Rochdale and Newham after the By-election.
A by-election is not a general election. Turnout is typically low. Only 31,107 voters bothered to cast a vote in the Rochdale by-election, (compared to 46,476 in the 2019 general election). It is a chance to give the government a bit of a kicking without disturbing anything too much.
Rochdale was unusual for a number of reasons. Two candidates were suspended from their respective parties before the day of the election. One for antisemitism and the other for anti-Muslim comments (Azhar Ali for Labour and Guy Otten for the Greens).
It was also an election dominated by events thousands of miles away that galvanized a religious community.
The parties that dominated in the general election were both humiliated. Labour went from 53% to 8% (or nothing, depending upon how you look at it); the Tories went from 32% to 12%.
It was won by a comparatively new party (The Workers Party), although their candidate has a national reputation and is loved and loathed in equal measure. George Galloway won with a majority that would make any candidate envious. Despite this, he only managed 40% of the vote, that is under twelve and a half thousand votes. Tony Lloyd took 24,475 votes in 2019.
The runner up in Rochdale was a complete unknown, at least to anyone outside Rochdale. Independent candidate David Tully took 21% of the vote, that’s as many as Labour, Tory and Greens combined. This has led some of the pundits in the new media to suggest the end of the two-party system.
That must be speculation at best and probably wishful thinking.
For Newham however, this is ominous. So far, only one councillor has defected to the Independent Group. Clearly the plight of the Palestinians affected him in a manner that the plight of Syrians, Yemenis, Kurds, Afghans, Sudanese, Western Saharans and Somalis didn’t. It remains a trigger issue for much of the Muslim community in Newham and elsewhere. The Muslim councillors have generally remained loyal to Labour and this is despite considerable community pressure that many of them have come under to jump ship.
What will happen in the run up to 2026 is too early to tell. We reported on the organization The Muslim Vote and their attempts to organize block votes in key constituencies, many of these are in east London and include Newham. Locally, they will build on the work of the Independent Group which remains confident.
Despite all of the protestations against suggesting that Muslims act as a block vote, clearly, some Muslims believe that they do and that there is something called a “Muslim Agenda”.
In Newham Muslims make up around 34% of the population and they come from a variety of countries, though most hail from the sub-continent. This does suggest that the “community agendas” might differ. For instance, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis might not see eye-to-eye on everything. This suggests that building a coherent platform on the basis of a shared religion might not be as straightforward as it first seems.
But emotions are not guided by rationality and a coherent policy platform. And Gaza has sparked a highly emotional response.
For many years, genuinely liberally minded Muslims have been sidelined by the Labour Party in favour of more conservative members who command greater electoral support. Labour might want to revisit this practice. It might be a better long-term strategy to support Muslims who share the core beliefs of the party rather than those who will flit to any party in the hope of electoral advantage.
On the plus side, Rochdale does make it somewhat less likely that Galloway will stand for mayor in London this May.