UK elections: 'Gaza effect' spurs Labour losses in former strongholds

Business owner Freya Greenhill has spent the last seven months protesting and campaigning for Gaza.

Then she headed to the polls for this month's local elections in England.

Greenhill is from Somerset, an area she said is known as "the whitest county in England." She told TRT World that she voted for Liberal Democrat candidate MP Sarah Dyke (who won), because she was the only politician in the area who had called for a ceasefire.

"For me, it wasn't even a choice. Labour and Tory (the Conservative party) are one and the same," she said about the country's two main political parties.

"They are both complicit in the deaths of thousands of Palestinians. They have not only spoken – proudly – of their support for Israel, they both back the continuing sale of weapons that are arming the Israelis in their genocide."

Greenhill isn't alone.

Although the opposition party, Labour, was quick to win seats from Conservative party strongholds due to disgruntled Britons' increasing dissatisfaction with the ruling party, it also underperformed in areas traditionally considered Labour heartlands. There, the party lost council seats to smaller parties, or independent candidates in what many are calling the "Palestine effect."

The Liberal Democrats, which was Greenhill's choice, as well as the Green Party are two smaller parties whose MPs have called for a ceasefire in Gaza. The former gained 104 seats and the latter won over 70 seats.

This was a massive increase for the Lib Dems who in 2021 only made a net gain of eight seats. For the Greens, the number of seats won was only slightly lower than the 88 seats they gained in 2021.

BBC's analysis of results showed that these tended to be in areas with large Muslim and student populations.

Overall, Labour's vote share still increased by 3 percent compared to 2021's local elections. But the BBC found that in 58 constituencies where one in 5 people are Muslim, Labour's vote share dropped by 21 percent.

More than 40 pro-Palestine candidates were elected in constituencies across England after making the current war on Palestinians in Gaza part of their campaign.

Based on these results, Alistair Jones, associate professor of politics at De Montfort University in Leicester, said that Gaza as a singular issue has had some impact on a local level. However, how much of a role Gaza has played in people's selection of candidates varies from one part of the country to another.

"In areas such as Oldham and Kirklees, Labour lost control and it's a clear link between people leaving the Labour Party because of the leadership stance on Gaza and how they've not been more forthright in their support of the people of Gaza," Jones told TRT World.

"In other parts of the country, it is possibly not quite so clear cut. In London you could see that there was a small group of people, we're talking maybe tens of thousands, who voted independent, who wouldn't support (Mayor) Sadiq Khan even though he has been far more overt in his support for the situation in Gaza, but they're still saying 'that's not far enough, we want the (Labour) party as a whole to go further.' "

Muslim mobilisation

In the west Yorkshire towns of Heckmondwike and Batley, three pro-Palestine Muslim candidates won formerly Labour seats. Local resident and sound engineer Tawheed Khan told TRT World he believed this was largely due to mobilisation within local Muslim communities.

"On local mosque community Whatsapp groups, members advised each other who to vote for based on the candidates' stance on Palestine," he said.

Close by in the Greater Manchester town of Rochdale, where 30 percent of the population is Muslim, another former Labour stronghold lost its council seats to pro-Palestine candidates.

Back in March of this year, George Galloway, leader of the pro-Palestine Workers Party, won a by-election that made him Rochdale's new MP. He put Gaza at the forefront of his campaign.

In this month's local elections, the Workers Party gained two more seats from Labour in Central Rochdale and Milkstone and Deeplish. The results reflect Rochdale residents' dissatisfaction with the Labour Party's stance on Gaza.

IT consultant Shaz Yakoob is from that town and told TRT World that for him, the last straw was when Labour party leader Keir Starmer said that Israel stopping food and water to Gaza was justified.

Instead, he voted for the Workers Party candidate. "It was important to me and the local community in Rochdale that our councillor is able to speak their mind and not be silenced by certain party leaders," Yakoob said.

Labour majority threatened

Elsewhere in the country, pro-Palestine candidates did not win seats but won enough votes to threaten the Labour Party's majority. In the West Midlands, independent pro-Palestine mayoral candidate Ahmed Yakoob won 69,000 votes, and while Labour won the mayorship from former Conservative mayor MP Andy Street, other councillors in the area expressed shock at the voter margins.

According to The Muslim Vote, a coalition of more than 40 British Muslim organisations that united following Keir Starmer's in-party vote over a Gaza ceasefire in November 2023, recent local election results are proof that the Labour Party has lost the trust of British Muslims over its stance on Gaza.

"The election results reflect the sentiment of the Muslim community," spokesperson Abubakr Nanabawa told TRT World.

"They (Labour) expect Muslims to just vote for the Labour Party regardless of any positions the Labour Party holds. We saw that in the (in-party) ceasefire vote, that despite overwhelming requests from Muslim, African, Caribbean and pro-Palestine white communities, the Labour Party didn't take them seriously."

This must change if Labour wants to win voters back in the upcoming general election, political analysts say.

Last week, Starmer acknowledged that he had lost the trust of voters who usually voted Labour and said he was determined to win it back and is ready to listen.

The results are reminiscent of the 2005 local elections, where Labour lost a fifth of its vote due to former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair's policy in Iraq, proving that political parties' stance on foreign policy does have an effect on voting decisions.

Associate Professor Alistair Jones said that the Labour Party has a long road ahead to win back the British Muslim community's trust, and that may not happen in time for the next general election, scheduled for January 2025.

He added that the best way forward is for Labour to start reengaging with Muslim leaders, beginning at the local community level, which he said some Labour councillors have already started doing.

However, if British Muslims are expecting the Labour Party to do a full U-turn on their stance on Gaza, they may be disappointed, he said.

"An absolute condemnation of Israel's actions and the demand for Israel to withdraw from Gaza is not going to be offered by the Labour Party and I don't think it's being offered by any political party, but there is a demand for that to happen. So, it's a matter of being honest with those communities and demonstrating what you can do and delivering that, that leads to that reengagement."

General elections

Though Gaza policy has made an impact at the local level, it's unclear what will happen in January.

According to Paul Webb, a politics professor at the University of Sussex, areas with large Muslim populations might see a difference.

"(But) we have to also bear in mind that there has certainly been a strong general swing to Labour across the country, which will mitigate any ‘Gaza effect. '"

However, Abubakr Nanabawa of The Muslim Vote said that pro-Palestine and British Muslim voters are in it for the long game, and even if Labour wins in the next general election, voters are focused on future general election results come 2029 and beyond.

The way forward is to reimagine democracy beyond two main political parties, he added.

"If we look at what happened when the Labour Party broke through with the power of the trade union movement in the in the early 1900s, there is nothing to stop an alternative third, long-term sustainable party developing, that represents the interests of all communities, and not just the interests of a small section of society who they attempt to serve."