While Labour’s narrow victory in Batley and Spen will mostly be analysed through the prism of Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership, a more compelling fault line is the apparent estrangement of some Muslim voters from a party that has until now been able to rely on their support. Labour may have held on but it also showed its hand. During the campaign, Labour’s candidate Kim Leadbeater posed for a photograph with local campaigners sporting T-shirts that depicted Israel as ‘Palestine’, issued both a leaflet and a letter touting her pro-Palestinian credentials (by heaping scorn on Israel, naturally), and defended a grim leaflet clearly geared towards tapping into anti-Hindu and anti-Indian prejudices. In the middle of the campaign, Sir Keir also used one PMQs to demand Boris Johnson convince other world leaders at the G7 to recognise a Palestinian state, presumably prior to any peace agreement with Israel.
If Labour detects a rift with some Muslim voters, there are ways to address it that don’t involve stoking anti-Israel and anti-India sentiment
The Labour view of British Muslims that comes across in these antics is fairly objectionable.
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