LONDON: New British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the “sunshine of hope” is shining again in Britain after the Labour Party won a landslide election victory in the UK, ending 14 years of Conservative rule, but several of its candidates lost to independent rivals who campaigned on a pro-Palestine platform and nearly a dozen newly elected Members of Parliament (MPs) of British-Pakistani Kashmiri origin saw their majority margin dangerously narrowed.
In several constituencies with significant Muslim votes, Starmer's support for Israel's war on Gaza has fallen, dealing a blow to the party, which took the Muslim vote for granted. However, the party's landslide victory is unprecedented.
British Muslim voters are expected to play a crucial role in around 100 constituencies, including most key seats across the country, and a record number of around 300 potential Muslim parliamentary candidates, most of them of Pakistani origin, were standing in the July 4 election across the country.
Muslims in the UK number around four million and their turnout in the general election is seen as crucial in many swing constituencies and also in traditionally safe Labour constituencies, where the dynamic has changed this time around.
Of Pakistani-Kashmiri origin, the Muslim politicians have successfully defended their seats, lost them or won as first-time candidates, either affiliated with a party or independent.
Birmingham – Ladywood
Shabana Mahmood (Labour) is a high-profile British-Pakistani politician. The Oxford graduate was first elected on the Labour Party ticket in 2010 and has been winning ever since. She won the seat with 15,558 votes. Her main opponent was Akhmed Yaqoob on the independent ticket, who ran mainly on the Gaza issue and won 12,137 votes.
Shabana had won the last election with a majority of 28,000 votes (80% of the total votes cast), but this time she won with a majority of only 3,421. She is part of Starmer's core team that prepared the Labour Party manifesto.
Birmingham — Perry Barr
Independent candidate Ayoub Khan, a lawyer, has defeated Khalid Mahmood (Labour), the highest-ranking British-Pakistani MP to win since 2001, to take the seat from Labour in a huge upset.
Ayoub won 13,303 votes, while Mahmood won 12,796, losing by a small margin. Ayoub has been a local councillor for several years and resigned from his Liberal Democrat position a few months ago.
Birmingham: Hall Green and Moseley
Tahir Ali won the seat for the Labour Party with 12,798 votes. He was first elected in 2019 with an overwhelming majority of more than 28,000.
His two main opponents were lawyer Mohammad Hafeez (independent), who received 6,159 votes, and Shakeel Afsar (independent), who received 7,142 votes. Both ran on a pro-Palestinian platform. The Labour Party could have lost this seat had Hafeez and Afsar not split the votes.
Hafeez is a prominent criminal lawyer who also worked as a prosecutor for the UK's Criminal Prosecution Service (CPS). Interestingly, until recently he was a member of the Labour Party with his entire family and Starmer was also in the CPS until a few years ago.
Hafeez left the Labour Party in solidarity with former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who strongly supported him. Afsar is a well-known local activist.
Bradford West
Naz Shah won this seat for the Labour Party with 11,724 votes, winning by just 707 votes. He was followed by Muhammed Ali Islam, an independent candidate, with 11,017 votes. Shah, one of the highest profile Muslim and Pakistani-origin MPs since her first election in 2015 after defeating George Galloway, faced a main challenge from Ali Islam (independent) and Akeel Hussain (independent).
Ali Islam, 21, was elected to the council a few weeks ago in a local revolt against the Labour Party and received more than 4,000 votes. Shah also came under fire in this election over the Baradari issue, misogyny and local Labour leaders supporting independents against him.
Bradford East
Imran Hussain (Labour) retained his seat with 14,098 votes. In the last election, Hussain received 27,825 votes, but this time the second place was occupied by Talat Sajawal (Independent), who received 7,909 votes and came in second.
Sajawal is a former Labour councillor who recently resigned over the Gaza issue and stood against Hussain on a pro-Gaza platform.
Bolton South and Walkden
Yasmin Qureshi (Labour) was first elected in 2010. She has been re-elected, but with a reduced majority of 15,093 votes. Mohammed Afzal (Conservative) received 4,170 votes against, Jack Khan (Workers' Party) received over 4,000 votes and the Reformist received 8,530.
The last time he had obtained a majority of more than 7,000 votes.
Coventry South
Labour activist and campaigner Zarah Sultana won the seat with 20,361 votes. She was first elected in 2019 by a narrow margin of 401 votes. The second-placed Conservative candidate won 10,160 votes.
London-Tooting
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour) is half Pakistani and half Polish. She won this seat for the Labour Party with 29,209 votes. She was first elected in 2016 in a by-election when Sadiq Khan became Mayor of London and resigned from his seat. The second Conservative candidate won 9,722 votes.
Manchester – Rusholme
Afzal Khan (Labour) has been re-elected, but with 15,054 seats. He was first elected in 2017 in a by-election for Manchester Gorton. At the last general election in 2019, Khan won with a majority of over 30,000 seats. His Conservative opponent won 1,678. The Green Party won 6,819.
Meriden and Solihull East
Saqib Bhatti (Conservative) has held on to his seat with 16,792 votes. Labour candidate Sarah Alan got 12,208. He was first elected in 2019 from the Conservative seat, which he had been safe with a lead of 23,000 votes.
Weald of Sussex
Nusrat Ghani (Conservative) retained her seat with 16,758 votes. She was first elected in 2015 from the Conservative seat, which was in a position to guarantee security. In 2018, she became the first Muslim minister to speak from the dais of the House of Commons. The second candidate, from the Reform UK party, received 8,920 votes.
Bedford
Mohammad Yasin (Labour) retained this seat for the Labour Party with 18,342 votes. He was first elected in 2017 in this seat and had won in the same seat in 2019, but with a razor-thin margin of just 146 votes.
Glasgow South West — Scotland
Dr Zubir Ahmed won Glasgow South West for Labour with 15,552 votes, a seat the party came within 60 votes of winning in 2017. The second-placed SNP candidate received 12,267 votes.
Black burn
Independent candidate Adnan Hussain, whose parents are from Gujarat, ousted Labour's Kate Hollern in the former industrial town of Blackburn in the north-west of the country, in a sign that Labour's position on the Gaza war has proved divisive and disastrous among many voters.
The lawyer managed to secure 10,518 votes, winning by a narrow margin of just 132 to Hollern's 10,386. Former British ambassador Craig Murray, who also ran a pro-Gaza platform for George Galloway's Workers' Party, came in third with 7,105 votes.
The Blackburn district in the north-west of the country had been represented by the Labour Party for 69 years. Hussain, a 34-year-old lawyer who runs a local law firm, stood as a pro-Gaza candidate.
Gillingham and Rainham
Rehman Chishti lost the Conservative seat to Labour's Naushabah Khan, who polled 15,562 votes. Chishti came second with 11,590. Both Naushabah and Chishti are of Pakistani origin. Chishti was first elected in 2010 and was one of the Conservative Party's first Muslim MPs. Naushabah has been a councillor on Medway Borough Council.
Dewsbury and Batley
Independent candidate Iqbal Mohamed, whose top priorities are a ceasefire and a peace deal in Gaza, beat Labour candidate Heather Iqbal, who is half British and half Pakistani. Mohamed received 15,641 votes, while Iqbal received 8,707.
Leicester South
Labour leader Jonathan Ashworth was unseated by independent Shockat Adam in Leicester South. Ashworth, the shadow finance chief who has made media appearances for the party during the Labour election campaign, was defeated by Adam on the Gaza issue.
Adam’s main policies include “standing up for global peace and justice.” Adam, of Indian-Gujarati Muslim origin and with relatives in Pakistan, is the younger brother of Ismael Patel, who leads the group called “Friends of Al-Aqsa.”
