Labour’s Vote Share Just Collapsed By 45%!

Right, so amidst all of the resignations and defections I’ve been covering in over the last week as appalled Labour councillors have resigned the party whip and ripped up their membership cards of the party at the same time, all in light of the horrendous cuts to be inflicted on the long term sick and disabled for no other reasons than making Rachel Reeves maths add up, no matter how much damage to the country that might lead to, we’ve not had much in the way of by-elections to actually measure dissent amongst voters. Well now we do. While there have been even more resignations of councillors in the last few days, we’ve also had a council by-election right in the middle of a staunch Labour heartland and to say Labour’s vote collapsed was an understatement, but who it collapsed to is just as big a story, because people have clearly had enough!
Right, so a 45% loss of vote share in a Labour heartland Damo, that’s a might big claim you might be thinking and indeed it is, spelling very bad news for the MP of said area and given that that MP just happens to be Wes Streeting I’m sure you’re breaking your heart about it, but it seems very much that young Wesley is likely to be looking for a new seat to stand in in 2029, if he’s going to maintain his place on the gravy train, because it doesn’t look like he has a cat in hells chance of keeping his seat, his majority slashed to 528 by Independent challenger, the British Palestinian Leanne Mohammad.
Well in a flavour of how things are going in Wesley’s patch, there has been a council by election on Redbridge Council to finally replace slum landlord turned Labour MP for Ilford South, Jas Athwal, the former council leader of Redbridge Council, a Labour led council and it did not go well for Labour. Another pro Palestine Muslim candidate in Noor Jahan Begum much like Leanne Mohammad oversaw Labour’s vote share in this seat fall from 71% last time out in 2022, fall to just 26% of the vote this time around, Labour losing 45 points, 45% of their vote share from last time.
You have to appreciate, that in 2022, this 63 seat council, had 58 Labour councillors and 5 Tories forming the official opposition. Massively Labour dominated, Labour run since 2014 and now Labour are losing seats on this scale in such a staunch stronghold, May’s local elections are looking set to be historically bad for Starmer and Co and they deserve every bit of it. They aren’t listening, they are continuing Tory cruelty, and deserve nothing less than record breaking losses and stats like this stand out.
The Redbridge and Ilford Independents Group, having grown out of a desire to oppose Streeting and Starmer and the right wing direction Labour under them has taken, issued a statement full of defiance in light of this massive result:
‘This evening, Labour suffered its worst local election defeat in Redbridge for over a decade. Ordinary working people rejected a party that no longer represents them. Labour’s contempt for ordinary people was exemplified by their inaction towards former ward Cllr and Ilford South MP, Jas Athwal, who as leader of Redbridge Labour Council, failed to licence his many rental flats, whilst enacting rules that forced everyone else to do so.
The same Jas Athwal was also found to have rented ant-infested, mould-ridden, and substandard rental properties to vulnerable tenants and who, as Parliament’s biggest landlord, also owned a property with a failing care home. A rogue landlord, as described by many tenant rights groups, Athwal thought he and the local Labour party he led for over 10 years could get away with this atrocious behaviour. Today, voters have given him and his supporters an almighty shock! Our party defeated Labour by nearly 2 to 1 in vote share, as its support collapsed in one of its former heartlands.
This momentous result shows that people desperately want change. Noor Jahan Begum, our fantastic local candidate, proved that ordinary people can make a difference with organisation, tenacity and solidarity.
Together, we defeated the politics that think it can with total impunity, attack our NHS, cut benefits to the poorest in society, including the disabled and old-age pensioners. A Labour Party that thinks nothing of arming and supporting Israel as it commits a genocide in Gaza is not a party of peace and internationalism. This wasn’t the change most people voted for in May last year. They now see how their living standards have drastically fallen whilst £billions are wasted on promoting war. The people wanted change back then, but instead, they got Keir Starmer and his right-wing clique intent on destroying our democracy.
But we know the battle is far from won, not by any means! Labour still have over 50 Cllrs and two MPs, but we will challenge them for every one of these seats as Redbridge & Ilford Independents. We are now a serious and organised opposition in the borough. Only we can defeat Labour in Redbridge and that is what we intend to do.
We would also like to pay a special tribute to our amazing team of dedicated, hard-working volunteers who came from near and far, all united in their determination to restore democracy and accountability in our politics.
Our fight is for a fairer, more equal society driven by honesty, integrity, and transformation. They are the pillars of our grass-roots movement.
Tonight, we toast a historic victory, but tomorrow, we continue our work!’
Who’d bet against them after results like that one in the seat of the guy who literally ran the Labour council for over 10 years?
Mainstream media are of fixating on this being a mainly Muslim area and trying to imply this is a Muslim issue with Labour, never mind the previous Labour incumbent Athwal actually being Sikh, it is more than that. Yes we saw Labour punished in the General Election in Muslim areas, big losses, amidst that landslide victory, but not on this scale, and with all the continued resignations of Labour councillors going on alongside it, even more of them having come in the last few days.
On Greenwich Council, again, massively Labour run, with a token Tory opposition, they now have an independent councillor in Majella Anning who said:
‘I see residents in my ward who are already on the breadline. How can I defend the actions of the Labour government when I know exactly what misery these welfare cuts are going to mean for them?
“I refuse to support a party that balances the books on the backs of the poor.’
Another who has ditched Labour, but has defected to the Greens has been Matt Renyard of Southampton City Council, a Labour member of 15 years, in an excerpt to the Southern Daily Echo he said:
‘Cllr Renyard said: "Labour have broken my heart.
"They used to be the party that represented everyday ordinary people, fighting for the poor, the vulnerable, and both the working and middle classes.
"Following the first nine months of this newly elected Labour government, it is clear that Labour has lost its way.
"It does not have a vision for fixing our broken economy with a new economic model that is fit for the 21st century.’
Welcome to the Green Party Matt.
The most recent development though has been three Bolsover District Councillors quitting Labour though, this is Dennis Skinner country, all have become independents, all of them are very much blaming Starmer but there have also been allegations their new Labour MP, one of far too many Starmerroid drones, Natalie Fleet has, well, not been well received by word or deed shall we say. An excerpt on these resignations from the BBC, the only source to have thusfar covered this that I’ve found surprisingly, reading:
‘Councillors Chris Kane, Emma Stevenson and Sandra Peake are all now listed as independents on the Bolsover District Council website.
Peake told the BBC: "I've got principles, it's not the Labour party I joined over 30 years ago."
Peake cited concerns over changes to welfare along with a lack of support for WASPI women and the victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal.
"The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer," she added.
She also distanced herself from reports her decision to quit the party was also down to the performance of the Labour MP for Bolsover, Natalie Fleet.
However Peake did suggest constituents felt their MP was hard to contact, a view the BBC understands is shared among other members of the local Labour branch.
"We miss Dennis Skinner," she said.’
Massive by election collapses and the exodus of elected Labour representatives at local level leading up to local elections in a little over a month all continue and you can only expect there to be more to come and it is so totally deserved. They deserve everything coming for them. For more on further resignations that I’ve covered in recent days, please do check out this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch, it’s becoming a bit of a trend right now and I’ll aim to keep up with those events. Please do also hit like, share and subscribe if you haven’t done so already so as to ensure you don’t miss out on all new daily content as well as supporting the channel at the same time which is very much appreciated and I will hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.