You’ll probably have encountered the “It Was A Scam” hashtag on social media, referring to the deeply cynical but remarkably successful attempts of an establishment cabal to get false or wildly exagerrated allegations of antisemitism against left-wingers to stick in the public consciousness, with a view to bringing down a Corbyn leadership which couldn’t be dislodged in any other way. Keir Starmer’s involvement in that process would make it richly ironic if it turned out that he overreached himself by thinking uncritical support for Israel is the passport to electoral success, and ultimately lost huge numbers of votes among Britain’s Muslim community (much bigger than the Jewish community, remember) due to his stance on Gaza.
A new Survation poll of British Muslims commissioned by the Labour Muslim Network is being billed as the first hard proof that Starmer is indeed paying the penalty. However, a touch of caution is called for here, because the poll is being reported in a misleading way. It’s being suggested that Labour’s support has “halved” among Muslims since the general election, but that seems to compare the 86% support Labour actually received in the 2019 general election with a 43% figure in the poll before the exclusion of undecideds. That’s an apples-and-oranges comparison because there were no “undecided votes” in the general election.
Once undecideds are removed, the Survation poll still shows a dramatic drop in Labour’s vote among Muslims since 2019, but it’s not quite the total collapse that is being suggested…
Labour 60%
Greens 14%
Liberal Democrats 9%
Conservatives 8%
SNP 4%
So that’s actually around a twenty-six point drop for Labour since 2019. There’s not much doubt that Starmer’s stance on Gaza is largely the culprit, because 85% of respondents say that the conflict in Gaza is important in determining how they will vote, and only 5% disagree. Starmer also has a negative personal rating in the poll, with 40% regarding him unfavourably and only 29% favourably.
That said, Muslims make up less than 5% of the UK population, so a 26-point drop among Muslim voters equates to around a 1-point drop among voters as a whole. So if you want to know why Muslim anger about Gaza hasn’t really impacted the national polls, that’s the reason. The dangers for Labour are that the anger about Gaza will extend to large swathes of non-Muslim voters, perhaps particularly in the student population as we saw after the Iraq War, and also that disproportionate geographical concentrations of Muslims could lead to Labour losing specific seats under first-past-the-post.
In case you’re wondering, there’s no published Scottish subsample in the poll – Survation have crudely split the sample into “London”, “North West [of England]”, “Yorkshire and the Humber”, “West Midlands”, and “Other”, with Scotland being lumped into the latter. Which is really odd, because the SNP at 4% of the GB-wide vote implies significant numbers of respondents were from Scotland.
* * *
Before we finish, a reminder that the Scot Goes Pop opinion poll fundraiser urgently needs a boost – let’s not leave it in limbo for months. It’s important that not all Scottish opinion polling is commissioned by anti-independence clients – we need to make sure that occasionally questions are asked that Yes supporters want asked. Donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE.
However if you have a Paypal account the best way to donate is via direct Paypal payment, because that can totally eliminate fees depending on which option you select, and payment usually comes through instantly. My Paypal email address is:
jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk
Related
