Iqbal Mohamed’s election as an independent MP for Dewsbury and Batley shows what a united Palestine movement can achieve locally, reports Simon Midgley

In November 2023, after Israel began its genocidal onslaught on Gaza, concerned Kirklees councillors drafted a motion to the council, which called for an immediate ceasefire. Shamefully, the leader of the council ruled that it was not an issue for the council to discuss and vote on, as it did not concern ‘local’ council business.

In response, the local Huddersfield Freedom for Palestine (HFFP) campaign, alongside several Labour and Green Party councillors, organised a petition of over 3,000 signatures in order to instruct the council to include the motion on the council agenda. The motion, formally submitted by three Green Party councillors, was finally admitted onto the agenda of the council for its full council meeting of Wednesday 17 January 2024. The HFFP campaign duly organised a lobby of that meeting, and many members stayed eagerly to observe the debate.

What transpired at that meeting was the spark that lit the Kirklees revolt against Starmer’s Labour Party. In an event that might sound familiar to those who later followed the fate of the SNP opposition day motion to parliament, HFFP members sat and watched in astonishment as the ruling Kirklees Labour group overwhelmingly carried its own ‘amended’ version of the motion that was originally submitted by the Greens. This ‘amendment’ effectively gutted the original motion, neutering it, to make it acceptable to Starmer’s Labour Party HQ.

Out went the call for the Government to support calls for ‘an immediate and permanent ceasefire’ in Gaza. It was replaced by a weak call for just ‘a ceasefire’, with neither permanence nor immediacy.

Out went the call for the UK to ‘cease all arms sales to Israel and end military aid for Israel’. It was replaced by a meaningless call for ‘a review of all UK arms sales’.

Out went the call for Israel to release Palestinian prisoners held under so-called Administrative Detention as well as for Hamas to release their Israeli hostages. It was replaced by a one-sided call for just Hamas to release its hostages.

Out went any reference to Israel as an apartheid state, as well as the call for ‘a just political settlement based on the end of the occupation of Palestinian territories and an end to discriminatory apartheid policies, settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing’, with the implementation of UN Resolution 242. It was replaced by a call for ‘talks for a two-state solution of a safe and viable Palestinian state alongside a safe and secure Israel must be restarted immediately to deliver a permanent peace.’

This ‘amended’ Labour group motion had been drafted by unknown Labour Party officials, foisted onto local Labour Party councillors, and not publicised to the rest of the Council until a couple of hours before the meeting where it was to be discussed and voted on.

Before the vote, several councillors made pre-prepared speeches about Gaza. This Included councillor Ammar Anwar, who in an emotional address, announced his immediate resignation from the Labour Party due to its support for Israel and its war crimes.

Councillor Andrew Cooper, who had submitted the original Green Party motion, pointed out significant differences between it and the Labour Party ‘amended’ version, which drew these differences to the attention of most observers for the first time.

Then came the vote on the Labour Party’s amended version of the Green Party motion. Only one councillor voted against: Labour councillor Jo Lawson, representative of Crosland Moor and Netherton Ward. One Labour councillor abstained: councillor Zarina Amin representing Ashbrow Ward.

The three Green Party councillors also voted for the Labour amended version. Councillor Cooper later said that this was a mistake, but he had thought at the time that it was better to have a motion carried as a united council which at least called for a ceasefire, rather than no motion carried at all.

After that vote, several Labour councillors resigned from Labour to become independents. Councillor Ammar Anwar (Dewsbury West Ward) did this there and then at the meeting. Jo Lawson and Imran Safdar (both of Crosland Moor and Netherton) resigned some days later. Others resigned some weeks later.

This revolt saw the Labour group lose control of the council. In May 2023, the Labour Group had a slim majority of 36 out of 69 councillors. In May 2024, they only had 24 councillors, having lost twelve to resignations or losing seats to newly elected independents in the local elections, such as Ali Arshad (Heckmondwike), Tanisha Bramwell (Dewsbury West), and Zahid Kahut (Batley West).

The revolt continued into the General Election. Independent MP Iqbal Mohamed was elected to represent the newly created Dewsbury and Batley constituency, with a thumping 41% (15,641 votes) and a majority of 6,934. Labour came second with just 23% of the vote (8707). Iqbal Mohamed was selected as a unity candidate by the local community, in a mutually agreed selection process which whittled down the original list of would-be candidates from twelve to four, and saw him then elected as the best out of the remaining four in a community hustings vote.