Senior Labour figures have acknowledged that the party’s stance on Gaza cost it seats in Thursday’s election, after four of its MPs unexpectedly lost to pro-Palestinian independents.
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, admitted the party had suffered because of the position it had taken on the Middle East crisis, after he won his seat of Ilford North by just 528 seats.
Streeting was one of several Labour MPs in heavily Muslim areas who either lost their seats or were run unexpectedly close. He said: “Looking at the results across the country, including in Ilford North, it is very clear that Gaza has been a real issue for the Labour party at this election.”
John McTernan, a former adviser to Tony Blair, warned his party not to ignore the message it had been sent by parts of its core vote.
He told the BBC on Friday: “Whenever Labour loses any of its base, whether it’s the middle-class voters, the urban voters, the graduates, or whether it’s Muslim voters, Labour needs a strategy. That’s what electoral politics is. You don’t just count your wins, you look at your losses, you examine them and you decide what it is you need to do to bring back your base.”
Jonathan Ashworth, who was the shadow Cabinet Office minister, was one of Labour’s highest-profile political casualties. Ashworth lost his Leicester South seat by nearly 1,000 votes to the independent Shockat Adam, who said: “This is for Gaza.”
In Blackburn, the constituency once held by the former home secretary Jack Straw, Labour’s Kate Hollern lost by 132 votes to the independent Adnan Hussain. In Dewsbury and Batley, Heather Iqbal, a former adviser to the new chancellor, Rachel Reeves, lost by nearly 7,000 votes to Iqbal Mohamed. And in Birmingham Perry Barr the former Labour MP Khalid Mahmood lost to the independent Ayoub Khan.
In Birmingham Hodge Hill, the former cabinet minister Liam Byrne won by just over 1,500 votes over James Giles, the candidate for George Galloway’s Workers party of Britain.
Rushanara Ali won by just over 1,500 votes in Bethnal Green and Bow, where many in the Bangladeshi community were also angered by Keir Starmer talking about deporting Bangladeshi people whose asylum claims had been refused.
Shabana Mahmood, the shadow justice secretary before the election, won in Birmingham Ladywood, another area with a high proportion of Muslim voters, beating the independent Akhmed Yakoob by about 3,500 votes.
In a sign that the support for pro-Palestinian candidates were not uniform, George Galloway lost his Rochdale seat to the Labour candidate Paul Waugh. Galloway had won the seat at a byelection earlier this year after a campaign during which Labour withdrew its support from its candidate Azhar Ali over comments he had made about Israel.
Labour officials warned throughout the campaign that many of their candidates were under pressure from pro-Palestinian candidates. Party strategists expected that most voters who had deserted them over the issue at the local elections would return in the general election, but they appeared to have over-estimated how many would do so.
Starmer came in for heavy criticism from many campaigners for comments early in the conflict in which he said Israel had the right to withhold power and water from civilians in Gaza. That anger was compounded when the party refused to back a Scottish National party motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in the region – even though Labour passed its own similar motion soon afterwards.
In some seats the contest became bitter, with Labour canvassers saying they were being harassed by their opponents. In Ali’s seat, Labour campaigners were followed down the street while handing out leaflets, while in Birmingham, party supporters had to call the police twice during the final weekend of campaigning.
