Westminster warning shot to Labor with Muslim vote ‘just getting started’
A British MP who toppled a Labour incumbent – propelled by anger over Palestine – has predicted a permanent political shift as the ALP prepared for Australia’s own ‘Muslim vote’ campaigns.
One of the British “Gaza independents” who ousted UK Labour in a seat it had held for decades has declared the success of the “Muslim vote” is heading for Australia and that victorious pro-Palestine candidates could stay in parliament for years amid a permanent political shift across Western democracies.
Birmingham Perry Barr MP Ayoub Khan ousted two-decade Labour incumbent Khalid Mahmood in July’s election. The new MP ran strongly, but not exclusively, on a pro-Palestine platform and was backed by The Muslim Vote UK.
A long-serving local councillor, Mr Ayoub has acknowledged Gaza was the “prime factor” for his success and said he wouldn’t “downplay” the importance of his constituency’s Muslim vote, but said his campaign centred also on local issues, which attracted support from each type of voter.
But British Labour candidates decried the “worst” campaigning environment they’d seen amid a warning shot from within the party urging the ALP against complacency and to pump resources into at-risk electorates it should treat as marginals.
“Our success has spread and there’s an attraction … politics is going to shift,” Mr Ayoub told The Weekend Australian.
Four “Gaza independents” toppled Labour incumbents in July’s election, coming close to further scalps, including new Health Minister Wes Streeting.
“Voters are saying: ‘Hold on, we don’t need to be affiliated or vote for a party … there are local people who are passionate and do things differently’,” Mr Ayoub said.
“There’s been a shift here, which will also play out at the next election, and could resonate in Australia.”
It comes after The Australian revealed in September that The Muslim Vote UK had been providing guidance to its Australian stablemates, with the British group’s chief organiser saying the Muslim community’s move away from major parties was “just getting started”.
As the Albanese government struggled to quell discontent within the Muslim community approaching the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attacks, the message to Australian Labor ahead of a pro-Palestine political onslaught was clear: “Get ready”.
“There was a sentiment among the Muslim community across the UK that they didn’t like hypocrisy,” Mr Ayoub said, adding it was offensive to label the movement “sectarian or Islamist”, one not given to 2003’s Iraq War protests.
“You’ve got politicians that are not honest, who run a hypocritical line … (on) Gaza, for example.”
Last October, the Liberal Democrats, the party he belonged to at the time, counselled Mr Khan for allegedly questioning the extent of Hamas’s October 7 attacks, which he apologised for.
The independents’ success was a rare red mark on Keir Starmer’s landslide win and Mr Ayoub said it had left Labour parties “frightened”, predicting the political shift would endure.
The independents were aided closely by The Muslim Vote UK, which has been replicated domestically by two organisations: a separate Australian version with the same name and the Muslim Votes Matter.
Both are backing pro-Palestine candidates against Labor, particularly in its southwest Sydney heartlands, where ministers Tony Burke and Jason Clare are both likely to face independents from the Muslim community.
The Muslim Vote UK’s national co-ordinator, Abubakr Nanabawa, said it orchestrated campaigns in some of its July target seats in as little as six weeks.
“With five years to prepare, I’m confident there will be a permanent shift across the next decade,” he said. “(Our) aim will be to empower Muslim communities to hold their MPs to account so they actually deliver, not just with platitudes.”
Despite the movement’s moniker, Mr Nanabawa said plenty of Muslim MPs had been “rubbish” and what was more important were someone’s pro-Palestine credentials. “When we say we want people from our communities, really, we want people – most importantly – who are pro-Palestinian,” he said.
But Labour MPs who lost or just survived told the British press that July’s campaigning environment was the “worst … sullied by harassment and intimidation”.
Jess Phillips said volunteers were filmed and abused – one had their tyres slashed – and Shabana Mahmood said rival campaigners had sought to “deny” her Muslim faith.
Former opposition frontbencher Jonathan Ashworth, the most high-profile casualty, alleged he was the victim of “vitriol, bullying and intimidation”, and the defeat was about “Gaza … simple as that”.
He criticised The Muslim Vote UK for trying to “punish” him and for alleged harassment, something the group said it would pursue legal action against, while Mr Mahmood alleged that it created a “fabricated agenda” against him and played on the community’s “heartstrings”.
“I’ve worked for 30 years for Palestine and a two-state solution … they’ve literally done nothing for Gaza,” Mr Mahmood said.
Labour also suffered losses to the Greens, where, in Bristol, the party overturned a 37,000 majority to dump former shadow minister Thangam Debbonaire, who said the party’s “lack of a strong narrative” on Palestine “had consequences”.
Three-decade former Labour MP Mike Gapes left the party because of anti-Semitism under Jeremy Corbyn, before returning last year, and lives in Mr Streeting’s Ilford North seat.
“Like a lot of activists we were sent out to campaign in other (marginal) seats, which worked,” he said.
“But it made us vulnerable (with a) low turnout to protest votes or single-issue campaigns, or targeted operations.”
Mr Gapes said the independent campaign was “very organised” against Mr Streeting, targeting Muslim voters with a sole focus on Palestine.
He said Palestine flags were tied to lamp posts, street signs and outside polling stations, and that non-Muslim households received flyers about Mr Streeting’s track record, while Muslim voters received one “entirely focused on Gaza”.
Fake AI videos showing Mr Streeting talking offensively about Muslims also made the rounds.
“It was targeted and nasty,” Mr Gapes said, saying Labour candidates in some seats were called “child killers”, a term hurled at ALP candidates recently in Sydney.
“It’s not new, it’s happened before, but it was on a much bigger scale.”
Mr Gapes said his advice to ALP ministers or MPs under political threat was to focus on their own backyards.
“Don’t be complacent, don’t think you’ve got or will retain your core vote,” he warned.
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