Mick Hartley

Jeremy Corbyn has been elected as an independent candidate in my home constituency of Islington North. No surprise: a Vote Corbyn poster decorates almost every other window round here. He's been campaigning on a Gaza ticket – "Today, Palestine is on the ballot. If you re-elect me as an Independent MP in Islington North, I promise to always stand up for the people of Gaza." This is largely a victory for the "progressive" metropolitan left, but elsewhere it's the Muslim vote, and specifically the Muslim Vote ("Muslim issues at the forefront"), that's been making a difference.

David Rose at the JC:

The incoming Labour government will face intense pressure over the party’s policy towards Israel and the Middle East after radical, pro-Palestine candidates scored a series of triumphs and unseated two shadow cabinet ministers, Jon Ashworth and Thangam Debbonaire.

Candidates backed by campaign group The Muslim Vote (TMV) beat Labour in constituencies with a high Muslim electorate across the country, from Islington North – where the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn retained his seat after running as an independent – to Blackburn, where Adnan Hussein, a local solicitor who also stood as an independent, won in a town that had been Labour for 69 years.

Ashworth, the shadow work and pensions secretary who was one of Labour’s busiest TV performers during the election campaign, lost Leicester South to Shockat Adam, another pro-Palestinian independent endorsed by TMV, while in Dewsbury Iqbal Hussein Mohamed scored a majority over Labour’s Heather Iqbal – a former aide to shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves – of almost 7,000….

In Ilford North, Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary who also played a leading role in Labour’s campaign, came close to defeat by TMV’s Leanne Mohamad, winning what had been a safe Labour seat by just 500 votes. Mohamad, a TMV post said, “took on a seasoned politician with the weight of the Labour Party machine behind him to a razor thin margin; all with no time to prepare.

“You are the community's real winner. You Put Gaza back on the ballot. You've created history and given us incredible hope for the future.”…

In all these constituencies, the Gaza war figured as a central campaign issue, with Labour repeatedly battered for supporting Israel’s right to self-defence after the October 7 terrorist massacre. One of the few consolations for pro-Israel Labour supporters was that in Rochdale, the Workers Party’s anti-Zionist firebrand leader George Galloway lost the constituency he had won in a by-election in February to Labour’s Paul Waugh – although Waugh himself made a demand for an immediate Gaza ceasefire a key part of his campaign.

TMV claimed on X that “all this talk of a Labour landslide” was hiding the “real political earthquake” – what it called “the nearing end of the Labour-Tory duopoly that has held the country back for decades”. According to a BBC analysis, Labour’s vote was down by an average 15 points in seats with big Muslim electorates.

A Labour source told the JC it was far too early to assess what impact the TMV’s apparent success would make on the incoming government’s policy. Nevertheless, he accepted that “it is of concern, for sure”.

Indeed it is. Though seeing the back of Galloway is a small ray of sunshine.

When TMV was launched last year, it announced that its goal was to demonstrate that Muslim voters would ‘no longer tolerate being taken for granted. We are a powerful, united force of 4 million acting in unison…. We are focused on seats where the Muslim vote can influence the outcome,” the TMV website says. “In 2024, we will lay the foundations for our community’s political future.”

The results of the general election suggest that this goal has been met.