Labour Party celebration dimmed by pro-Palestinian candidate wins

Britain’s Labour Party might have swept into office, but it suffered setbacks and near misses in at least four close contests in areas with high Muslim populations.

The party, which has relied in the past on the support of Muslims and other minority groups, saw its vote fall 10 points in seats where Muslims make up more than 10% of the votes, according to Reuters. 

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The highest-profile casualty was Jonathan Ashworth, a Shadow Cabinet minister. Ashworth, who had been expected to serve in Keir Starmer’s new government, lost to Shockat Adam, a pro-Palestinian candidate. 

“This is for the people of Gaza,” Adam said, holding up a Palestinian kaffiyeh scarf at his victory party. He won his Leicester South seat by less than 1,000 votes. 

Pro-Gaza independents also won in Blackburn and Dewsbury and Batley, forcing their Labour rivals into second. The same scenario played out in Islington North, where Jeremy Corbyn, a pro-Palestinian activist who has been accused of antisemitism in the past, won. Corbyn was formerly the leader of the Labour Party, but last year, Starmer blocked him from running in his Islington North seat. When Corbyn announced he was running as an independent, he was expelled from the party.

In Blackburn, Kate Hollern lost by 132 votes to Adnan Hussain, who ran as an independent.

In Dewsbury and Batley, Heather Iqbal, a former adviser to Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, lost by nearly 7,000 votes to Iqbal Mohamed, the Guardian reported. In Birmingham’s Perry Barr, Khalid Mahmood, the former Labour member of Parlieament, lost to independent Ayoub Khan. 

The quadruple wins come as the Labour Party has somewhat straddled the fence on the war in the Middle East. While it says it wants the fighting to stop, it has also backed Israel’s right to defend itself. The position has not sat well with Britain’s Muslim population of 3.9 million, who came out Thursday to vote and have their voices heard. 

The news didn’t come as a total surprise. Labour officials had been warning that many of their candidates would feel the pinch from pro-Palestinian candidates.  

Britain’s new prime minister had received pushback for comments he made early in the war, claiming Israel had the right to withhold power and water from civilians trapped in Gaza. The backlash grew when his party refused to back a Scottish National Party motion demanding an immediate ceasefire in the region. The party has since committed to recognizing a Palestinian state, though it has not set a timeline for when that would happen. 

“I’ve been a long Labour supporter … but no more, not my family. We are not supporting Labour,” Rafit Hussain, 51, a shop owner in the historically Labour-voting Oldham, told Reuters. “Genocide is happening in front of our eyes, and nothing’s been done about it … which is very upsetting and very sad.”

According to a Savanta poll last month, 44% of Muslim voters ranked the war as one of their top five issues, with 86% saying they would consider backing an independent running on that platform. 

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Despite the pushback, Labour still won 412 of the seats in the British Parliament’s 650-seat House of Commons, its highest amount of seats since 2001, when Tony Blair easily won reelection.

The Conservatives held 121.