Religion, Politics and Bloc Voting
Janice Turner with an interesting article in the Times which questions whether the general election has ushered in a new era of religious bloc voting and Islamic sectarianism.
"It is unclear as yet whether such successes are due to Labour’s position on Gaza or if this issue is a cover, a rallying point for a new communitarian, religious voting bloc which the UK, outside Northern Ireland, has hitherto avoided.
"It is certainly the end-point of identity politics, too long stoked within Labour, where Islamic sectarianism, including support for Hamas, has been glossed over to retain Muslim votes."
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/blair-gave-us-hope-this-result-unsettles-me-0gg8wpqc6Blair gave us hope, this result unsettles me
This is no new dawn: Starmer’s majority may be similar to that of 1997 but today’s fractured politics makes it brittle
By Janice Turner - The Times
On May 2, 1997, overflowing with joy at the first Labour government of my adult life, I bought pastries and prosecco for my magazine’s entire staff. In the queue to pay, a woman caught my eye and we exchanged smiles. A spell had broken, eternal winter had ended, the impossible was now striding into Downing Street.
Maybe memory has gilded this youthful, happy time when I had one baby already and another on the way. That explains why yesterday morning, after Labour achieved a similar landslide, I was muted and certainly not drinking champagne. This victory, this stonking triumph, which reached the truest, bluest places even Tony Blair never could — Bury St Edmunds, Basingstoke, Chelsea, the City of London! — has little of 1997’s soaring, optimistic vibe.
This was never an election about vision. Speaking at his early-hours victory rally, Sir Keir Starmer strove for poetry: “And now we can look forward, walk into the morning, the sunlight of hope…” It felt forced, self-conscious, a pale echo of Blair’s “new dawn”. Not Keir at all.
His Downing Street speech was more his style. Few all-conquering victors make meagre promises of “stability and moderation” or to rebuild “brick by brick”. Starmer campaigned in stilted prose and will govern in dense small-print. Yet that is precisely why he won. He didn’t sail in on inspiring rhetoric about a new country of bright tomorrows. He promised to mend the old country we have right now. We have become long-suffering about NHS waiting lists, unsolved burglaries, an ill-maintained public realm, from court backlogs to cancelled trains. “Broken” was the descriptor dominating focus groups. But it was when sewage-dumping stories took hold last summer that I started to believe in a Labour landslide. Public reaction here wasn’t rolled eyes but revulsion. The government couldn’t even keep shit out of our water?
A visceral disgust spread well beyond Labour’s usual reach, to rich suburbs and red-trouser shires. We elected Centrist Dad to roll up his sleeves and fix our rotten plumbing.
Outside No 10, Starmer repeated his curious promise to “tread more lightly on your lives”. A new leader saying, in effect: “I’ll keep out of your face.” It is an acknowledgement that the country is weary of drama, shouty, intemperate division and turmoil. The alarmingly low turnout was born of voter jadedness and exhaustion: how could prime ministers change so often, yet nothing ever improve? A weary electorate looked at this blandly decent, demonstrably competent man, compared him with Tory hucksters, gamblers, pocket-liners, clowns, criminals and careless ideologues, then concluded quite simply: “He’ll do.”
Yet as every result was announced I felt more foreboding that this victory is vast but brittle. In 1997, almost the whole country was swept along under the wings of New Labour. But now, despite this monumental majority, Britain feels more fragmented. Too much is being made of Labour’s low, 34 per cent popular vote share. This was an election where many parked their first choices, consulting tactical voting sites and sharing intel on WhatsApp groups. Anything to unseat a Tory.
Clearly, the two main parties are no longer broad churches. After Jeremy Corbyn was expelled, the hard left didn’t stay to fight for its ideals like the old Bennites but decamped to the Greens or backed independents. Ed Miliband’s £3 blow-in members blew away. Outside the Labour tent, they will assail the new government with vengeful, nihilist glee. More concerning are the four seats won by the Muslim Vote lobby group: in Leicester, Blackburn, Dewsbury and Birmingham Perry Barr. In other high-Muslim areas, Labour’s biggest stars had narrow scrapes. Wes Streeting in Ilford won by only 500 votes, Jess Phillips by 700 in Birmingham Yardley, where she was aggressively barracked at her count. In Birmingham Ladywood, Shabana Mahmood saw off Akhmed Yakoob, who some say is an Andrew Tate-style misogynist.
It is unclear as yet whether such successes are due to Labour’s position on Gaza or if this issue is a cover, a rallying point for a new communitarian, religious voting bloc which the UK, outside Northern Ireland, has hitherto avoided. It is certainly the end-point of identity politics, too long stoked within Labour, where Islamic sectarianism, including support for Hamas, has been glossed over to retain Muslim votes. Meanwhile, Reform UK not only picked up five seats but claimed more of the total vote than the Lib Dems, who won 71 seats. Brexit did not lance populism — it gave it voice, showed it how to organise. In the red wall, Reform took votes from the Tories, allowing Labour to surge back. But seats here will always remain in play.
If economic regeneration does not reach them and illegal migration is not dealt with hard — tricky in a party with a strong “no borders” strand — Labour as well as Tory voters will fall into Nigel Farage’s hands. So far, Britain can pride itself on not mirroring fascist-adjacent France and Italy. But for how long?
All votes are merely “lent” to candidates. But those bestowed on Labour in never-not-Tory Suffolk Coastal or Surrey Heath feel unusually transactional. The electorate here is saying: “I am going against my natural inclinations, my history, my better judgment, to give you a chance.” They are not voting for Starmer for who he is — beyond basic aptitude — but what he does.
The test here is delivery alone. Starmer needs results — and fast. If he stumbles, he cannot fall back on the bluff charisma of Boris Johnson or on Blair’s supple eloquence. He faces the impatient judgment of 2024, half a lifetime from 1997’s optimism and hope.
