Independent Muslim campaigners have denied allegations from Labour supporters of hostility for showing support for the government in a north London suburb.
Labour voters in a tightly contested district have reported feeling pressure from followers of Muslim independent candidates who are challenging the party over its stance on Gaza and the Iran war.
More than 30 million people eligible to vote in elections on Thursday for councils across England, boroughs in London and the devolved parliaments in Wales and Scotland.
English authorities have responsibility only for local matters but in many districts issues such as the Gaza conflict have been put on the ballot box by many candidates, particularly in areas with Muslim constituents.
Residents in East London’s Redbridge authority with posters supporting Labour outside their homes alleged they faced demands to remove the material after being approached by supporters of Labour rivals. They reported the matter to police, a campaigner for Labour told The National. “Politics is becoming really ugly. People are personally blaming me for what is happening in Gaza,” the campaigner said.
Lawyers for 42 candidates in the Redbridge Independents grouping said they have had no contact from the police, were conducting a respectful campaign and expected all volunteers to uphold high standards. “We wish to make clear that our clients deny categorically any allegations of the nature described,” a statement said. “Redbridge Independents do not tolerate harassment or intimidation of any kind.
“Our clients’ campaign has been conducted in a respectful and lawful manner, and our clients expect all volunteers and supporters to uphold the high standards to which they hold themselves.”
In Redbridge, where 30 per cent of voters are Muslim, the Redbridge Independents have mounted a campaign to challenge Labour – which has controlled the council for 12 years.
Endless wars
The campaign also focuses on Labour MP and Health Minister Wes Streeting, who they view as part of the right of the Labour Party that initially supported Israel in its military campaign in Gaza. “He’s focused on private health, he’s focused on endless wars and we will stop him in his track,” said independent candidate Vaseem Ahmed in a campaign video. Concerns have been raised that candidates seeking to appeal to Muslim voters are bringing sectarianism into campaigning.
The Redbridge Independents has 42 candidates standing in the borough, receiving the backing of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and a campaign group known as the Muslim Vote.
In a campaign video, candidate Ruba Amin explains that many of the candidates are “grass roots community activists”, and that her priority on the doorstep was to increase voter turnout.
Mr Streeting lost a share of Labour votes at the 2024 general election to independent candidate Leanne Mohammed, a British-Palestinian who ran on a left-wing platform of support for Gaza and narrowly lost.
Pivotal vote
Thursday’s UK-wide local elections will be among the most important in decades that could alter the course of British politics.
Labour will certainly do badly. If there is a catastrophe at the polls, Keir Starmer’s days as Prime Minister could be numbered, with a leadership challenge on the cards.
The poll is also expected to confirm the end of a two-party system that has dominated England’s political landscape for a century. There are predictions that the Greens will leap from the sidelines to become a force to be reckoned with on the left, while the rise of the far-right Reform party may create a platform for the English nationalist party to form the next Westminster government.
Mr Starmer’s premiership could well end in humiliation once the final results of the 5,000 English council seats are known on Saturday afternoon.
If it is bad in London, Labour insiders say, then there may be panic among the party’s MPs.
But the figure most like to be a succession candidate, Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, does not sit at Westminster. That could change quickly swiftly if a loyal MP were to give up their seat.
The other most likely candidate, former deputy leader Angela Rayner, is still awaiting the outcome of an investigation into taxes not paid on a second home she bought.
It would also be in the interests of the third likely candidate, Health Secretary Wes Streeting, to “pull the trigger early”, in the days following the results while his would-be rivals are out of the Westminster picture.
There still remains the possibility that Mr Starmer, given his ability to perform well on the global stage, will fight on. Finding a reset button that returns him to the acclaim he received less than two years ago seems remote.
What will be clear is that British politics has reached an inflection point where the legacy parties of Labour and Conservative are being beaten by the right and left.
The latest polling shows Reform on 26 per cent, both Labour and Conservatives on 18, the Greens on 16 and Lib Dem on 12.
In total there are two devolved governments – Wales and Scotland − 104 councils, 32 London boroughs and six mayors up for election.
Labour in decline
A sign of Labour’s decline – or the volatility of British politics – is that almost two years ago it won a landslide Westminster majority but today is, in some polls, in fourth place.
It is trying to hold on to 2,500 council seats in England but may lose half of them, with some predicting three-quarters.
Former Labour adviser Andrew Murray said London could prove pivotal in “throwing the PLP [Parliamentary Labour Party] into an existential crisis”, given the large number of MPs it has in the capital.
“Some polls in London point to a disastrous result, but if Labour was to end up with running 14 councils down from 21 [out of 32 in total] that could be presented as midterm blues,” he said.
That might make Mr Starmer’s position survivable, but if Labour did lose three quarters of its council seats that would “turbocharge the campaigns of those opposed to his continuing the leadership of the Labour,” said Dr Alan Mendoza, of the right-wing Henry Jackson think tank.
Reform for government?
The academic, who is Reform’s global affairs adviser, said that if it does take more than 1,500 seats off Labour and Conservatives that will signal it has become a “truly recognisable national party”.
“To win in such a major way will firmly set Reform on course for government, and means that the whole political constellation gets reset,” he said. “It also solidifies something in a way that no previous insurgent party has ever managed.”
It will signal, too, that Mr Farage is on course – as the polls suggest – to enter Downing Street as prime minister.
A sign of Reform’s rapid and extraordinary rise is that it stood in hardly any seats in the 2024 council elections, winning two more to give them a total of 14. Then, in 2025, it took 607 seats with the party now predicted to win more than 1,500 on Thursday.
It will also debunk the theory, analysts argue, that its councillors’ inability to govern would be “found out” when they take responsibility for local government.
David Jones, a former Conservative minister who defected to Reform last year, said the election would demonstrate that it had replaced the Tories as “the standard bearer of the right”.
“It shows Reform are no longer a party of protest but a serious party challenging for serious power at Westminster,” he added.
Conservative blues
The Conservatives are facing existential questions as they battle to prevent Reform from dominating the right.
Despite Kemi Badenoch demonstrating strong leadership qualities, the legacy of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss’s chaos still hobbles the party.
That they might lose 500 seats could well be lost in the Labour meltdown, but ultimately it will not hide the issue that both Conservatives and Reform are largely chasing the same votes.
Therefore, the argument goes, will it focus their minds on forming an electoral pact not to stand against each other in certain seats in the next general election, all but guaranteeing a future right wing government?
Green roots
If the Conservatives are getting trampled by Reform on the right, then Labour is also seeing its traditional left-wing votes being consumed by the Greens.
With their February by-election win in Manchester significantly raising the Greens national profile, the pro-Palestine left-wing party could well start building strong foundations by becoming the majority party in a number of councils and wining an estimated 500 seats.
But questions over the credibility of its populist leader Zack Polanski remain, after he has suffered from allegations of failing to clamp down on anti-Semitism, which as a Jew he strongly denies, and questions over his work before entering politics.
Fracturing kingdom?
There are also elections for the Welsh and Scottish parliaments where it is likely that the nationalists of Plaid Cymru and the devolutionists of the Scottish Nationalist Party will win majorities. It would be the first time in a century that Labour has not been the majority party in Wales.
With Sinn Fein leading the Northern Ireland Assembly, that will mean the three UK countries want to revise their place in the English-majority UK. The fractures across Britain’s political landscape appear set to further splinter.
