From Hartlepool in the red wall to true blue Rushmoor, Labour has made gains across the country. But as Keir Stramer chalks up the wins, he also confronts some setbacks. Oldham council has fallen to no overall control due to the election of seven new independents – and the conflict in the Middle East is emerging as a theme.
One in four Oldham residents is Muslim, with many protesting against Labour’s support for Israel since October. ‘In some parts of the borough, it’s the Gaza issue that may lose them the seat,’ one outgoing Labour councillor told local journalists. The Manchester Evening News is also citing it as a reason for Labour’s losses at the hands of seven independent candidates. This wasn’t a Galloway-style party but a series of individuals who campaigned locally – often on an explicit Gaza platform.
The biggest vote in Oldham went to Aisha Kouser, a first-time councillor who billed herself as a ‘voice for Palestine’ in her campaign. She won two-thirds of the vote. The Manchester Evening News reports that Ms Kouser was so sure of victory that she ‘arrived to a great fanfare and fireworks’ before the count had begun. She later signed herself in wearing a rosette in the colours of the Palestinian flag. But Labour’s leader in Oldham says the problems go far wider and that they ‘lost seats in places where Gaza wasn’t an issue’.
Sky News has run figures for 230 wards and checked against census data. The sample is small – about a tenth of those seats up for election – but shows Labour losing support in areas where more than 5 per cent of voters are Muslim. Pollster John Curtice meanwhile says that ‘On average, the party’s support is down by eight points since last year in wards where more than 10 per cent of people identify as Muslim.’
This has been brewing for some time. After Israel’s response to the Hamas atrocity, 250 Labour councillors signed a letter demanding that Starmer calls for an immediate ceasefire. A few weeks later, 11 of them in Burnley quit Labour in protest and 20 later did so in Pendle. Some have stood for re-election without a party ticket. The results are not yet in, but we’re talking just a few dozen wards. Enough to swing Oldham but still, as yet, ultra-local.
So what about London? It is 15 per cent Muslim and has, in Sadiq Khan, a Muslim mayor. But pollster Robert Hayward had predicted last month that Khan was likely to ‘avoid a Muslim backlash’ due to his early call for a Gaza ceasefire and the absence of a Corbyn-style independent candidate or any in the mould of George Galloway. The capital’s politics are, of course, very different from that of Manchester and its environs.
In the West Midlands, Galloway has backed independent Akhmed Yakoob who says he has been chosen by Allah to ‘challenge the Zionist regime’. If the Oldham trend continues, it raises questions as to how this will play out in the national campaign. We could see a repeat of the ‘Iraq effect’ when thousands of Muslims deserted Labour after the 2003 campaign to topple Saddam Hussein (taking Galloway to victory in Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005). Before the last general election, the Muslim Council of Britain released research which calculated how many seats could be decided by Muslim votes. The answer was 31, enough to swing a tight election. There are only two serious challenges to Labour from the left: the Greens (who may take Bristol) and a Galloway/Gaza style party. We’ll know more as the results come in how big the latter challenge could be.
How big is Labour’s Gaza backlash?
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03.05.2024
From Hartlepool in the red wall to true blue Rushmoor, Labour has made gains across the country. But as Keir Stramer chalks up the wins, he also confronts some setbacks. Oldham council has fallen to no overall control due to the election of seven new independents – and the conflict in the Middle East is emerging as a theme.
One in four Oldham residents is Muslim, with many protesting against Labour’s support for Israel since October. ‘In some parts of the borough, it’s the Gaza issue that may lose them the seat,’ one outgoing Labour councillor told local journalists. The Manchester Evening News is also citing it as a reason for Labour’s losses at the hands of seven independent candidates. This wasn’t a Galloway-style party but a series of individuals who campaigned locally – often on an explicit Gaza platform.
The biggest vote in Oldham went to Aisha Kouser, a........
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