SUE REID: The ugly spectre of sectarianism: Jess Phillips was nearly in tears... with fake recordings leaked on social media, car tyres slashed and even children screaming abuse, she's far from the only one alarmed
The signs of a powerful and coordinated sectarian campaign in this election were palpable on the morning of the vote itself.
Outside polling stations in London's Tower Hamlets, South Tottenham and Ilford, Palestinian flags were fluttering as a sharp reminder to the electorate which way to vote.
The General Election of 2024 will go down in history as the one in which Islamist religious politics gained a firm foothold in our democracy.
In Birmingham Yardley – a constituency where at least one in five residents is Muslim – Labour's MP Jess Phillips has told of facing vile abuse, despite having voted in favour of a Gaza 'ceasefire' in the Commons and after opposing 'Islamophobia' all her political life.
Ms Phillips, who saw her majority slashed to just 693 against a candidate from George Galloway's Workers Party, faced down a jeering and booing crowd who shouted, 'Free, free Palestine!' as she tried to deliver her acceptance speech.
In Birmingham Yardley, Labour 's MP Jess Phillips told of facing vile abuse, despite having voted in favour of a Gaza 'ceasefire' in the Commons and after opposing 'Islamophobia' all her political life
Ms Phillips, undaunted, told them this had been 'the worst election I have ever stood in', adding that the campaign had been 'gruesome'. Fighting back tears in a later TV interview, she said that 'British politics has got caustic and nasty and dishonest, and we have to be really careful'.
Labour workers had been trailed in the streets, she said. One had had her car tyres slashed. A young woman delivering leaflets on her own 'was screamed at by a much older man' who filmed her on his phone.
Ms Phillips had hoped to be joined by the family of slain MP Jo Cox who wanted to campaign with her, she said, but added: 'There is absolutely no way I could have allowed for them to see what was aggressive and violence in our democracy . . . Our country is in desperate need – and our politics is in even greater need of cleaning up.'
Following this week's results, however, many fear that the direction of travel in our democracy is increasingly toxic.
Although Ms Phillips kept her seat, Labour surrendered five constituencies to explicitly pro-Gaza candidates. Among these, Shadow Paymaster General Jonathan Ashworth, a party heavyweight, lost his large 22,000-strong majority in Leicester South to independent Shockat Adam Patel, who in his victory speech announced: 'This is for the people of Gaza!'
In Dewsbury and Batley, the new MP is one Iqbal Mohamed, who complained in one extraordinary outburst: 'Both main parties have given their full support to genocide in Palestine.'
In Birmingham Perry Barr, Ayoub Khan has overturned a huge 15,000 majority.
Meanwhile, Blackburn, Lancashire, has sent socialists (including the widely admired late Labour minister Barbara Castle and former Home Secretary Jack Straw) to Westminster for 69 years.
Yet in this campaign, the once-proud cotton town has seen Muslim men marching through its terraced streets, brandishing the Palestinian flag while hijab-wearing women screamed that a vote for Labour was a vote for 'genocide' in faraway lands.
Blackburn's new independent MP Adnan Hussain, who overturned an 18,000-strong majority, called during his acceptance speech for a moment of silence to remember the 'ongoing bombings' in Gaza.
Noting that the pro-Palestine movement was spreading in Muslim communities throughout Britain, he added: 'Our brothers and sisters here in Bastwell [a suburb of Blackburn] have the same concerns as those in Mill Hill, London. We have to stick together.'
In a raft of other seats, Labour won only narrowly against a concerted pro-Palestinian campaign. Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting escaped defeat by a whisker in Ilford North, seeing his 9,000-strong majority collapse to just 528 against 23-year-old pro-Palestine internet 'influencer' Leanne Mohamad.
Outside polling stations in London's Tower Hamlets, South Tottenham and Ilford, Palestinian flags were fluttering as a sharp reminder to the electorate which way to vote
Streeting said it had been the ugliest campaign he had ever seen, pointing in particular to faked recordings purporting to be of him that were leaked on social media. In one such forgery – a sign of the dirty tricks to which some have been willing to stoop – 'Streeting' was asked if he cared about innocent Palestinians being killed. His apparent response, certain to appal his Muslim electorate, was: 'No I f***ing don't. Now f*** off you little c***.'
Streeting later said the recordings were so convincing, even a seasoned Tory peer had been taken in by them.
Streeting's opponent, the very vocal Ms Mohamad, told the Guardian how dimly Britain's large Muslim population had viewed Streeting's abstention in the Commons vote on a 'ceasefire' in Gaza, saying: 'My community was angry [at him]. Because a genocide was taking place in front of their eyes, livestreamed and televised.' She added later: 'There is a visceral distaste for Labour.'
Ms Mohamad is also an avid supporter of far-Left firebrand Jeremy Corbyn who, as an Independent running on yet another pro-Gaza ticket, won his Islington North seat in a further sign of rising sectarianism at Westminster.
'Palestine is on the ballot,' Corbyn had declared.
In this febrile environment, it is perhaps just as well that Corbyn's fellow far-Leftist George Galloway lost his seat in Rochdale – though he lacked the courage to turn up for the result.
In some places, the distaste for the new Government has led to ugly scenes illustrating the rapidly changing face of multi-ethnic Britain.
In London's Bethnal Green, which boasts a sprawling Muslim population, Labour's candidate Rushanara Ali (who also abstained on a ceasefire vote) was confronted by four children, looking no more than eight years old, and a woman wearing a full black burqa. In shocking footage captured on social media, the woman encouraged her young flock to scream, 'Shame on you!' at the sitting MP through a megaphone.
Ms Ali was even depicted in one grossly offensive leaflet sprouting a pair of devil horns and has told how pro-Palestinian campaigners repeatedly harassed and taunted her during the campaign.
Shabana Mahmood, who won the Birmingham Ladywood seat, went further. She said in her speech, as police lined the guarded stage, that attacks on her team during the campaign amounted to an 'assault on democracy'.
At one point in the election run-up masked men had disrupted a community meeting, 'terrifying' people in attendance, she said, adding that she had been called an 'infidel'.
Labour is now set to take on the task of Government. This will be tough enough after Sir Keir promised more to 'working people' and those who are jobless or can't make ends meet.
Yet also high on the agenda will be sorting out a hardline Islamist sectarianism that is increasingly taking root in our politics – with the Labour Party unable or unwilling to address it.
First it came to our local councils: readers will remember the Green Party councillor, Mothin Ali, screaming 'Allahu akbar!' at his election in Leeds in May.
Now it has reached the Parliamentary estate itself. However much Labour tries to placate this unhappy group, it may not win the battle.
At the eleventh hour during the campaign, the party parachuted activists into staunchly Muslim areas to try to shore up votes. It was all to little avail. Labour's vote is down on average by 11 per cent in these constituencies.
And when Britain next goes to the polls in five years' time, that share is likely to fall further. The Muslim Vote, an activist group which co-ordinated Islamist and pro-Palestine candidates at this election, has promised it is in the fight for the long term.
Labour – and the country at large – would be wise to take it at its word.
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