Labour is facing a collapse in support among British Muslim voters in this week’s local elections. The votes of many Muslims are instead likely to go to pro-Gaza independents and the Green Party. The bad news doesn’t end there for Labour: if there was a general election tomorrow, only a third of Muslim voters would support the party, according to a poll released ahead of today’s local elections.
If there was a general election tomorrow, only a third of Muslim voters would support Labour
The scale of disaffection with Labour on the part of many British Muslims is laid out in research undertaken by JL Partners for the Policy Exchange think tank. The survey looked at political views among 1,006 Muslim adults in key metropolitan areas including London, the West Midlands and Greater Manchester – parts of the country where support for Labour among British Muslims has traditionally been very strong.
The survey found that the war in Gaza ranks high in their list of concerns: three in five Muslims would consider backing candidates standing on a pro-Palestinian platform to stop Keir Starmer at the elections.
Support for Labour among Muslim voters has fallen sharply since the last general election, dropping from 41 per cent in 2024 to 33 per cent now. Meanwhile, support for the Green Party has risen from 18 per cent to 27 per cent. This survey demonstrates two obvious truths. First, Labour is haemorrhaging support among a voting demographic that has previously supported it in huge numbers. Second, some Muslim votes in the local elections will be cast not on local issues but on what is happening thousands of miles away in the Middle East. That says nothing good about the state of democracy.
Just as troubling are some other trends revealed in the polling. It uncovered a stark difference in British Muslim attitudes compared to the rest of the general public. It found that almost two thirds of Muslims rank their religious identity above their British nationality. It also revealed a greater hostility to Jews among Muslims, with just over a fifth saying they feel unfavourably towards them compared to just 11 per cent of the general population. A quarter of Muslim respondents said they had a favourable view of the proscribed terror group Hamas. Support for gender segregation in public spaces was also higher than among the general population.
What exactly is going on here? The general level of discontent in Muslim communities appears to be high. Many feel that Labour has – for too long – taken their votes for granted. The issue of Gaza, and the wider conflict in the Middle East, is a source of widespread disillusionment, with many Muslims accusing Labour of failing to listen sufficiently to their concerns.
Gaza has become something of a lightning rod, prompting Muslim voters to look for ways to punish Labour. Gaza-focused independent candidates have taken advantage of this simmering anger and discontent. This could prove hugely significant in today’s elections because polling is taking place in several cities and large towns where small shifts or turnout in the Muslim vote could be the decisive factor.
This is the nightmare scenario for Labour, which is already losing ground to parties across the political spectrum. More broadly, Labour is still haunted by what happened in certain key seats with large Muslim populations in the general election in 2024. The Muslim Vote (TMV), a relatively new pressure group formed in 2023, managed to successfully mobilise Muslim voter support to such a degree that five Labour candidates lost to pro-Gaza independents. The most headline-grabbing political scalp on election night was the former shadow cabinet minister, Jonathan Ashworth, who lost his Leicester South seat to independent candidate, Shockat Adam. The group endorsed the successful Green candidate Hannah Spencer in the Gorton and Denton by-election – another constituency with a large number of Muslim voters – in February. The TMV website focuses on seats where this demographic can influence the outcome. “Make the Muslim Vote Count, “it proclaims, offering information on seats where the community can influence the outcome. TMV are confident that independents – or indeed Green candidates – backed by them will win council seats.
What might be called the special relationship between Muslims and Labour is no more. The British Muslim community is much more electorally fickle than before, seemingly determined to punish or reward political parties based on their foreign policy stance on issues like Gaza rather than matters closer to home. It is yet more evidence of how a volatile political landscape is producing seismic changes with far-reaching consequences.
