Standing outside his terraced home in Blackburn , taxi driver Ismail Patel practically swells with pride as he reveals his family’s long-standing support for the Labour Party . “We have been voting Labour for about 30 years,” he says. “We supported Jack Straw and so many who came after him.
We have always supported Labour.” But in the next breath, the 58-year-old sums up the feeling of many British Muslims since the outbreak of the war in Gaza . “I won’t be voting Labour this time,” Mr Patel says.
A rift has opened up between the party and its previously loyal Muslim supporters . In the 2019 general election, more than 80 per cent of Muslims voted for Labour. But in the months since 7 October, support for the party among Muslims has deteriorated.
Many on the doorstep in the Lancashire town of Blackburn cite an October LBC interview in which Labour leader Keir Starmer appeared to suggest Israel had “the right” to withhold power and water from Palestinians in Gaza. Labour claimed its position had been misinterpreted in the interview and its stance on an immediate ceasefire in Gaza did eventually move. But a delay in calling for it – which eventually came in February, three months after several frontbenchers resigned or were sacked for defying the party to vote for an explicit “immediate” end to fighting – has contributed to a sense of distrust among pro-Palestinian Muslim voters .
The local and mayoral elections saw many traditional Labour-voting Mus.
