Keir Starmer’s entry into 10 Downing Street seems inevitable, given the shambolic performance of the Conservative government under Rishi Sunak and his predecessors, but Labour’s supremacy in the polls may falter as the shockwaves of conflict in the Middle East continue to dramatically influence political discourse here in Britain.
The Labour leader has sought to keep his party performing a delicate balancing act: on the one side, a desire to reassure Jewish voters by publicly moving away from the legacy of antisemitism under Corbyn’s leadership, and on the other the need to respond to the very real concerns of voters who are angered by Israel’s brutal military actions in Gaza.
Starmer’s critics argue that he has failed to acknowledge the importance of the Palestine issue to Muslim voters, and his failure to call for an immediate ceasefire—on top of a disastrous LBC interview in which he appeared to condone Israel breaching international law—risks losing the support of many of the party’s loyal Muslim voters.
In particular, the plight of Palestinians in Gaza has been championed by Muslim Labour MPs, plus non-Muslim Labour MPs representing seats with large Muslim populations, who are seemingly concerned about retaining their seat in the coming election.
They are right to be concerned. Deep divides between Starmer and the Labour left have already manifested in one rebellion over a ceasefire vote in the Commons, and the party risks being outflanked by third parties to the left. Such precedent has already been set: George Galloway has twice defeated incumbent Labour MPs in seats with large Muslim populations and could prove a thorn in the side of an inbound Labour government should he perform well in the Rochdale by-election at the end of this month.
In recent days Starmer has shifted his party’s position, and on Wednesday evening was able to successfully pass a motion in the Commons that called for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire”. This vote has been surrounded by chaos and controversy, with allegations that Speaker Lindsay Hoyle was pressured into allowing the vote on Labour’s amendment due to MPs’ fears for their safety.
As the conflict continues to worsen—the death toll for Palestinians is estimated to be around 28,000, with potentially hundreds of thousands more at risk of hunger and disease—pressure from outraged constituents and organisations like the Palestine Solidarity Campaign will continue to mount.
For many who are personally invested in the Palestinian cause, Labour’s latest U-turn is too little too late to win them back onside. Where will these voters flock to? One possible alternative, that all eyes in Westminster will be watching in the coming week, lies in Rochdale.
“A referendum on Gaza”
Despite very publicly proclaiming to have “changed the Labour Party”, Keir Starmer still faces the very same antisemitism problem within his ranks that dogged Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
Months before the events of October 7th, Starmer was quick to remove the party whip from Diane Abbott, who had written a letter that suggested Jewish, Irish, and Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people could not experience racism. This was just one of a number of examples that seemed to demonstrate a new zero-tolerance approach to antisemitism within the party. Yet, following Hamas’ attacks on Israel last autumn, the antisemites that avoided Starmer’s previous purges have broken cover—finding sufficient public backing for their bigotry.
The latest controversy comes from Labour’s prospective candidate, Azhar Ali, who was selected to stand in Rochdale’s by-election taking place at the end of this month, following the death of the incumbent Labour MP, Sir Tony Lloyd.
Ali was recorded arguing at a local party meeting in Lancashire that Israel had effectively orchestrated the attacks against its own people—by allowing Hamas to murder Israeli civilians, the pretext was thus created to carry out Israel’s “genocidal” ambitions in Gaza. This is quite obviously an antisemitic conspiracy theory that draws on medieval tropes of a “Jewish bloodlust”. What makes things worse is that not a single attendee at this meeting saw fit to call out Ali for his remarks at the time; indeed, just a couple of months later he was selected to be Labour’s candidate in the by-election.
This poisonous claim, along with outright atrocity denialism that insists Israel’s casualty figures are exaggerated or fabricated entirely, are commonplace at the weekly pro-Palestine marches that dominate central London. No one openly opposes these claims there either—in fact, those who do state the obvious, namely that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, are attacked by the mob.
Ali was quick to apologise—although only when found out, of course—and Labour circled the wagons to protect their candidate. One claim that Ali had simply “fallen for an online conspiracy theory” did little to help his standing; quite how an individual can shift so suddenly from believing that Israel masterminded the attack on its own citizens to denouncing such a belief as “offensive, ignorant and false” should call into question the sincerity of his apology.
After further comments made by Ali were revealed, Labour disowned their candidate. However, in the time it took to come to a decision on Ali’s fate, the deadline to withdraw him had long since passed. This means that he will still appear on the ballot on February 29th as a Labour candidate, next to the party’s red rose logo. If he were to win, he would find himself in the Commons as an independent MP.
Ali has since renounced his original apology and is now campaigning as a “martyr” who was axed by Starmer for speaking out about Palestine.
Labour tried to cling onto their candidate, reluctant to challenge his antisemitism for fear of alienating the so-called Muslim vote. This stance is deeply patronising, as it treats Muslim voters as a single bloc who must be forever treated with caution when discussing particular issues such as the conflict in Gaza. On top of this, Labour did not want to ditch their candidate and hand over the seat to George Galloway, who is campaigning with the Workers Party of Britain.
Galloway aims to capture the Muslim vote in Rochdale in an attempt to upset his former party. He has spent the past nineteen years trolling Labour by standing against its candidates in constituencies across the country, with occasional success. Infamously, Galloway stood in the Batley and Spen by-election in 2021, where his campaign was mired in accusations of aggression and intimidation, and fuelled anti-LGBTQ rhetoric against Kim Leadbeater—Labour’s candidate and younger sister of murdered MP, Jo Cox—who felt the need to be accompanied by uniformed police officers while out campaigning.
All this took place in the immediate aftermath of the intimidation campaign against the teacher at Batley Grammar School, who was forced into hiding for showing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
Following the implosion of Azhar Ali’s candidacy, George Galloway is now the bookies’ favourite to take the seat and make a momentous return to parliament. His campaign—playing on concerns over the suffering of Palestinians—aims to harness the 30,000-strong Asian community in Rochdale to overturn Labour’s majority.
There is certainly no love lost for Galloway; he has launched attacks on Labour for “betraying” the people of Rochdale and has received support from disgraced Labour MP Chris Williamson, who was suspended in 2019 during the party’s row over antisemitism and has since made controversial comments regarding October 7th.
“The people who brought division to Rochdale are Labour. The people who covered up the grooming gangs, was Labour. The people that pulled their candidate because of antisemitism, was Labour.”
Despite, or perhaps because of, his comments on Israel, thousands of people will still turn out to vote for Ali on February 29th. Much of this does not come from any personal loyalty, but simply because most people do not pay much attention to the news or the intricacies of Westminster drama. If they vote, they often do so for a party and do not care who the individual representative may be.
Yet, it is a stark condemnation of the current state of political discourse in this by-election that, when Azhar Ali’s comments were brought to light, his rivals in Galloway’s campaign thought that he was making an astute political manoeuvre.
According to James Giles, Galloway’s campaign manager: “When I first heard those comments…I thought to myself he is trying to win back favour among the Muslim vote.”
In the chaos, Galloway, naturally, senses blood. In a recent video message, he vowed to fight for “every vote, in every part of the community”. But a Galloway victory is not a foregone conclusion, and rests upon the assumption that Rochdale’s Muslim community, which makes up 30 percent of the local population, will all turn out to support his campaign and his messaging on Palestine.
Weaponising identity politics
Muslims, just like every other group, do not vote as a monolith. Figures on the far left with a white saviour complex, like Galloway, seem to think they can simply show up in a constituency and win over the unconditional support of minority groups. This ignores the fact that anyone can Google the man himself and read all about his unwavering support for anti-Western dictatorships like Iran, which murders women, homosexuals, and leftists, and Syria, where Bashar al-Assad’s regime has murdered over 300,000 civilians, including Palestinian refugees, in its desperation to cling onto power.
Why Galloway should expect unanimous support from Rochale’s Muslim community based on his record remains a mystery to me.
Yet there are some within the Conservative party, who notably are not campaigning against Galloway, that hope he can weaken the Labour Party. If Galloway can successfully fracture Labour’s support by harnessing the anger of the Muslim vote, the Conservatives believe this may set a precedent that can be used to prevent a Labour majority in the upcoming election.
There is plenty of evidence to support this theory manifesting itself at the ballot box: according to a Survation poll on British Muslims, nearly half of respondents were dissatisfied with Labour’s response to the crisis in the Middle East, with more than 40 percent stating that Starmer’s handling of the situation made them less likely to vote for Labour. What the Conservatives seem to ignore in this case, however, is that Muslim voters are more discontented with Rishi Sunak and the government’s response, which has been even more supportive of Israel’s actions in Gaza—nearly two-thirds rated the government’s handling negatively, and nearly seven in ten were dissatisfied with Sunak.
This does not mean Starmer can afford to be complacent. Latest figures show that only 60 percent of British Muslims who voted for Labour in the 2019 election would be willing to do so again. Senior Labour politicians have recognised the conundrum they have found themselves in, especially as the party has even been outflanked by figures such as David Cameron, who was the first to call for a sustainable ceasefire and said that the government was considering recognising a Palestinian state.
According to analysis by the Financial Times, there are ten seats in England and Wales where the Muslim population consists of more than ten percent, and all twenty of the parliamentary constituencies with the highest proportion of Muslim voters are held by Labour. Those constituencies with slender majorities risk exposing the party to a protest vote that could cost them a majority.
Faysal Ahmed, a pro-Palestine protest organiser, says “I’ve always supported Labour, voted Labour and encouraged my friends and family to vote for Labour. But obviously, seeing what they’re doing in regards to Gaza, that’s now out of the question.” Ahmed voted for George Galloway in 2005 during his campaign in Bethnal Green, where he won the seat from the Labour candidate on a platform opposing the Iraq War. Ahmed said “Nobody cared about [Galloway’s] policies, nobody knew his policies. Only his stance on the illegal Iraq war.”
Galloway’s campaign this time around has placed Gaza at the forefront of his messaging, leaving locals in Rochdale wondering what exactly he intends to do to improve the constituency itself.
Other British Muslims, who have otherwise been loyal supporters of the Labour Party, consider the crisis in the Middle East and the party’s position on Palestine to be “the end of the tether”. Many consider the party to “no longer work for the Muslim community”, who are outraged by Labour’s response to the conflict. For many, the party has underestimated the importance of the Israel-Palestine issue to many Muslim voters—85 percent of British Muslims who were asked said that the position of political parties on the conflict would be important in how they choose to vote.
"The party's leadership doesn’t care and they're not engaging with British Muslims and takes their vote for granted. Losing a long-term voter base such as British Muslims will have long-term impacts on the Labour Party"
The Labour Muslim Network, a group which promotes British Muslim engagement with the Labour Party, described the party's response to the conflict in Gaza as "unacceptable and deeply offensive to Muslims across Britain" and said if the party did not act it risked "losing the support of the Muslim community for a generation.”
“For decades the Muslim community has been amongst the most loyal Labour supporters anywhere in the United Kingdom. The findings of this new opinion poll shows a startling collapse of this electoral and communal relationship. This is a crisis point for the future of the relationship between the British Muslim community and the Labour Party."
Several Labour MPs have reported that they have received more correspondence from constituents regarding Gaza “than anything ever before”, however, Rob Ford, Professor of Politics at Manchester University, does not believe concern over the conflict will have any significant effect on the upcoming general election. He cautions against treating Muslim voters as an isolated bloc who do not share the same concerns regarding inflation and the cost of living as everyone else.
But, if British Muslims are choosing to withdraw their support for the Labour Party, where else may they lend their votes?
Some are increasingly turning to the Green Party, whose consistent advocacy for a ceasefire has caught the attention of many in the British Muslim community who may have originally written them off.
Of concern to many both inside and outside Westminster, however, is the prospect of the formation of a new political party tailored to appeal specifically to British Muslims. A recent application submitted by the “Party of Islam” was rejected, with the clear driver for such efforts being Labour’s mishandling of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Alongside this, the perception of the Labour Party as one that is obsessed with identity politics and championing “woke” causes, while neglecting the day-to-day issues that impact Muslim families just as much as any other, leaves many pining for an alternative that addresses their genuine concerns. But the solution to feeling disillusioned by mainstream politics is not, as Rakib Ehsan says, to establish a “tribal outfit rooted in religious identity politics”.
Such a development would serve only to reinforce arguments, particularly prominent on the far right, that British Muslims are an insular bloc that is fundamentally different to the rest of Britain’s population. On top of this, an Islam-focused party is unlikely to represent mainstream Muslims and will instead operate as a platform for divisive extremists to amplify their message, claiming to speak for the entire British Muslim community.
“There is the risk that such a party would descend into sectarian in-fighting and could even end up under the control of Islamists who question the ‘authenticity’ of British Muslims who reject extremism. This would be a major step backwards in terms of integration and cohesion.”
Labour has traditionally been the party of the Muslim vote, which has led to notable internal conflicts in constituencies such as Birmingham, where the party’s liberal social views have come into conflict with the strict social conservatism of many Muslim constituents. But this latest fissure over events in Gaza could prove more devastating than any other; issues on foreign policy have proven the most stressful on party loyalties, as was seen during the Iraq War—another grievance which George Galloway was able to capitalise upon.
One in three Muslim voters rated the Israel-Palestine conflict as a top three issue for them in deciding their vote. But, while Muslim voters give more attention to the conflict, it is not their exclusive focus. Indeed, the three main issues dominating the agenda for voters in general were also the highest-ranked issues for Muslims: inflation and the cost of living (45 percent); the NHS (39 percent) and the economy (36 percent) were most likely to be rated by Muslims as a top three issue, with Israel-Palestine (33 percent) in fourth place.
Whatever the outcome of the Rochdale by-election, which will be announced in the early hours of March 1st, we should not rush to condemn the Labour Party and Keir Starmer to electoral oblivion —that fate seems reserved for the Tory party this time around. What we will witness, however, is the deepening of the sinister relationship between radical Islamists and the far left, for whom the plight of Palestinians and demonising Israel is their principal raison d'etre.