Local Elections in Britain Put the Labour Party’s Stance on Gaza Under the Spotlight

London—In local elections in Britain last week, Labour made gains against the divided and unpopular governing Conservatives. On the face of it, the party’s wins in high-profile mayoral contests, a by-election for a seat in Parliament and in elections to local authorities in England look like a bandwagon with unstoppable momentum.

But the elections also brought to the surface deep disquiet about Labour support for Israel’s slaughter in Gaza, particularly among younger voters and in areas with a large Muslim population. While the Conservatives made a net loss of 473 seats on local councils, Labour could muster only a net gain of 185 as the Greens and independents surged in some of its heartlands.

Local elections in Britain often see candidates with no party affiliation winning seats, but this was different in both scale and politics: Many of the successful candidates who gave independents a net gain of 93 seats were ex-Labour councillors who had resigned from the party over its stance on Gaza. This was particularly the case in Lancashire and West Yorkshire where districts such as Blackburn, Kirklees, Bradford and Oldham saw independents take seats from Labour.

In Oldham, where Labour lost its majority on the council after independents gained seven seats, the Manchester Evening News reported that they were “in wards where the war in Gaza—and the party’s stance on the conflict—is understood to have been a decisive factor.”

Regardless of whether independents were standing, Labour saw its support plummet in areas with large Muslim communities. A BBC analysis of 58 local council wards across England where more than one in five residents identify as Muslim found that Labour’s share of the vote was 21 percent down from 2021—the last time most of these seats were contested.

Meanwhile, the party’s narrow but totemic victory against the incumbent Conservative mayor in the West Midlands, which includes Birmingham, came with the sting in its tail thanks to an independent, Akhmed Yakoob, winning 11.7 percent of the vote. Worse still for the party, the 69,621 who supported Yakoob are concentrated in constituencies Labour must retain or gain to achieve a Parliamentary majority.

Labour’s troubles were, however, not confined to Muslim voters. Discontent over Starmer’s position on Gaza is particularly strong among younger voters, and this was undoubtedly a factor in the Greens making 74 gains. In Bristol, their 10 gains left them only two short of an overall majority on the city council. In Stroud and Hastings—both prime targets for Labour in a General Election—they made nine and eight gains respectively to become the largest party in both towns.

Some of the Labour responses to its loss of support over Gaza have far from helped its cause. Last October, when Labour was first hit by councillors resigning, someone the media described as “a senior Labour source” said the party was merely “shaking off the fleas.” Last Friday, when Labour thought it was heading for defeat in the West Midlands, the BBC quoted another “senior party source” as saying, “It’s the Middle East, not West Midlands, that will have won [Conservative candidate] Andy Street the mayoralty. Once again, Hamas are the real villains.”

The furor this triggered prompted Labour to condemn the comment as racist and say it had not come from “anyone who is speaking on behalf of the party.”

Nevertheless, the incident has added to the evidence of a Labour Islamophobia problem. Zarah Sultana, a Labour MP in Coventry and cochair of the Socialist Campaign Group, said, “Once again, I’m deeply disturbed by Islamophobic quotes given to the media by ‘Labour sources’…As a party we need to listen to and acknowledge concerns, not hold British Muslims in contempt.”