Gaza effect sees Labour lose seats and majorities in some areas collapse

5 July 2024, 09:28 | Updated: 5 July 2024, 11:18

A Gaza effect has seen Labour lose a handful of seats to independents who campaigned on the conflict in the Middle East.

In total, five seats were won by candidates who had campaigned against the new government's stance on Palestine.

This includes Jeremy Corbyn keeping his Islington North seat, as well as Shockat Adam winning in Leicester South, Ayoub Khan winning Birmingham Perry Barr, Adnan Hussain winning Blackburn and Iqbal Mohamed winning Dewsbury & Batley.

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And incoming prime minister Sir Keir Starmer was heckled by shouts of "free Palestine" when he was declared the winner in his north London seat.

All five of these seats were notionally held by Labour, taking into account boundary changes.

This has seen shadow cabinet member Jonathan Ashworth booted out in Leicester South.

Mr Ashworth lost his seat by 979 votes, and Blackburn was won by Mr Hussain with a majority of just 132.

Birmingham Perry Barr went independent by a margin of 507 votes.

The other two seats were won by larger proportions; Mr Corbyn beat the party he used to lead by 7,247 votes, and Mr Mohamed's victory in Dewsbury & Batley was by 6,934 votes.

Labour came second in all these contests.

There were also a number of seats where Labour saw massive falls in their support to candidates who were outspoken on Gaza and Palestine.

Jess Phillips held her Birmingham Yardley seat by just 693, with the Workers Party of Britain in second place.

She was booed as she gave her acceptance speech.

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The WPB's leader, George Galloway, has campaigned throughout his political career against UK and US foreign policy, and has been outspoken on issues like Palestine.

Mr Galloway, who was elected as an MP in the Rochdale by-election earlier this year, lost his seat to Labour candidate Paul Waugh by a margin of 1,440.

The WPB won no seats across the country.

Analysis by Sky News shows that Labour's support fell drastically in areas with higher Muslim populations.

Seats with a Muslim population of below 5% saw Labour's vote share increase by 3.4%.

In areas with a Muslim population between 5% and 15%, support for Labour dropped by 1.7%.

And then in seats where more than 15% of the population are Muslim, Labour backing plummeted by 14.3%.

Of the five seats independents won from Labour, four are in the top 15 in the UK for Muslim population.

The only one which is not is Islington North, where Mr Corbyn has been the local MP for more than 40 years.

Bradford West, the seat with the highest Muslim population according to the House of Commons library (58.7%), saw Labour's vote share collapse from 44.6% to just 31.6%, with an independent coming in second place by just 707 votes.