Support for Labour has collapsed among Muslim voters according to a new poll commissioned by the Labour Muslim Network (LMN), with a huge majority citing Keir Starmer’s support for Israeli genocide as a decisive factor.
In the 2019 general election, 86% of Muslims voted Labour – but that has now dropped to 43%. 85% of those surveyed said that Palestine was either very important (70%) or somewhat important (15%) in deciding how they will vote at the next general election. The poll showed support among Muslims for the Greens, who have made clear calls for an end to the slaughter in Gaza, has rocketed by 900%.
LMN has repeatedly identified huge issues with the rampant Islamophobia in the party under Starmer and reported in 2022, long before Israel’s genocidal assault in Gaza, that more than two thirds of Muslims don’t trust Labour to sort out its anti-Muslim bigotry.
Demonstrators marching through central London last month in solidarity with Palestinians. Photograph: Vuk Valcic/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock
Hundreds of thousands of pro-Palestine demonstrators are expected to march through central London on Saturday in the UK’s first national demonstration since the UN’s international court of justice ordered Israel to ensure its forces do not commit acts of genocide in Gaza.
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Last Friday, the international court of justice ordered Israel to ensure its forces did not commit acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. In an interim judgment, the president of the court, Joan Donoghue, said Israel must “take all measures within its power” to prevent acts that fall within the scope of the genocide convention and must ensure “with immediate effect” that its forces do not commit any of the acts covered by the convention.
Earlier this month, the PSC organised a march of hundreds of thousands of people through central London. Little Amal, a 4-metre puppet of a Syrian child refugee, accompanied protesters as they marched towards Parliament Square. The following weekend, hundreds joined a multi-faith peace march in solidarity with people affected by the conflict.
The Gaza health ministry says at least 27,131 Palestinians have been killed and 66,287 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and about 250 abducted. Satellite images analysed by the United Nations Satellite Centre show that 30% of Gaza Strip’s buildings have been destroyed or damaged. Unicef estimated on Friday that 170,000 children in Gaza were unaccompanied or had been separated from their families.
This will be the eighth National March for Palestine organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign since October.
Image of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. UK halts aid to UNRWA in Gaza over Israeli allegations that 12 staff from a total of 13,000 were involved in the 7 October 2024 attack on Israel.
Water price hikes: we need a mass movement for public ownership
UNITE’S Sharon Graham calls the water industry “a symbol of the failure of privatisation writ large.”
She is right. The only reaction to water bosses’ announcement that they will raise prices above inflation from April should be a mass campaign for renationalisation now.
Water suppliers claim they need to raise bills because they are planning big investments to cut down on leaks. How dare they?
Since privatisation these crooks have paid out over £70 billion in dividends to shareholders, loaded the sector — debt-free when privatised — with over £50bn in debt and raised bills by over 40 per cent.
While milking the system for everything it’s worth they have neglected basic maintenance and repairs. In London and the south-east alone, water regulator Ofwat calculated last year that 600 million litres, equivalent to 270 Olympic swimming pools, are leaked from pipes every single day.
They have behaved with utter contempt for the environment, discharging untreated sewage into our waterways thousands of times. They have continued to pay executives millions even when fined for their illegal ecological vandalism.
THE director of public prosecutions is appealing to the Supreme Court to overturn the acquittal of two peaceful protesters for insulting Iain Duncan Smith.
Ruth Wood and Radical Haslam were charged over an incident in Manchester during the October 2021 Conservative Party conference at which both called the former work and pensions secretary “Tory scum” and Ms Wood added “F*** off out of Manchester.”
That their case even reached the High Court should have set alarm bells ringing over the creeping restriction of free speech in Britain. That court’s not guilty verdict was welcome, though its consideration of their motives for insulting Mr Duncan Smith was surely unnecessary: rudeness to a politician should not be considered criminal, end of.
A view of the Bibby Stockholm migrant accommodation barge following the death of an asylum seeker on board, December 12, 2023
THE tragic human cost of the Bibby Stockholm barge was revealed by MPs today as the Tories’ overspend on asylum accommodation landed taxpayers with an extra £2.6 billion bill.
Dame Diana Johnson said asylum-seekers were facing “claustrophobic” conditions that could amount to a breach of human rights after the home affairs select committee visited the Portland vessel.
The committee chairwoman wrote to illegal migration minister Michael Tomlinson to set out serious concerns about the wellbeing of asylum-seekers on the barge.
She said it was “disheartened to see some of the living conditions on the Bibby Stockholm” after finding “many individuals having to share small, cramped cabins (originally designed for one person), often with people (up to six) they do not know (some of whom spoke a different language to them).”
“These crowded conditions were clearly contributing to a decline in mental health for some of the residents, and they could amount to violations of the human rights of asylum-seekers,” she added.
The committee complained of “discrepancies” between the accounts of officials and asylum-seekers themselves, noting MPs received “inconsistent” information regarding access to GP services for those on board.
Mayor of North of Tyne, Jamie Driscoll, speaking at the Convention of the North, January 25, 2023
AN ELECTED Labour mayor who was barred by the party from standing in May’s mayoral election has launched his election campaign standing as an independent.
North of Tyne Mayor Jamie Driscoll attacked Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer in a packed community hall in Sunderland on Thursday night asking: “What if – it’s a general election year – Keir Starmer says, ‘here’s my 10 pledges’ – would you trust him to keep them?”
He criticised Labour MPs and other politicians who changed their positions each time a policy was altered by the leadership.
“The day I left the Labour Party was the day Labour said they would adopt the Conservative policy of the two-child benefit cap — a policy that plunged 250,000 kids into poverty at a stroke,” he said.
“And all those Labour frontbenchers – and Labour mayoral candidates – who’d said that policy was ‘heinous’ and ‘cruel’ changed their tune, and said, ‘ah, well, you know, public finances,’ and meekly swallowed the party line that it’s OK to keep children in poverty.
Labour Party leader Keir Starmer speaking during the Labour and Civil Society Summit at St John’s church in Waterloo, south London, January 22, 2024
… KEIR STARMER was accused of hypocrisy yesterday as he vowed to defend civic institutions from “Tory McCarthyism.”
The Labour leader criticised the Conservatives for targeting organisations such as the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and the National Trust as part of their “war on woke.”
Jewish Voice for Labour’s Mike Cushman, however, said that Sir Keir is an expert when it comes to McCarthyism — named after the infamous US senator responsible for spreading fears and persecuted leftwingers in the postwar “red scare.”
He told the Morning Star: “We welcome Starmer’s recognition of the Tories’ McCarthyism: freedom of action by civic groups is important to protect, but we would wish he would recognise the McCarthyism within the Labour Party, which attempts to police legitimate discussion of Palestine and Israel by falsely labelling it as anti-semitism, in a clear McCarthyite attempt to shut down needed discussion.”
