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Senior Labour politicians want urgent action to galvanise the Muslim vote in Wales and stop a repeat of disturbing events before the General Election (GE).
One told us on the condition of anonymity: “What happened in certain areas was awful, and has cost good people a lot of votes. We must ensure the same does not happen in Wales, so we have to reach out to these people to swing them behind Labour”.
Another said to The Eye: “We really need to learn lessons from what happened, so that Welsh elections are different”.
There are now six independent MPs, and all but one campaigned heavily against events in Gaza.
Even though Labour won a landslide victory, many are worried by some of the episodes which took place.
Jess Phillips, MP, spoke of party workers being filmed in the street and making regular calls to police, while Shabana Mahmood, MP, said masked men had disrupted a community meeting, “terrifying” people in attendance.
Labour’s Ms Phillips said: “This election has been the worst election I have ever stood in”.
However she was heckled during her acceptance speech, and fellow Labour politician Ms Mahmood called the actions an “assault on democracy itself”.
There was a notable police presence during counts in Birmingham where both women were candidates, with the West Midlands force confirming it was investigating several complaints lodged in the run-up to polling day.
While the pair held their city seats, contributing to their party’s landslide UK victory, each saw their majorities diminish, with Ms Phillips’ lead cut to 693 votes.
Both MPs faced competition in their constituencies from candidates who campaigned on pro-Gaza tickets.
Ms Phillips narrowly beat Workers Party candidate Jody McIntyre to hold on to Yardley, while in Ladywood, Ms Mahmood received only about 3,000 votes more than second-place independent candidate Akhmed Yakoob, although neither had anything to do with any of the questionable activity.
Elsewhere in the city, long-standing Labour MP Khalid Mahmood lost his Perry Barr seat to independent Ayoub Khan who also stood on a pro-Gaza platform – an outcome repeated elsewhere when Labour’s vote was similarly squeezed.
The surprise of the GE night came in Leicester South, where Shockat Adam, beat Jonathan Ashworth, a shadow cabinet minister.
An even bigger shock was only just avoided: the new health secretary, Wes Streeting, came within 529 votes of losing his seat to Leanne Mohamad.
At least these things won’t happen in Wales – if the politicians we have spoken to get their way…
The memories of our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry’s, extraordinary award-winning career in journalism (when political stories and inside information were paramount) as he was gripped by the incurable disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in the major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now!
Regrettably publication of another book, however, was refused, because it was to have included names.
Tomorrow – during his career Phil has covered innumerable elections (indeed his first television interview was with a Welsh MP during the 1987 campaign), so information from surveys was always crucial, but now comes major questions about the effectiveness of polling companies after they over-estimated Labour’s success in the General Election (GE) massively and failed to predict Plaid Cymru’s (Plaid’s) victory in Caerfyddin.
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