election issue"; this contrasted to 12% and 3%, respectively, in the general population. Additionally, for those who ranked the conflict in their top five concerns, among Muslim voters 86% "would consider backing an independent candidate running on the issue", compared to 64% for those in the general population.^[35] Anealla Safdar of Al Jazeera outlined there were "four main options for pro-Palestine Britons who feel neither Labour nor the Conservatives represent their views – to abstain or spoil the ballot, to back an independent candidate running on a pro-Palestine platform, to vote for the Liberal Democrats, or ... to give a nod to the Greens even though they are forecast to win less than 10 percent."^[11] Another poll, conducted by ARPAN, found "more than one in ten Brits say that supporting Palestinians in Gaza will be one of the most important considerations when casting their vote with almost a quarter (24 percent) aged under-35". With specific regard to young voters, Alam Anam of The New Arab wrote that young people, who would be the "natural support base for Labour" in light of the Conservative Party's long record being off-putting, were thus "confused" by the "pro-Israel stance of Starmer"; consequently, they were put in a quandary, compounded by how in the UK "two major political parties ... dominate the political landscape" and "it is highly unlikely that a powerful 'third party' will emerge from the election, however, important figures running as independents stand a good chance of taking seats and making their voices heard in parliament".^[59]

Ahead of Labour including the recognition of the state of Palestine as part of a concerted effort towards a Palestinian peace process in their election manifesto, Timothy Peace remarked the pledge resembled "an attempt to regain Muslim and left-wing voters", and represented a shift in Labour's position on Gaza from saying "Israel had a right to defend itself, to moving to this position of a ceasefire but with lots of conditions, and now apparently recognising Palestinian statehood [was] an admission by the party that they really got it spectacularly wrong on Gaza." He commented that he doubted the ability of pro-Gaza independents to be elected in several constituencies, due to the large majorities of the Labour candidates.^[35] Katwala said "Labour would be trying to persuade Muslim voters both with its general message of change and overall policy offer, and its specific manifesto policy to recognise a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution", he himself admitting that the "Labour party is losing votes among Muslims and not any other group, but is probably more popular among Muslims than any other section of the electorate" and opined that "the [Muslim] student active group is deserting Labour, [while] their mums and dads and grandparents are probably sticking with Labour much more."^[58]

It was reported in mid-June 2024 that Labour were encouraging activists to campaign specifically in thirteen seats they held where Muslims were at least a fifth of the electorate, notable given its other "campaigning efforts [were] mostly being concentrated on Conservative and SNP seats in an attempt to secure a potentially record-breaking majority". Of the twenty-eight English constituencies where Muslims were at least a fifth of the electorate - all Labour-held - the party's website told prospective volunteers and canvassers to campaign in thirteen of them - three out of the four Birmingham seats, and both Luton and Bradford seats, but only one of the eleven seats in London with large Muslim populations (Bethnal Green and Stepney, the successor seat that George Galloway won at the 2005 general election due to anger over the Iraq war).^[58] Ben Walker and Finn McRedmond of The New Statesman asserted that Galloway's chances in Rochdale at the general election may be harmed by the probable higher turnout than at the by-election, and "a comfortable win could also close the idea – much-touted after the by-election – that Labour's position on Gaza would jeopardise its general election chances". They attributed this possibility to a reduction in news coverage of the conflict in Gaza or how domestic issues would be more likely to weigh on voters' minds than, compared to the by-election, there be one prevailing issue, commenting that "Galloway's original victory may come to look like a temporary protest, not a permanent rebellion".^[60] Journalist Nicholas Watt reported on Newsnight that while Labour, internally, was concerned about the impact of reaction to Gaza against their vote in certain seats, they believed those at risk had such large majorities their position was relatively safe.^[61] Sir John Curtice agreed with this view, while Muhammed Menan, founder of Palitics - an "online tool that uses data and AI technology to inform voters on how to challenge Labour's predicted win" - said that the lack of "political experience and community consensus", as well as "credible alternatives" from the Liberal Democrats and Green parties "dilutes the impact" on independents, especially in places where more than one stand, thus running against each other and "further splitting the vote".^[11] Politics lecturer Christopher Kirkland also agreed, mentioning also that there was a floor in support for the Conservatives and Labour in the majority of seats, with some "pretty secure" votes for more minor parties like the Liberal Democrats.^[62]

A poll conducted by the Arab Voice Campaign in late June found that support for mainstream parties was very low among British Arabs, with the party performing best among such voters being the Workers Party, which polled at 38%; this was followed by 15% "for independent candidates running on a pro-Gaza platform", with 12% for Labour and Greens at 9%. A fifth of such voters had not yet decided their voting intention. Also among the findings was an expect rise in turnout among British Arabs, with 30% of survey respondents intending to vote for the first time.^[63]

BBC News analysis stated that the party's vote was down 23pts in constituencies where over 20% of the population were Muslim.^[64]

One seat with a substantial Muslim population, Leicester East, was also lost from Labour to the Conservatives - the Conservatives' only gain at the election - due to former Labour MPs Keith Vaz and Claudia Webbe standing as candidates for a minor, localist party and as an Independent respectively.^[64]

N.B.:

• Candidates with a † next to their name were endorsed by The Muslim Vote.
• Independents endorsed by The Workers Party are marked with a ‡.
• Constituencies with both a Workers Party candidate and a pro-Gaza independent (that attains a noteworthy percentage of the vote) are marked with a ¤.

The following is not an exhaustive list of candidates endorsed by The Muslim Vote; only candidates with a significant proportion of the vote are included. Endorsement information is as per Endorsements in the 2024 United Kingdom general election.

The results in Birmingham Yardley and Ilford North were of notable significance due to their MPs being senior Labour figures who only narrowly won their seats.

In Chingford and Woodford Green, the incumbent Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith - whose constituency was marginal in 2019, and consequently was at very high risk of losing his seat (with initial BBC election night coverage suggesting he less than a 1% chance of holding it) - retained his seat with an increased majority. This was due to the left-wing vote being split; Labour had deselected its original candidate Faiza Shaheen, who stood for the party in the seat in 2019, over her social media activity. The reaction to this was of intense anger, and Shaheen announced she would mount an independent run; she came a close third to the Labour candidate.^{[citation needed]}

The Guardian noted that in Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley, previously perceived as one of Labour's "safest seats", the two independent candidates "won more votes combined than Labour, suggesting the party might have lost if just one independent had stood".^[65] This was also the case in Bradford West.

No candidates from the Workers Party were elected. George Galloway lost his Rochdale seat, coming second. He failed to attend the result declaration, where the victorious Paul Waugh was heckled during his speech.^{[citation needed]}

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (July 2024)

At his victory speech, Ayoub Khan "wore a scarf filled with the Palestinian flag and dedicated his win to the people of Gaza, saying his campaign had been about justice, fairness and equality, whether it was a local, national or international issue".^[51]

Adnan Hussain, in his speech "said he promises to 'make your concerns about the injustice being inflicted upon the people of Gaza be heard loud and clear in the places where our so-called representatives have failed'", and his win was "for Gaza. I cannot deny that I stand here as the result of a protest vote on the back of a genocide". He was critiqued during the campaign after a speech he made at a rally in 2014 in which he called for Israel to "burn"; he clarified this as having spoken "from a place of very high emotion triggered by what I very clearly state in the speech in question - a genocide," and "he was calling for a boycott of Israel and his reference to burning should be 'interpreted in this vein'."^[51]

Shockat Adam, the victorious independent in Leicester South, rebuked claims he would be a 'single-issue' MP, and that he "was very cognisant of making this more than a one-issue campaign", explaining that the housing crisis and waiting times in the NHS were key parts of his campaign. Speaking to The Observer about his victory, he also rejected accusations that the strong Independent showing reflected a rise in "sectarian voting", commenting that "people are doing is exercising their democratic rights for the things that they're concerned about and [those] people in certain positions of power and in the media weaponise terminologies, causing division between communities," citing the election campaign in the seat as "another example of that, when involvement by minorities or involvement in the political system by Muslims is seen as a threat for some reason, whereas all they're doing is exercising their democratic right and being part of the democratic process." He also said he had encountered "apathy" and "disenfranchisement" on the doorstep, with many voters keen to clarify that Adam was neither from Labour or the Conservatives demonstrating how "just feel that the two parties don't represent them." Adam's campaign rejected claims from Labour that the party's activists had faced "intimidation and harassment" from his campaign.^[47]

Iqbal Mohamed, who was victorious in Dewsbury and Batley, opined that he believed "we have actually taken our democracy back", and that "people have woken up [and are] now looking at what these parties and previous politicians have or have not done and they are making informed decisions". Nevertheless, he spoke of being "hopeful that the Labour government will be fairer than the last Tory government when it comes to investment and levelling up and actually targeting their support to the more deprived areas across the UK."^[54] He stated that "his win was due to 'a combination of several things,' not just his pro-Palestine stance".^[51]

In a post-election interview with Channel 4 News, Thangam Debbonaire said, despite having "succeeded" in winning the election, the party did not successfully put on record, and "craft a narrative" regarding, (she and) her party twice voting for a ceasefire in Parliament - and she was "collateral damage" as a result. She warned others may become such too if they did not spend enough time "working their constituencies trying to rebuild trust", that the party was "storing up trouble for those colleagues who did make it over the line", and "the lack of a strong narrative had consequences" with regards to Parliamentary colleagues and staff being threatened by members of the public angry over the issue of Gaza.^[66] She accused the Greens of having "used the same playbook" as Reform and some victorious Independents, of "saying things that are actually not true but sound good"; she said this in regards to Green Party leaflets referencing her having voted against a ceasefire motion - which she explained was due to hostages not being mentioned - and so it was hard to convince voters that she voted twice in favour of a ceasefire subsequently on the doorstep.^[67]

As Debbonaire also said in less direct language, Jonathan Ashworth told Sky News that his opponent, Shockat Adam's, campaign was run "on the basis of a foul, obnoxious lie" that he was personally responsible for genocide. He told of "bullying and intimidation" from Adam's campaign towards himself and members of his campaign team, and that the "change" voters of the constituency would see would be due to a Labour government and not an "impotent, independent opposition MP". In response to criticism from Ashworth prior to the interview, a spokesperson for Adam said he was elected by a "diverse coalition" and his work for his constituents would not be "distracted [from] by sour grapes from a beaten rival whose divisive politics were resoundingly rejected at the ballot box".^[68] Ashworth separately condemned The Muslim Vote for its approach to the election, to "punish MPs" than "effect change on a set of policy issues". He spoke of having to flee from protestors directing verbal abuse at him through megaphones in a vicarage for three-quarters of an hour, and that a Palestinian member of the Palestinian Heritage organisation who campaigned on his behalf was accused of "not being a real Palestinian".^[69] He also denounced the sharing of videos disseminated by Adam that criticised him being shared by far-right activist Tommy Robinson.^[70]

Gabriel Pogrund of The Sunday Times described Ashworth as having "made himself a lightning rod for criticism within the Leicester community by following the party line and declining at first to vote for a ceasefire as Starmer sought to mirror US foreign policy". Ashworth reportedly "received a letter from a group of local Muslim leaders asking for an explanation as to why he had shared a tweet by Starmer expressing solidarity with Israel immediately after Hamas's atrocities." Ashworth also claimed he was banned from mosques and madrassas, and local residents had suffered "intimidation outside polling stations", as well as campaigners for Adam delivering leaflets in an aggressive and intimidating manner. Leicestershire Police is currently investigating many of the leaflets disseminated during the campaign that criticised Ashworth, which did not feature detail of whom promulgated the material and the campaign of which candidate it originated from, and as such subverted the Representation of the People Act 1983. Pogrund summed up the election campaign as being that of how "Ashworth seemed unable to dissuade constituents of the widespread notion he was a supporter of genocide".^[55]

Victorious Labour MP Rushanara Ali, the first British Bangladeshi elected to Parliament and whose majority was cut by over 35,000 votes, spoke to BBC News about how activists harassed her campaigners, and that "attempts to "intimidate people into not supporting the Labour Party” had "destabilised" her campaign". She also revealed that she had received death threats, regular protests outside her campaign office, to the point she needed support from police protection officers. She alleged that various groups were "weaponising ... legitimate anger" about events in Gaza; she had been criticised by Ajmal Masroor, who came second, about her abstention on a vote calling for a ceasefire, but Ali insisted that she "consistently called for an end to hostilities and Labour's stance was always aimed at achieving peace in the region" - and despite this "campaigners used the issue to try and turn a significant Bangladeshi Muslim community in the area against her". She claimed local mosques told those attending that a vote for Labour or "one of the other mainstream parties" meant that "you're not a good Muslim". In response, Masroor rejected any link between, and condemned, those abusing or threatening Ali - asserting that he had been victim of intimidation himself - but that "it is also wrong to turn a blind eye to Palestinians who have been massacred." The Metropolitan Police confirmed four people had been arrested on "suspicion of committing offences whilst campaigning for the general election" in Ali's constituency of Bethnal Green and Stepney.^[71]

Other female MPs reported abuse, and a conspicuously increased police presence at their counts. Jess Phillips, of Birmingham Yardley, was heckled throughout her victory speech, in which she "recounted how during the campaign a community activist went out to canvass with her, but was filmed by people in the street and had her car's tyres slashed", a "young woman on her own delivering leaflets was filmed and screamed at by a much older man in the street" and that she had to reject offers from the family of murdered MP Jo Cox from accompanying her to campaign on election day because "[t]There is absolutely no way I could have allowed for them to see what was aggressive and violence in our democracy". She went on to argue that those verbally abusing her during her speech made "a really good spectacle of proving" how the UK was in "desperate need" of having its "politics ... clean[ed] up". Shabana Mahmood similarly utilised her speech, saying that she, her family, and her supporters had been harassed, and "some people had sought to "deny" her Muslim faith"; the campaign, she argued, was one "sullied by harassment and intimidation", behaviour she called an "assault on democracy itself". Both praised their interactions with the police during their campaigns in light of their experiences requiring their involvement.^[72]

Mish Rahman, a member of Labour's National Executive Committee - the party's ruling body - recounts feeling embarrassed at being openly affiliated with, and encouraging close family to vote for, Labour and "lays the blame for the decline in Muslim voting for Labour squarely at the door of the Labour leader", with Muslim voters feeling "betrayed" by the party in Labour moving more towards the policy on Israel supported by both the (then-Conservative-led) British and American governments. He claimed that the party is "institutionally Islamophobic" with an "anti-Muslim slant", but that it was part of a "clear hierarchy of racism in the Labour Party" in which Islamophobia was not "taken as seriously" as it should be, and not "limited to its response to events in Gaza".^[56]

Editorial fellow at Prospect, Imaan Irfan, wrote that despite The Muslim Vote having only five months to organise prior to the election, "a third of its endorsed candidates won or came second in their constituencies". However, according to Irfan, the campaign admitted "vote-splitting cost it seats", such as in Bethnal Green and Stepney where despite Labour's majority being reduced by 95%, "the opposition vote seemed split between smaller parties and Ajmal Masroor, a TMV-endorsed independent". The group's spokesperson, Abubakr Nanabawa, said it "absolutely" achieved its goal "to prove parties could 'no longer assume they would win the Muslim vote' and would instead have to 'earn it'." Irfan wrote that "strong feelings around Gaza—and the sense that both parties are complicit in the humanitarian catastrophe there—played a powerful role in unifying opposition votes" but many commentators have "disingenuously framed this as a religious issue, rather than a humanitarian one". Faisal Hanif from the Muslim Council of Britain's Centre for Media Monitoring, expanded on this, declaring there was a "hierarchy of racism" where it is assumed that "Muslims voting for issues important to them are somehow a danger and not integrated."^[73]

Baroness Shaista Gohir, the head of Muslim Women's Network UK and who originates from Birmingham, spoke of her concern "observing what has been happening to the female candidates in areas [with] a significant Muslim electorate", and that "[m]en have also experienced abuse, but it was much greater for women - they are seen as easy targets, they have been intimidated, harassed" in a way "almost to try to put them off from politics [and] sending a message to women not to get into politics."^[72] Former Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands Andy Street, on LBC, labelled it "an extremely unfortunate development that we've got this single-issue faith-based politics" - decrying it in favour of a "politics [that] should be utterly secular" - and resolving the "single issue" of Gaza should be hoped for so to engender its "removal".^[74] Callum Hunter, of polling group J.L. Partners and chair of North West Hampshire's constituency Labour Party, propounded in an article for LabourList that "[t]he fracturing of the vote on the left" between pro-Palestine independents and the Greens "presents both a challenge and an opportunity for Labour", as the international "push for a ceasefire might defuse one of the critical issues that led to these defections". He expressed his hopes this meant "these pro-Palestinian candidates lose their distinct platform as hostilities end" so to allow Labour to "potentially reclaim these lost votes, strengthening its parliamentary position."^[75] Political science professor Maria Sobolewska clarified that it was "definitely clear that many Muslim voters abandoned Labour this election [and there] is no doubt that this is because they do not trust Labour on Palestine," but that it did not "represent a major electoral realignment of Muslim voters," referencing "a similar loss of support among Muslim voters following the Iraq War in 2003 under a Labour government".^[57]

Megan Manson, head of campaigns at the National Secular Society, wrote that the "call for a general election predictably sparked a flurry of wishlists for the next government from myriad groups", but that "this election's lobbying frenzy was overcast by a worrying shadow of sectarianism", pointing to different religious groups publishing their own manifestos to advance certain causes, policies, and codes within their respective religions, and also in which they "made some barbed references to sections of other religious communities"; Manson concluded that such "suggests cracks between British religious communities are widening". She criticised candidates in their having "rushed to embrace faith-based politics", including endorsing the faith-based manifestos, as well as how "[s]ctarianism, particularly in connection to the Israel-Gaza conflict, also underpinned appalling campaigns of abuse and threats against candidates". She argued the "lack of separation between religion and state creates unequal citizenship", and allows "powerful forces which threaten to split our communities apart and pit them against each other" to be allowed to do so, "for the sake of votes", an "approach [which] will not heal divisions" but rather "entrench the notion that religious communities should compete with each other, rather than work for the mutual benefit of all UK citizens of all religions and beliefs".^[76]

Left-wing political commentator Owen Jones argued that the success of candidates running on a pro-Palestinian platform could allow Labour MPs on the left to be more vocal on the issue, and other concerns prioritised by likeminded voters, and thus stymie the leadership's ostensible attempts to "purge" the left as they aim to avoid further losses of support and elected representatives.^[77] He argued further that left-wing, Green, and independent MPs should, while defying party leadership if applicable, form a 'progressive caucus' within Parliament to advance like-minded causes that defy party lines.^[78] In response to the result in Chingford and Woodford Green, a spokesperson for Momentum described it as an "embarrassing own-goal by the Labour leadership", and the consequences of "the political costs of riding roughshod over the rights of Party members".^[79]

Many had pointed to controversial views and comments held by the many pro-Gaza independents. Akmed Yakoob in Birmingham Ladywood "was revealed to have made misogynist comments and joked about domestic violence".^[47] A The Sunday Times investigation found that Shockat Adam was supported throughout his campaign by Majid Freeman, a "local agitator" who chased Jonathan Ashworth while he was campaigning and filmed him; Freeman "has since been arrested and charged in connection with unrelated terrorism offences".^[55]

Christian Edwards of CNN said that "while a surge in votes for independents elsewhere denied Labour a victory in areas they were expected to win" and "rais[ed] questions about its foreign policy positions", there was only a "small dent in its otherwise huge majority".^[27] The scale of the threat was contrasted by The Guardian's Josh Halliday, who compared the possible hardship Labour may have in rewinning trust among Muslim voters to the party's struggle to regain footholds in their erstwhile bastion of the red wall - ex-industrial areas in the North of England - prior to major losses there in 2019, commenting that "it is striking how closely the Muslim community's desertion of Labour resembles the collapse across the 'red wall' [which], too, was about voters feeling taken for granted and it was an erosion in support catalysed in the second half of the last decade by Brexit, Corbyn and Boris Johnson. Gaza has had a similarly profound effect".^[80] The Guardian also noticed such comparison and that in 2019, "while surrounding bricks in the 'red wall' fell to the Tories, Blackburn looked rock solid – credited, at least in part, to the loyalty of south Asian voters."^[65] Sam Blewett of POLITICO summed it up, commenting that "in 2019 it was voters in Labour’s former heartlands in the North and the Midlands who offered a sharp reminder they should not be taken for granted [while] in 2024 it's a very different set of Labour voters demanding their voices be heard."^[46]

Election results in 2017 and 2019 in North East England. Commentators compared the backlash from Muslim voters against Labour in 2024 to that of voters in the 'red wall' (safe Labour seats in Northern England) in 2019.

Luke Tryl, the director of polling and campaign group More in Common, spoke on Twitter of the risk of assuming Labour's response to the war in Gaza was the "sole cause" of Muslim voters drifting away from the party, and also made a comparison to how "Brexit act[ed] as a trigger for Red Wall voters leaving Labour" rather than being the single reason why,^[81] citing focus groups he conducted in which Muslim voters voiced their opinion - and the "broader point" - that Labour were taking them "for granted [and] their communities had been neglected", in a similar way in which Red Wall voters spoke of the party after the Brexit referendum.^[82] He made the point that the 'Gaza Independents' making Gaza the forefront of their campaigns fomented that they were "more likely to [be] see[n] as proper champions for their community who'd stand up for them [and] not the Labour Party", in a similar way to how the Conservatives made delivering Brexit the centrepiece of their 2019 election campaign and thus made significant inroads into historical Labour strongholds,^[83] the party having repositioned in favour of a second referendum and thus - as with Muslim voters and the party's position over Gaza - engendered a narrative that core voters were not "being listened to".^[84] He added in an article for LabourList that in many focus groups, participants "told us they had no faith in politicians nor in any party to sort out the problems the country faces and felt, even if unfair, that most politicians were only in it for themselves", and that this "discontent is also clear on the left with the shock wins for many independent candidates and defeats for Labour candidates, in many cases off the back of profound feelings of neglect among Britain’s ethnic minority communities".^[85] Prior to the election, political scientist Tariq Modood commented that while Palestine is a "long-term issue" with Muslims, "right now it has a very powerful immediacy", and Muslim "identification with the cause is intergenerational — it extends to older Muslims, middle-aged Muslims and young Muslims. There is a deep concern and hurt in how the west has ignored the injustice of Palestinians in favour of supporting Israel."^[35]

Aleem Maqbool, religion editor for BBC News also drew a contrast between Labour's success among Jewish and Muslim voters, specifically with how the party has improved its performance among the former in light of the antisemitism allegations that dogged the party's previous leadership while it loses support and "trust" among the latter group - especially in light of the significance of the 7 October attacks - and how Labour's response is viewed - in different ways to, and by, both religious groups.^[56] Sam Ashworth-Hayes of The Telegraph suggested that the "most significant result" from the general election was not the performances of the Conservative and Reform parties, and the split in the right-wing vote both contributed to, but "the return of sectarian politics to England". He wrote that the results had "proven Suella Braverman right" when she had "warned that multiculturalism had failed, allowing people to live 'parallel lives'", and Britain's "high levels of immigration and at best imperfect integration" leading to the "creation of enclaves with very different interests to the country around them [and] without assimilation aligning the interests of communities, democratic politics can become a simple function of which particular group happens to be the largest in any area". While conceding that it is not the case "Gaza is not central to our national politics", it was the election's "defining election" for a "significant minority" and concluded that "elections [being] fought on the basis of narrow issues appealing to the interests of specific groups rather than broader issues of concern to Britain as a whole [...] should be a wake-up call to us all", citing the example of centuries-long sectarianism in Northern Ireland and urban Scotland.^[86]

The Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik remarked that it was reductionist to consider the success of the independent candidates an example of sectarian politics - which suggested it was "only Muslims who care about Gaza, and that they do so at the expense of their domestic concerns and loyalties" - and deplored the "tendency to treat frustrations about Gaza as crude, separatist and confined to a small but vocal minority". She contended "Gaza's resonance stretches across diverse demographics ... is both connected to and informed by other political grievances, and it has become the expression of something that our political climate has made it difficult to countenance – that voters can have principles they care about without this being an indication of extremism or irrelevance".^[87] Political historian Lewis Baston wrote that the "disaffection of the Muslim vote was an example of a broader pattern in 2024: the failure of either of the big parties (the Conservatives dramatically, and Labour somewhat) to build large, inclusive coalitions of voters around the dividing line of a choice of government", the results showing "[c]ommunities broke away on political issues and identities — the Reform UK vote was at least as identitarian as the Gaza independent vote, metropolitan liberals (and some Muslims, as in Huddersfield) opted for the Greens, and even the Liberal Democrats were providing campaigning local representatives rather than offering to form a government".^[88]

Malik noted the success of the independent candidates was not purely due to enthused Muslim voters, and that it would be a mistake for Labour to assume that; in examining constituency results, she explained the election's story was not just "of more Muslims voting for independent candidates", but "of fewer people voting overall" and "of an uninspiring election that turned off many voters, Muslim and otherwise, coupled with an issue that galvanised voters, many of whom were Muslim, some of whom were not". She said Gaza was "far from a single-demographic concern", and "[n]either [was] the issue ringfenced from broader frustrations with the Labour party"; it had "become a way for communities to identify that they are not being listened to by politicians, and are on their own", and the party judging "matters of principle as matters of ideology has provided little means of understanding or addressing this loss of faith [in the party]". She argued those "who felt strongly about Gaza and refused to vote Labour on this basis did so partly because the issue stood for so much more: it suggested that the party's rebrand had purged Labour of a moral backbone."^[87] Fatima Ibrahim, for Huck magazine assented that other issues were at play in the election that combined with ire over Labour's position on the Gaza conflict in order to repel voters from the party and that "on both the left and the right, it's clear that the British public are not content with the status quo being offered to them by Labour and the Tories." She warned that Starmer should "resist the knee-jerk reaction to pull further to the right, especially when the biggest upsets of this election came from the left", that "[t]he one unifying story ... is that people want serious change" - using the examples of the improved performance of the Green Party and the large Reform vote - and he "must show that he has the answers – or he risks setting the stage for a resurgent far-right over the next five years".^[89]

Labour's vote share "f[e]ll on average by 10 points in seats where more than 10 percent of the population identify as Muslim".^[90] Analysis by Owen Winter and James Fransham for The Economist demonstrated that Labour lost "one percentage point from its vote share in constituencies that it held (notionally) for every 500 or so Muslim constituents".^[2] Data from More in Common showed that constituencies with a higher adult Muslim population saw relatively proportionally larger declines in Labour vote share.^[91] Research by Lewis Baston found that in the twenty-one seats where over 30% of the population is Muslim, Labour's share of the vote dropped from an average of 65% in 2019 to 36% - with the total number of Labour votes more than halving between the two elections there - and turnout also "fell more steeply than average" in these seats, which he inferred to mean "some disaffected Muslim electors abstained while others voted for other candidates". Labour, despite this, "remained the largest single party in the most Muslim parts of Britain", and claimed that the "most effective electoral challenge came from locally sourced independent candidates" as opposed to the Workers Party or Greens.^[88] Sky News analysis discovered Labour's vote was down over 14% in areas where Muslims comprise over 15% of the population.^[92] Marwan Riach of Electoral Calculus said that in seats where at least 25% of the population was Muslim, the drop in Labour support was 25pts, by far the largest margin of fall or improvement of support out of the main parties.^[93]

Baston also remarked that Labour candidates with a more active record on the issue of Gaza saw a reduced swing against them, citing Jess Phillips - who resigned as a Shadow Cabinet minister over the party's position - holding onto her seat, as well as with candidate seen as less close to the leadership, with the example in London constituencies of left-wing Apsana Begum suffering a substantially reduced swing against her in contrast to Rushanara Ali, seen as closer to the leadership.^[88]

Patrick Flynn of Focaldata found that "the share of Muslim voters in a constituency was highly predictive of vote losses for Labour", and that five of the seven seats the party lost "were places where Muslims made up over a quarter of the population". Data also showed that Labour "fell back – at times substantially – with ethnic minority voters" at the election, dropping 13pts to 43% among Asian voters - the largest drop among all ethnic groups - with the Greens and others (minor parties and independents) seeing their vote share grow from near-negligible in 2019 to 11% and 10% respectively.^[94] However, Ben Walker, data journalist at Britain Elects/The New Statesman and Labour councillor for Chester, wrote on social media that Labour losing around 20 points nationally among Muslim voters - according to pre-election polls - would not have "given us those losses to independents", and such falls in vote share among Muslims in areas in which Independents performed well or won were "undoubtedly greater",^[95] suggesting Labour's loss in support among Muslims was compounded by other factors polls were unable to capture. Luke Tryl hypothesised that there was a polling miss akin to that which significantly underestimated Akmed Yakoob's performance in the West Midlands mayoral election two months prior.^[61] Ed Hodgson, research manager of More in Common, claimed that the longstanding issue of how "British public opinion research has a problem with how some minority groups are represented" was a "likely cause of some of the [polling] error this election",^[96] with the "most notable example of this error [being] with Muslim voters". He clarified that while the organisation "had the correct number of Muslim respondents in [their] surveys", their "data did not predict the sizeable anti-Labour backlash that occurred in communities with large Muslim populations",^[97] and the Muslims that responded to their surveys "were not representative of Britain's Muslim community in other ways";^[98] he estimates 1 percentage point of their 4 percentage point polling error for Labour was "from misjudging Muslim votes".^[99]

Rob Ford pointed out that the Labour majority government formed was on the lowest share of the vote for a winning party ever, and that the "mismatch between Labour's anaemic vote haul and colossal seat gain reflect an election where voters were scattered to the winds, and the electoral system played a larger role than ever before," with how the party "made improving the efficiency of [its] vote a central goal, seeking to emphasise the values and priorities of voters in marginal target seats, even if this means downplaying those of voters in Labour heartlands." He expanded on this, saying that "[d]eclines in the heartlands mean Labour are now spread thin, with more than half of their seats won with a majority of 20% or less", and so the party "face[s] vulnerability on two wobbly wings"; having gained a large number of seats from the Conservatives that "tend to be more economically moderate and socially conservative", while contending with a "restive urban heartland where they will face progressive pressure from a rising Green party and a band of independent firebrands". He argued such a large majority would not be "comfortable" and could see "many MPs looking anxiously over their shoulders" as "a coalition of such intense and conflicting local pressures will be hard to hold together." He concluded that "Labour put its heartlands at risk to throw everything – organisation, messaging, policy – at Tory-held battlegrounds. The gamble paid off handsomely, with a landslide built on little over a third of the votes cast."^[100]

Writing after the election, Gabriel Pogrund reported that "Labour was aware that Gaza would be a damaging subject, estimating that up to 60 per cent of Muslim voters might vote for other parties" and that "[i]nternally, they now believe the true figure may have been as high as 80 per cent, although no independent research has yet been conducted".^[55] Findings from YouGov suggested "almost one in four voters aged 18-24" supported the Greens or minor parties.^[101]

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On his first phone call with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after becoming Prime Minister, Starmer "set out the clear and urgent need for a ceasefire", and in a call with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, said "statehood was an 'undeniable right' for the Palestinian people".^[102]

John Woodcock, the government's advisor on political violence, requested to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and security minister Dan Jarvis to investigate candidate intimidation, via an inquiry to "establish whether groups in different constituencies were working together" before the election, as a "series of incidents in the election campaign could have been a 'concerted campaign by extremists'". He wrote in a letter to Cooper that here was a "concerted campaign by extremists to create a hostile atmosphere for MPs within their constituencies to compel them to cave into political demands", and the "conduct of the election campaign in many communities has underlined the gravity of the threat to our democracy" from the intimidation politicians had received. He told The Guardian that intimidation was "increasingly being used as 'a core electoral strategy to try to either get candidates defeated or bully candidates into submission'" and "there was a particular pattern of abuse 'created by aggressive pro-Palestine activists'.^[103] He said that these sought to "single out and target [candidates], and that is an entirely separate thing to the expressions of protest on the streets". Labour MP Diane Abbott critiqued Woodcock's comments as a "crude effort to demonise all those who support Palestinian rights".^[104]

Following this, the Home Secretary announced she would chair a meeting of the taskforce on defending democracy. Additionally, the Home Office would "carry out a rapid review of the election to gauge the levels of harassment faced by candidates, with police forces across the country investigating a number of cases".^[104]

The five Independent MPs wrote as one to Foreign Secretary David Lammy to demand the "legal challenge over the ICC's application for an arrest warrant" of Benjamin Netanyahu to be dropped.^{[105][better source needed]}

Prior to the summer recess, the five "sign[ed] a number of joint letters to the government and issu[ed] joint statements". On 2 September - the day Parliament returned from the summer recess - Corbyn and the four 'Gaza Independents' formed a parliamentary grouping called the Independent Alliance. At their launch event, they stressed a wide-ranging campaigning front on "[p]romising to fight austerity and campaign on issues including the winter fuel allowance, the two-child benefit limit and arms sales to Israel" and "explicitly invited MPs to join them, a reference to seven rebel Labour MPs currently suspended by the party for voting to axe the two-child benefit cap". The formation of the group was to enable the five MPs to be "allocated more parliamentary time to ask questions and speak in debates" and receive "a similar number of speaking slots as other small parties such as Nigel Farage’s Reform, including being added to the rota for PMQs", but there is no formal procedure for this to happen automatically and would only happen at the judgement of Speaker Lindsay Hoyle.^[106]

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Lewis Baston suggested that Labour's ability to repair relationships with Muslim voters during the third term of the 1997-2010 Labour government, the party having suffered at the 2005 election due to voter backlash over the Iraq War - "from Muslim voters’ point of view, the foreign policy offer may have been tainted and less than perfect, but the domestic record was good enough to feel positive again about the party that was by that time led by Gordon Brown" - could offer a springboard from which to do so this time. Nevertheless, he admitted there were other forces that saw Labour recover with Muslims during that time - such as a shift in policy direction under Nick Clegg's leadership of the Liberal Democrats, which throughout the early 2000s was a repository of voter anger over Iraq, as well as the public split of the Respect party - and the "carriers of the banner in 2024, by contrast, are five disparate independent candidates — four Muslim, plus Corbyn", who "make up a parliamentary force potentially equal to Reform UK, but have attracted far less media coverage" and it "remains to be seen how most of these individuals act and the extent to which they coordinate with each other [given] there may be unity on the issue of Palestine" but not on domestic issues and policy, and it may prove to be the case that they are less threatening to the Labour government on the latter.^[88]

Baston suggested that the long-term impacts of a Labour government on domestic issues may go some way to overriding the short-term urgency of a vote over Palestine, and that "[t]o many Muslims in 2024, the balance to be struck was between a gesture of support for Palestine and advancing the domestic policy agenda [as] many seem to have felt Palestine was urgent and that Labour's domestic offer was not appealing enough (and that other voters would ensure a change of government anyway)".^[88]

Nasrene Malik said that, in light of Labour's treatment of voters concerned about Gaza, "what matters now is how we talk and think about what constitutes a healthy democracy, how we speak about voters, and how we define their rights to express political frustrations through the ballot box, even when we don’t share their passions"; regarding Gaza, she said, "an historical episode of political participation that shows how mobilisation outside Westminster can upend powerful political settlements has been treated with incuriosity and prejudice". She propounded that Labour had two options: to "choose to try to understand this as the flowering of a political pluralism that can be embraced by a Labour party to its ultimate strength" or "dismiss and pathologise it", which would "turn what Gaza has brought to the fore into another ambient disaffection that feeds into low engagement, low political trust and Reform's toxic capitalisation on both – all tensions that will continue to build unless they are addressed"; "[m]ajorities deliver political power, but minorities can deliver political accord."^[87]

• Islington North in the 2024 United Kingdom general election
• Respect Party

• Haroon, Siddique (7 July 2024). Who are the pro-Gaza independents who unseated Labour MPs?. The Guardian
• Goodier, Michael (7 July 2024). Explainer: Rise of smaller parties: key takeaways from voting patterns in UK election. The Guardian
• Al-Othman, Hannah (14 June 2024). Female UK election candidates report increased abuse. The Guardian