Labour frontbencher Jonathan Ashworth has lost his seat to a pro-Palestinian independent candidate as the party fights to contain a backlash over its stance on Gaza.
The shadow paymaster general, who has been central to the Labour campaign, suffered the shock defeat in the early hours of Friday morning.
Mr Ashworth lost his Leicester South seat by around 1,000 votes to Shockat Adam, who ran on a pro-Gaza ticket.
The conflict in the Middle East has proved divisive for Labour, with Sir Keir Starmer facing criticism for his initial refusal to back a ceasefire. Many of the party’s core Muslim supporters have been angered by Sir Keir’s stance on Gaza, which led to 10 frontbenchers quitting in November.
Party bosses had feared repercussions in the general election after facing a significant backlash from Muslim voters in May’s local elections. Labour activists were deployed in seats with large Muslim populations in an attempt to stave off challenges by pro-Palestine candidates.
Leicester has a high Muslim population, accounting for 23.5 per cent of residents at the last census in 2021.
On his website, Mr Adam attacks Mr Ashworth for initially refusing to vote for a ceasefire to “end the bloodshed”, in line with Sir Keir. The independent candidate pledged to “champion Leicester’s values of global peace and justice” if he was elected.
Labour’s ‘attack dog’
Mr Ashworth, dubbed Labour’s “attack dog”, won Leicester South with a huge majority of more than 22,000 in 2019.
But this was overturned on Thursday as he achieved just 13,760 votes compared with Mr Adam’s 14,739.
The Tories were in third place, on 4,820 votes, followed by the Greens on 3,826.
In a sign anger over Gaza was cutting through at the general election, Labour also lost Blackburn, where it had a majority of more than 18,000, to Adnan Hussain, another pro-Palestinian candidate.
In the May local elections, Labour lost control of Oldham council, which it had held for more than 13 years, after ceding seats to three independent councillors who ran on a pro-Palestine platform.
In Oldham East, Workers Party candidate Shanaz Saddique ate into the Labour vote, while Nigel Farage’s Reform UK took chunks out of the Tory vote. UKIP got nearly 20 per cent of the vote in the traditionally Labour seat in 2015.
