Labour acts on fears Muslims will not vote for party over Gaza stance

Keir Starmer’s office has begun polling British Muslim voters amid growing concern in senior Labour ranks about the damage done to their core vote by the row over the party’s position on the Middle East.

“Keir Starmer’s office has begun polling British Muslim voters amid growing concern in senior Labour ranks about the damage done to their core vote by the row over the party’s position on the Middle East”

The Guardian

Labour sources told the Guardian that the party is running polls and holding focus groups around the country after senior officials became concerned they were losing support among one of their staunchest bases of support.

The Guardian

One senior Labour MP said: “Muslims are not only predominantly Labour supporters but they are also geographically important.

There are many of them in a range of key target seats in both the south and the north-west, and we need to pay attention to that.”

A party spokesperson said: “Keir Starmer, the shadow cabinet and senior staff engage with colleagues both in the parliamentary Labour party and the wider party on this important issue.

The Labour party with Keir Starmer is committed to working alongside international partners to recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel, as part of efforts to contribute to securing a negotiated two-state solution.”

The outreach follows a crisis triggered when Starmer gave an interview in October in which he said Israel had the right to withhold power and water from Gaza; he later reversed that position, but he angered many MPs and supporters again when he refused to back calls for a ceasefire.

Tensions within Labour escalated when 56 Labour MPs defied party orders and voted for a Scottish National party motion in the Commons calling explicitly for a ceasefire.

That act prompted the resignation of eight of Starmer’s frontbench in the biggest rebellion of his leadership to date.

The Guardian

The vote also prompted Labour MPs to start new groups and re-establish old ones to better organise how they petition the leadership.

A frontbencher told the Guardian: “We know we’ve lost the Muslim vote and at the very least their trust.

The Muslim community is no longer a safe voter base for us because of how we initially responded to the war.

So we’re just focused on damage control. We all know it.”

Internal organising around the issue has coalesced around bodies such as Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East (LFPME) and a WhatsApp group of about 30 MPs who share policy thoughts and security advice.

“Keir Starmer’s office has begun polling British Muslim voters amid growing concern in senior Labour ranks about the damage done to their core vote by the row over the party’s position on the Middle East”

The Guardian

Members of the WhatsApp group are meeting frequently with David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, and with Starmer’s chief of staff, Sue Gray.

Shabana Mahmood, the shadow justice secretary and Labour’s most senior Muslim MP, has become the de facto leader of this increasingly vocal caucus.

Tensions persist over comments by the shadow foreign minister Wayne David, who told the Jewish Chronicle that Labour would only recognise Palestine after negotiations had begun.

In a letter seen by the Guardian, seven backbench members of LFPME wrote to Lammy arguing that the policy “effectively gives Israel a veto on Palestinian self-determination” and “will put recognition into cold storage for the foreseeable future”.

The backbench MP Kate Osamor was suspended from the party on Sunday for referencing the “genocide” in Gaza in a post about Holocaust Memorial Day.

Labour faces electoral risk as nearly half of the country’s 2 million Muslim voters chose Labour at the last election, according to a new poll by UK in a Changing Europe.

A quarter of Muslims did not vote and two-thirds of those who did backed Labour.

The Guardian

Labour sources say that while these voters are unlikely to prevent the party winning if it remains 20 or more points ahead in the polls, senior figures worry that if the polls narrow the Muslim vote could make the difference in more than a dozen seats.

Target Tory-held seats cited include Wycombe, Peterborough and Bury North where Muslim populations are well above 10%.

The risk has been accentuated by the launch of a new grassroots group called The Muslim Vote (TMV), modelled on Operation Black Vote, which aims to maximise turnout among British Muslims.

TMV is organising voter drives and door-knocking in eight constituencies to “reward” MPs who vote for a ceasefire and “punish” those who do not.

Officials are also concerned about losing votes in affluent, predominantly white areas such as Bournemouth, Bristol and Brighton and about younger voters they say are being radicalised by footage from Gaza on Instagram and TikTok.