Is Labour scared of Muslim voters?

After Labour’s unexpected losses, and near-losses, at the last general election in several constituencies with large Muslim electorates, often to explicitly pro-Gaza candidates, there has been a suggestion that the party’s actions in government have been, in part, motivated by fear of losing further votes.

Indeed, one Labour source told the JC: “Labour has, for decades, banked the Muslims as safe. After losing seats to Muslim independents in 2024, they’re now terrified of anything that might further upset the Muslim vote.”

Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice went further still on X. “Labour are terrified of the Pro Gaza vote and the extremist inner city vote”, he said, adding: “This is why they have reneged on holding formal inquiries into child rape gangs on white girls”.

But it wasn’t just voices on the right of politics who made the same accusation.

Sir Trevor Phillips – broadcaster, former chair of the Commission for Racial Equality and one-time London Assembly member for Labour – told Times Radio: “They’re not doing this because of the demographic of the people involved … largely Pakistani Muslim in background, and also in Labour-held seats and councils who would be offended by it.”

“That’s clearly the reason that they’re not pursuing this”, he added.

“A lot of colleagues have been getting grief from constituents”, was what one Labour MP told the JC following the fallout from the statement.

The frustration in some MPs’ inboxes might explain why it was Home Secretary Yvette Cooper who was put up for the morning broadcast interviews on Thursday. During her round, she denied any suggestion that the government had watered down the inquiry into grooming gangs.

Nonetheless, one Labour source was incandescent with what they described as the “sheer stupidity” of the timing of the announcement and the unclear arguments around it.

“I fail to understand why they’ve done this, days before postal votes [in May’s local elections] are due to land in peoples’ letterboxes.”

The source added: “However, public inquiries, like the Covid Inquiry, are often lengthy, expensive and don’t produce the justice sought.”

They were astounded that “the party is not making that argument” and thought that “ministers ought to be making that argument loud and clear”.

Despite that, they strongly denied the suggestion of this being a deliberate strategy to court Muslim votes.

Another Labour MP said that they didn’t understand their party’s approach to dealing with the issue of grooming gangs, but thought the problem was one of confusion rather than conspiracy.

“We’ve got problems electorally with every single community and they have no idea how to handle that. There is no plan”, they said, adding that a lack of proper understanding of the issues that matter to Muslim voters might be the real problem.

“It is right to say that the majority of groomers [in general] are white male. It is right to say that there is a form of grooming in which Pakistani males are more highly represented. They’re too afraid to say that”, the MP added.

A third MP claimed that it was “deeply racist to imply Muslim voters wouldn't share the rest of the public's revulsion about grooming gangs, whatever the community the perpetrators come from”.

However, another Labour source suggested that the failure to be seen as taking tough action against grooming gangs would actually cost them votes with a different set of voters.

“While we might lose five or six seats to Muslim independents in 2028, we’ll lose dozens to Reform in white working class seats who are incandescent with us over our failure to even acknowledge the existence of Muslim grooming gangs.”

But it isn’t just on grooming gangs where Labour MPs have been accused of pandering to Muslim voters.

On Monday, Parliament spent an hour and 17 minutes discussing the detention and removal of two Labour MPs by Israel.

Labour MPs were lining up ready to condemn Israel’s actions, with one even suggesting – with no evidence – that the decision was racially motivated.

Prior to the debate, around 70 MPs from all parties posed for a photograph in Westminster Hall to show solidarity to Abtisam Mohamed and Yuan Yang, the two MPs in question.

But one Labour MP who spoke to the JC was extremely unsympathetic.

“The reality of the situation is any country will restrict who comes. The UK does the same”, they said, adding: “Put the right and wrongs to one side, they’re [Israel] at war. Of course they’re going to restrict entry”.

The JC has already revealed how MPs obsessively focus on Israel and the war in Gaza to the detriment of domestic topics and this was on display in the two days before Parliament rose for recess.

A whopping 39 Labour MPs chose to speak during the debate on Israel’s treatment of their colleagues compared to a mere five who piped up during an Urgent Question on the future of the steelworks in Scunthorpe.

The discussion on the future of steel also didn’t last as long as the one on the parliamentarians’ treatment by Israel – just 39 minutes.

Tuesday’s statement on child sexual exploitation, and subsequent discussion on also had less time devoted to it. This one lasted 53 minutes.

Although, one Labour MP denied any special treatment saying: “The Labour Party willingly took a big electoral hit on Gaza in the general election, losing possibly six seats and many votes because it stuck, on principle, to a balanced position [on Israel]. It deserves a bit more credit for that."

Yet, during the last general election, several MPs spoke out about the intimidating nature of the campaign trail, not least thanks to the tension over Gaza.

Most notably, Jonathan Ashworth, a former frontbencher and key Starmer ally, revealed he once had to seek refuge in a vicarage after being mobbed by pro-Palestine campaigners.

This is despite the fact that Ashworth had, in the past, been on a delegation to the West Bank similar to the one the two current Labour MPs were barred from going on, had vocally criticised Israel in Parliament and had spoken up about the need to recognise a Palestinian state.

One Labour source warned MPs that, despite their words and gestures, they too could suffer a similar fate.

“This display certainly won’t satisfy the Islamist extremists in their local areas who have sometimes led protests against them”, they said.