The local and mayoral elections saw many traditional Labour-voting Muslim voters abandon the party they’ve loyally supported for decades.
One incident from one interview, and one sentiment in particular that I heard in my local area, sits front and centre: “I was disgusted when Keir Starmer supported Israel’s collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza – how can I vote for someone who won’t even apologise for this?” said one man, referring to Starmer’s performance in an interview on LBC last October and corroborated by a senior colleague that same week.
It’s true that Labour claimed its position had been misinterpreted, and its stance on Gaza did eventually move, albeit after Israel had killed well over 25,000 Palestinians, most of whom were women and children, and after the international court of justice considered there was a plausible risk of genocide. For example, David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, said that Israel should comply with the “profoundly serious” ICJ ruling in full, and the party called for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire”. Lisa Nandy, the shadow minister for international development, has called for funding for Unrwa, the UN relief agency, to be resumed.
However, as another voter told me: “A future PM is supposed to lead, not follow. When is he going to actually lead and stop our taxpayer money funding arms going to this apartheid state?”
And this gets to the crux of the matter. Can Labour attract these voters back, or was the Starmer LBC interview equivalent to Gordon Brown’s Gillian Duffy moment or the Iraq war, losing a generation of Labour voters for many years? This is likely to be an uphill battle. But it is possible.
We have seen how Labour candidates Sadiq Khan and Andy Burnham won their mayoral elections in areas with large Muslim populations. Both have longstanding records of engaging with Muslim communities as ordinary citizens, and both broke Labour ranks in demanding a ceasefire in late October of last year. They led the way, and were rewarded.
At national Labour level, the challenge to rebuild trust is much harder. It may even be insurmountable for the coming general election – given the errors over Gaza, augmenting the more longstanding issues of failing to deeply engage with Muslim communities.
The wrong narrative to follow is that advanced by the far right and other divisive naysayers, who cite the local election results to demonise Muslims, suggesting the vote shows we only care about foreign issues.
Faceless voices within the party echo these racist views and treat Muslim voters as foreigners without the right to choose who they vote for. There was the “senior Labour source” who was quoted as describing the resignation of councillors on the issue of Gaza as “shaking off the fleas”.
That was condemned by Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, as “a disgraceful thing to say”. Nevertheless, the Labour leadership – in my view – needs to combat such narratives and reset its understanding of British Muslim voters as active and ultimately rational actors who, like other groups, cannot be taken for granted and are looking for parties who advocate policies they care about.
Consider the central issue around the unfolding genocide in Gaza. The underlying issues are poor decision-making, a lack of leadership and the lack of adherence to Labour core values of human rights, justice and international law. Are these not rational issues that we should all care about?
It’s worth restating that first- and second-generation Muslims – in all their diversity – are participating and engaging in our democracy. It is not as if the community are disengaged actors.
Most are just not voting en masse for the Labour party any more. While few are moving to the Conservative party, given its institutional Islamophobia, many are finding alternatives, whether independent candidates or the Liberal Democrats and the Green party. They feel free to seek out alternatives. With Labour forecast to win big at the coming general election, they can do so without the charge that they might bolster a rightwing alternative that would be even worse.
Worth saying, too, that were the Conservative party to pivot in the direction of someone like Andy Street, the former mayor of the West Midlands, there are a number of Muslims who could switch to the Conservatives. In his gracious concession speech, Street advocated a “modern, inclusive” form of Conservatism, and he has actively resisted the Islamophobic narrative of others within his party.
So we have choices, but clearly Labour has choices too. It can seek to really listen, truly engage and actually try to understand British Muslim voters. It could offer an apology for errors, a domestic policy centred on fairness, not favours, and a “progressive realism” foreign policy based on justice, human rights and equality. There is a way, if there is the will.
Miqdaad Versi is a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain. He is writing in a personal capacity
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
• This article was amended on 6 May 2024. An earlier version said the international court of justice “considered Israel to be plausibly committing genocide”. It has been amended to reflect that the court did not rule on the merits of the accusation against Israel, rather it found there was a “real and imminent risk of irreparable harm” to the Palestinians’ plausible right to be protected from genocide.
