The Shadow Paymaster General Jonathan Ashworth has lost his Leicester seat and both Blackburn and Dewsbury and Batley have fallen to independents, amid signs of a voter backlash over Gaza.
In Blackburn, Labour fell 0.3 percentage points behind an independent who secured 27% of the vote to take the north-west constituency. In Dewsbury and Batley, Labour’s vote collapsed by more than 36% for former Rachel Reeves adviser Heather Iqbal.
Labour has also failed to retake the former Labour MP Claudia Webbe’s Leicester seat or win in Chingford and Woodford Green.
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Meanwhile Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting won but came within 1,000 votes of losing his east London seat, Ilford North, Rushanara Ali won narrowly in Bethnal Green, and Jess Phillips only won her seat in Birmingham by around 700 votes.
Sky News analysis has shown that the Labour vote is down by more than 14% in areas with a Muslim population above 15%, with anger over Gaza contributing to the large independent vote we are seeing in some constituencies.
Labour has faced a string of challenges from independents campaigning hard to win Muslim voters angered by Labour’s failure to show more support for Palestinians during the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Labour also failed to win in Chingford and Woodford Green against its former candidate.
The scale of the defeat of Jon Ashworth,who saw his share of the vote.collapse by 35 percentage points versus 2019, is a major blow.
It also leaves the party down two senior shadow cabinet member, after Shadow Culture Secretary Thangam Debbonaire also lost in Bristol Central.
Meanwhile the Tories managed to win in Leicester East. Webbe stood as an independent. She had been elected as the Labour MP for Leicester East at the 2019 general election. She had previously served as a councillor in Islington and as a member of the NEC, where in 2018 she was elected chair of the disputes panel.
Claudia Webbe was convicted of harassment in November 2021 and lost her appeal for this conviction in May 2022, and Labour called on her to resign as an MP. She had the Labour whip suspended in September 2020 over the harassment charges and has not regained it.
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Jacob Rees-Mogg: Senior Tory loses seat as Labour mayor Dan Norris wins
Islington North: Jeremy Corbyn holds on in strong result over Labour
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Sophie Anderson, a UK-based writer, is your guide to the latest trends, viral sensations, and internet phenomena. With a finger on the pulse of digital culture, she explores what’s trending across social media and pop culture, keeping readers in the know about the latest online sensations.
