2 Indian-origin MPs among 5 independent UK winners on pro-Gaza platform

LONDON: Two-Indian origin (PIO) MPs are among five independents who won in the UK general election on Thursday. All triumphed on pro-Gaza platforms, sparking fears about the rise of sectarian politics in England. There have been only eight independent MPs elected in a UK general election since 1950.
The winners this time were all endorsed by the Muslim Vote, an influential campaign alliance of 24 activist groups that aimed to drive Muslim voters away from Labour and the Tories to its endorsed candidates.The umbrella group is highly critical of Labour’s early stance on Gaza, particularly not backing a ceasefire vote in the House of Commons in Nov 2023.
The five independent winners are PIOs Iqbal Mohamed and Shockat Adam, British-Pakistanis Ayoub Khan and Adnan Hussain, and Jeremy Corbyn.
A YouGov poll before the election found that 41% of Pakistani and Bangladeshi Britons said the “the situation in Gaza and Israel” was one of the top issues in deciding how they would vote, compared to 5% for the whole public.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Rakib Ehsan said: “For years Labour has indulged in Muslim religious identity politics based on both domestic and foreign-policy grievances based on Palestine and Kashmir. Now, they are getting a little taste of their own identitarian medicine.”
Sam Ashworth-Hayes wrote in the same paper: “The most significant result from Thursday may not have been the wipe-out of the Conservative Party. Instead, it could turn out to be the return of sectarian politics to England.”
In constituencies where at least 40% of people described their religion as Muslim, the Labour vote share suffered an average drop of 33.9%. Several Labour MPs targeted by the Muslim Vote only just held on to their seats.
Independent MP Mohamed, whose parents arrived from India in the 1960s, won Dewsbury and Batley with 15,641 votes, leaving the Labour candidate, British-Pakistani Heather Iqbal, in second place with 8,707 votes.
Mohamed, an engineer and management consultant, said: “I am a proud first-generation British-Indian Muslim born and raised in Dewsbury.” He said he had originally planned to stand as a Labour candidate but resigned when it did not call for a ceasefire in Gaza last year.
Another independent MP, Adam, is an Indian-origin Gujarati Muslim optometrist raised in Leicester. He caused one of the biggest upsets of the night when he unseated Labour’s shadow paymaster Jonathan Ashworth in Leicester South, narrowly winning by 979 votes. The seat has been held by Labour since 1987, apart from one by-election in 2004.
Adam moved to Leicester from Africa in the 70s. As the results came out, he held up a keffiyeh scarf and said: “This is for the people of Gaza.”