Revealed: Labour’s ‘sectarian’ Gaza ads in by-election campaign to hold on to Sir Keir Starmer’s seat

The Labour Party has been accused of using sectarian tactics in the form of social media adverts attacking Israel during the campaign to replace Sir Keir Starmer as an MP, the JC can reveal. The party paid an estimated £1,000-£1,500 for a series of adverts highlighting the party’s measures to deal with the "moral emergency" in Palestine. Some of these appeared days before the Holborn and St Pancras by-election last month. The online campaign targeted voters in parts of the constituency and other areas in seats with large numbers of Muslim voters including Bradford South and Bradford West.

One advert had the caption: “The situation in Palestine is a moral emergency. This Labour Government will not stand by.” It features a text graphic of Ed Miliband, the foreign secretary addressing the situation. The advert ran on the anniversary of October 7, the day before voters went to the polls as Green Party leader Zack Polanski contested the seat left vacant after former prime minister Starmer’s resignation from Parliament. Another image features text attributed to the foreign secretary where he says: “What the Netanyahu government is doing in Gaza is a stain on the conscience of the world, and there is increasing evidence war crimes appear to have been committed and we are witnessing unprecedented settler terrorism in the West Bank.”

Further text on the advert boasts of the government’s policies, announced by the foreign secretary in September, to ban the importing of goods from settlements and promising to take action against “individuals and companies that support, facilitate or profit from illegal settlement activity”. Centre-right think tank the Henry Jackson Society (HJS) found that the adverts targeted postcodes across nine constituencies where the average Muslim population is nearly four times the UK constituency average.

Facebook ads that Labour paid for in the campaign[Missing Credit] Of the seats targeted, 62.4 per cent of voters in Bradford West are Muslim, 21.7 per cent in Holborn and St Pancras and 21.4 per cent in Bradford South. Labour figures had previously criticised the Green Party for “sectarian” election adverts in which leaflets in Urdu for the now MP for the seat called on voters to “punish” Labour “for Gaza”. Similarly, at the 2024 general election, former Jewish Labour Party MP Dame Louise Ellman accused the Green Party of “stirring division” after it published electoral literature featuring the Palestinian flag and images of destruction in Gaza.

Ed Miliband decries the 'moral emergency' in Palestine in one post[Missing Credit] Emma Schubart, HJS Research Fellow, said that the Labour Party needed to explain why it was deploying adverts about Gaza in seats with a large number of Muslim voters. She told the JC: “This looks like a cynical attempt to turn religious divisions into electoral advantage. It is particularly disturbing that Labour chose to run these adverts during the anniversary of the October 7 terrorist attacks.

“The party of government should be bringing communities together, not treating them as voting blocs to be won over by exploiting conflicts abroad." She continued: “After seeing the threat posed by the Greens in Gorton and Denton, Labour appears to have panicked and resorted to the very same tactics to protect its own seat. Labour must explain whether exploiting religious divisions is now an acceptable way for the governing party to win elections.”

This is not the first time Labour has been criticised for its electoral literature in areas with large numbers of Muslim voters. During the 2021 Batley and Spen by-election, Labour MP Navendu Mishra criticised his party for a “divisive” leaflet which featured an image of Boris Johnson, the-then prime minister, alongside Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, along with the text “Don’t risk a Tory MP who is not on your side.” He told the Guardian at the time: “We beat our opponents based on policies, not by dog-whistle racism.”

A Labour Party spokesperson said: “It’s perfectly usual to promote government announcements on our social media channels when they are made. These ads ran alongside posts about the government’s pledge to eradicate homelessness.”