Is This a Warning for Newham Labour?

Labour were humiliated on 27th March. Another Independent candidate trounced the Labour hopeful.

This was in the seat held by former council leader and now Ilford South MP, Jas Athwal. In the 2022 elections, he topped the poll with over 2300 votes. The turnout in the byelection was smaller, but there are clear warning signs for Labour.

Their vote collapsed.

Begum took 1080 votes (42%) to Labour’s 663, (26%).

With the caveats that this might be simply a blip, it does appear to be the result of a movement away from Labour by Muslims. We are aware that the Redbridge campaign was run with the support of Newham councillor Mehmood Mirza. We see him below at the victory announcement and recall that he won his seat months before Gaza, campaigning entirely on local issues.

And Cllr Naqvi joined him on the campaign trail.

And whilst Gaza did play a role in the campaign…

…so did the following, “bring integrity back to politics”. This was Begum’s repeated campaign slogan, taking a pot shot at the unfortunate revelations about Athwal’s property portfolio and it seems to have touched a nerve with voters.

She also campaigned on a range of local issues, (with a coded reference to one that wasn’t).

Here is Newham Labour’s problem.

There was a time when the council was more popular than the Labour government. Those days are passed and both Whitehall and Town Hall are viewed with disdain.

The council’s abysmal failure and its unpopular mayor mean that traditional Labour voters may well choose to switch votes or simply stay at home. As in Redbridge, maybe its “time for a change” slogan will resonate with voters fed up of increasing taxation. (It was a a slogan Fiaz once favoured.)

Labour’s strength was that it was class based but could reach across ethnic and cultural divisions. Not so any longer. They managed to alienate much of the white working class and lost aspiring immigrant communities. Now they have alienated a large section of the Muslim community and this group is beginning to taste success. They no longer need Labour.

Neither Lammy’s contorted language on Gaza, nor the promise of a new blasphemy law in the guise of Islamophobia is likely to save them at the local level.

Nationally, Labour has a massive majority and four years to pull a rabbit out of the hat. Locally the picture is very different and the signs suggest that Labour could face its fiercest challenge for decades with candidates who expose and repeat Fiaz’s repeated failings.