What should the Tories do about Nigel Farage? The leadership candidates have made many speeches and written many columns explaining how they would answer this question. Yet at Kemi Badenoch’s campaign launch on Monday, she dismissed it. Instead, there was another contingent of new MPs she was more concerned with: the pro-Gaza independents. ‘When everyone was worried about the election of Reform MPs, I was far far more worried about the five new MPs elected on the back of sectarian Islamist politics, alien ideas that have no place here,’ she said. ‘[That is] the sort of politics we need to defeat – and defeat quickly.’
This represents the introduction of a new sectarian politics to Britain
If Badenoch had waited a few hours, she would have had even more cause for concern. That afternoon, the four new pro-Gaza independents announced they were in a formal ‘Independent Alliance’ group with Jeremy Corbyn (who, having been banished from the Labour party, was re-elected as an independent for Islington North). This means that the Gaza Five have the same parliamentary numbers as Reform UK or the DUP.
On election night, their success took many by surprise. The ‘Portillo moment’ ended up being the shock defeat of Jonathan Ashworth, a Labour shadow minister, in Leicester South where the new MP Shockat Adam declared: ‘This is for Gaza.’ The result was so unexpected it wasn’t even covered live on television, but it represented a big swing away from Labour in areas with high Muslim populations and the introduction of a new sectarian politics to Britain.
There were very nearly more ministerial causalities from independent pro-Gaza candidates. Wes Streeting, Starmer’s golden boy, hung on in Ilford North by just 528 votes. Jess Phillips, who resigned from Starmer’s frontbench to protect Birmingham Yardley, won by 693. Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary – and a practising Muslim – had her majority in Birmingham Ladywood cut from 28,582 to 3,421.
The other successful insurgents were Ayoub Khan, a former Lib Dem councillor, who ran in Birmingham Perry Barr in protest at being told to ‘hush up’ on Gaza. In Blackburn, Adnan Hussain, a solicitor, campaigned on succeeding on Gaza where ‘our so-called representatives have failed’. Iqbal Mohamed in Dewsbury and Batley became the first independent MP elected to a Yorkshire seat for a century. His defeated Labour rival, Heather Iqbal, accused his supporters of running a campaign of ‘intimidation, abuse and harassment’. Labour-supporting Muslims have said there are efforts to stop them holding positions in the local mosques.
Although the Gaza Five have now formed a unit, they knew nothing about each other before entering parliament. An ‘intense period of work’ (also known as political speed-dating) has taken place over the summer to make sure they have each other’s measure. In the end, they found a common cause: ‘Justice at home and justice in the world.’ As well as fighting for Palestine, they will oppose spending cuts and austerity. While clearly a tiny group against Starmer’s 403-strong army, they are a reminder of the threat from the left of his party over Gaza.
The practical fear is that a formal grouping could mean the Gaza Five plant roots and become harder to get rid of. If they work together – becoming the hard-left, anti-Israel bloc that George Galloway wanted to create with his Workers Party – they might be able to tempt one or two disgruntled Labour MPs to join their ranks. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has shown in the US Congress how a ‘squad’ of just four or five people can cause serious problems and attract a lot of media attention.
At first, Starmer gave no quarter to all of this and stood steadfast behind Israel. This week, he broke. Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced that 30 out of 350 arms export licences to Israel would be suspended. The decision not only marks Starmer’s first row with Benjamin Netanyahu, who called it ‘shameful’, but shows the first friction between this government and Washington. White House sources expressed disappointment and Kamala Harris has ruled out following the UK, saying her support for Israel is ‘unequivocal’.
Some Labour MPs also question the timing: Lammy spoke on the same day that the six hostages shot by Hamas were being buried. ‘We could have waited,’ says one. The Gaza Five, as might be expected, argued that the government did not go far enough. ‘It’s just going to result in the SNP and the independents pushing us to ban all arms sales and then us looking weak,’ says a Labour figure.
Labour MPs who came close to losing to pro-Gaza independents face a difficult balancing act. Phillips, a Home Office minister, found herself in hot water when, advertising her Gaza credentials, she suggested she’d received preferential NHS treatment because she had backed a ceasefire and the doctor was Palestinian.
Ashworth, who now runs the influential Labour Together thinktank, speaks openly about the dirty tricks he believes were deployed against him. Other MPs in the party privately agree but don’t dare speak out for fear of driving Muslim voters further away. Many refer vaguely to ‘toxic politics’ but then refuse to get into specifics. Labour politicians are seeking advice from Muslim leaders on how to regain trust in the community and Starmer needs to win back these voters to stop the expansion of a new hard left. But it’s not yet clear if he has the appetite for the task.
A reminder of its importance could pop up in his own backyard this week. Georgia Gould, the ex-leader of Camden council, is now the MP for Queen’s Park and Maida Vale and there is a by-election for her old council seat. The Labour candidate has fierce competition from an independent, Muhammad Abu Naser, who has pledged to ‘divest council funds from companies profiting from genocide in Palestine’. As someone on the ground puts it: ‘It’s all very Palestine – when the real issue is the even further delayed tube station re-opening.’
In his first speech as Prime Minister, Starmer said he would make it his mission to ‘end the era of noisy performance’ in politics. The Independent Alliance will make that harder.
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