‘Vote for Palestine’ campaign blamed as Labour suffers shock defeat in Oldham

Keir Starmer’s support for Israel has caused anger among some Labour voters – Peter Byrne/PA Wire

Labour suffered a shock defeat on Thursday night as it lost control of Oldham, with the party admitting its stance on Gaza was a key factor.

It surrendered control of the council after a slew of independent candidates were elected amid anger over Sir Keir Starmer’s initial refusal to back a ceasefire.

Pat McFadden, Labour’s national campaign coordinator, conceded that Gaza had been an “issue” on the doorstep as his party fought to hold on to seats.

During the election campaign, opposition leaflets featured comments Sir Keir made on LBC radio where he appeared to back Israel shutting off power and water.

The Labour leader later clarified the remarks, insisting he had only been supporting Israel’s right to self-defence, but they caused significant anger.

It came as Sir John Curtice, the leading polling expert, revealed that support amongst Muslims for Labour had slumped since last year’s local elections.

In an article for the BBC he said that Labour backing was down by eight points in wards where more than one in 10 of the population identify as Muslim.

Several of the independent candidates who took seats from Labour in the Oldham elections campaigned on an openly pro-Palestinian platform.

Aisha Kouser, who took St Mary’s ward from Labour, posted a campaign video showing her supporters carrying a large banner with “vote for Palestine” written on it.

A TikTok account promoting Majid Khan, who took Failsworth West, contained a number of pro-Palestine posts and was highly critical of Sir Keir.

One of the posts featured the Labour leader’s comments on LBC alongside a photo of him at a podium with the slogan: “Trust me I’m a liar.”

Paul Fryer, a retiring Labour councillor, told the Oldham Times that in some parts of the town “it’s the Gaza issue that may lose” Labour seats.

Other councillors on the ground also told the publication that the issue of Palestine had frequently come up when canvassing voters on the doorstep.

Ceasefire calls

One who lost their seat in the election told the BBC: “The main reason for this is Gaza and anger that the Labour Party took too long to call for a ceasefire.”

Labour remained the largest party with 27 seats, but it lost overall control of the council which now features 16 independents, making them the second largest grouping.

Asked about the loss, Mr McFadden, who is heading up Labour’s preparations for the general election, admitted Gaza had been a key factor.

He told the BBC: “I do think that’s been a factor in some places, I don’t think there’s any point in denying that. It does get raised, and I understand why people have strong feelings.

But he added: “In addition to the Middle East issue which you mentioned there are specific, very local factors in Oldham which have knocked it out of line with the Labour gains we’ve been seeing in local elections.”

Oldham has been dogged by years of controversy over the presence of child grooming gangs and conspiracy theories that the authorities covered up their activities.

An independent review found no evidence of such a cover up but did state that some young girls had been failed by the council and police.

Local campaigning has focused heavily on the issue in recent years, with Labour councillors saying they had been targeted by “toxic” smears.

‘Gaza an issue for everyone’

Arooj Shah, the Labour leader of the council, said that it was not a “fair statement” to entirely blame her party’s defeat on its response to the situation in Gaza.

She told the BBC: “We’ve lost seats in places where Gaza wasn’t an issue there. Gaza clearly is an issue for anyone who has an ounce of humanity in them.

“That’s because we are decent human beings. We did everything that we could here on the ground and we care deeply about what’s going on in Palestine.”

But in remarks appearing to refer to the campaigning on grooming gangs, she added: “Oldham has had really divisive toxic politics for the last five years.

“We’ve had the politics of Oldham taken over and driven and torn apart by extremist politics and we’ve seen that today as well.”

Pressed on the fact that Gaza was really to blame for the result, she replied: “I don’t think that’s a fair statement to make given that the issue of Gaza has been over the last year but what we’ve seen in Oldham is a lot longer than that.”

Ms Shah also blamed the Conservative Government, who she said had cut the council’s budget by hundreds of millions of pounds, for alienating voters from all the main parties.

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