Independents out campaigning in Burnley ahead of the local elections (Alamy)

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Much of the focus heading into next week’s local elections is on Reform UK, with Nigel Farage’s party expected to win hundreds of council seats from the Tories and Labour.

However, in places like Burnley, 20 miles north of Manchester in the county of Lancashire, there is a lesser discussed subplot which could prove to be a major talking point on Thursday, 1 May.

That subplot relates to Gaza-focussed independent candidates, and whether they can continue to do damage to Labour in areas with significant Muslim populations.

While the July general election was an electoral triumph for Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour, perhaps the biggest shock of the night came at the expense of former shadow cabinet minister Jonathan Ashworth, who lost his Leicester South seat to independent candidate Shockat Adam.

Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, saw his majority in Ilford North, another constituency with a large Muslim population, reduced from over 9,000 to just over 500. One of Labour’s most senior figures managed to cling on. At the next general election, however, his position will be much more precarious.

Since the general election, there have been questions over whether this phenomenon was a flash in the pan or instead part of a long-term trend. There are senior Labour figures who believe it is the latter, PoliticsHome understands.

If they are correct, then it will almost certainly be evidenced in places like Burnley.

Lancashire County Council, which covers the town of Burnley, has had a Tory majority since the local elections in 2021. In recent history, the Conservatives have performed better in rural and more affluent areas of the county in the northwest of England, whereas Labour has done better in towns, including those with significant Muslim populations.

Burnley was celebrating its football club securing promotion to the Premier League when PoliticsHome visited earlier this week. However, away from the jubilation is a story of deprivation that has long affected post-industrial parts of Lancashire, with government statistics showing Burnley to have record numbers of young people living in poverty.

According to Rob Ford, author and politics professor at the University of Manchester, the “general level of discontent in the Muslim communities is very high”. Then there is the ongoing war in Gaza, which Ford told PoliticsHome had been a “lightning rod” issue, prompting Muslim voters to move away from Labour over its response to the conflict.

One Labour MP told PoliticsHome that their party’s focus on combating Reform risks ignoring the electoral threat posed by candidates in these areas.

“People in the party are putting their focus on Reform, which I get, but also at the expense of this threat,” they said, adding, “these are real extremists.”

Maheen Kamran, 18, an aspiring medical student, is standing as an independent for Burnley Central East. She was motivated to enter politics by the war in Gaza, where she believes a “genocide” is taking place.

Kamran told PoliticsHome she wanted to improve school standards, public cleanliness and encourage public spaces to end “free mixing” between men and women.

“There’s a big aspect of free mixing,” she said. “Muslim women aren’t really comfortable with being involved with Muslim men. I’m sure we can have segregated areas, segregated gyms, where Muslim women don’t have to sacrifice their health.”

Usman Arif, another independent candidate for Burnley North East, quit the Labour Party over its position on the Middle East and regularly posts about the war on his Facebook page. He hopes he can secure re-election off the back of momentum against the war, as well as campaigning on local issues such as fixing potholes and providing safer streets. 

Labour MPs who spoke to PoliticsHome about the trend predict their party’s support in neighbouring Preston could also suffer next week. Pro-Gaza independent candidate Michael Lavalette came second in the constituency at the July general election.

Lord Hayward, a pollster and Tory peer, said the trend of Muslim voters towards independent candidates could persist over this parliament because once voters break with an original voting habit, it can have a “lasting effect”.

“I don’t see Labour being able to resolve this issue with the Muslim community in places where there are large Muslim populations,” he told PoliticsHome, adding that it will be even more difficult for Labour to win back these voters while the conflict in Gaza continues.

A Labour source told PoliticsHome there had been an “unravelling of the social fabric” across parts of the UK where there had been a surge in support for independent candidates.

“There are strong divisions in these seats on the fault lines of class and religion.

“But what unites those communities is a general disillusionment with politics and government, and disappointment at the decline of public services.”

Khalid Ahmed, who once stood as a Labour parliamentary candidate under the former leader Jeremy Corbyn, resigned from the party over its position on Gaza.

Despite not being a “very deeply religious man”, he holds his Islamic beliefs very closely. Ahmed revealed that he had met Ayoub Khan, the independent MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, and is keen to work with him to get more independents elected across the country.

What independent candidates currently lack are formal relationships and a central operation that would help them work together more closely nationwide.

Ali Arshad, a councillor in Kirklees, Yorkshire, was elected as a pro-Gaza candidate and is represented by independent MP Iqbal Mohamed in Parliament.

Arshard accepts he had been elected on the back of the pro-Palestine movement. 

In other areas, however, his views seem distant from those of the average Labour voter. In an interview with PoliticsHome, he described the Reform UK manifesto as “brilliant”, apart from its commitment to removing the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights.

Khalid Mahmood, the former Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, who lost the seat to a pro-Gaza independent, said his party increasingly appears to be accommodating “Islamist” interests and needed to stand up against it.

“While some Islamist organisations continue to pressure the government under the guise of combating Islamophobia, their demands are rarely about genuine inclusion. They are political and often incompatible with liberal democratic values,” he told PoliticsHome.

Labour figures hope that by improving the lives of all groups nationwide, they can persuade people, including Muslim voters, to vote to keep them in power at the next general election.

However, next week’s results may well show that the challenge posed to Starmer’s Labour by independent candidates in these parts of the country is here to stay.