Only A Third of UK Muslim Voters Would Back Starmer's Labour

IQNA – Support for Labour among UK Muslim voters has plunged to just 33% under Sir Keir Starmer, down from 80% previously.

If there were a general election tomorrow, only a third of Muslim voters would support Labour under Starmer, down from a high of 80 per cent, according to the poll of 1,006 Muslim adults by JL Partners for the Policy Exchange.

The think tank said this would probably cause a wave of new Muslim independent candidates being elected in areas such as Birmingham, Blackburn and Newham.

Dr Rakib Ehsan, the lead author of Policy Exchange’s report, said: “The fresh polling also reveals that there are fundamental differences between the wider general population and British Muslims living in parts of England where problems over integration persist.

“This is especially stark over the extent to which Israel-Gaza is prioritized as an issue when deciding how to vote in the forthcoming local elections.

The poll found 49 per cent of Muslims said they would consider voting Green to prevent a Labour candidate from winning and 60 per cent would consider backing an independent.

Muslims prioritize religious identity over Britishness

Policy Exchange said this shift was driven by significant divides between the views of British Muslims and other Britons. The data show Muslims prioritize their religious identity over their identity as British citizens.

More than six in 10 (63 per cent) ranked their religious identity as most important to them, compared with 12 per cent who rated their Britishness as the most important. Nearly three-quarters (74 per cent) did, however, say that being British was important to them.

The figures were reversed for the general population with 43 per cent prioritizing national identity versus 12 per cent who ranked religious identity as most important.

Like the general population, Muslims ranked the cost of living as the most important issue alongside the economy, education and welfare. But Muslims are five times more likely (25 per cent) than the average Briton (5 per cent) to say that the Israeli war on Gaza will determine their vote.

A quarter of the British Muslims polled had a favorable view of Hamas.

The poll also found that Muslim voters were more often victims of improper election practices. Some 14 per cent of Muslim voters polled said they had had a postal vote collected by a political candidate, activist or campaigner – a practice which is now illegal and was long associated with election fraud. This is almost double the proportion for the general population.

Source: The Telegraph