EXCLUSIVE: "Leicester voted along religious lines"

PEOPLE in Leicester East voted along religious lines which saw the country’s only Conservative gain, sources from several political parties have told Eastern Eye.

They have also warned that the city is “sitting on a religious powder keg just waiting to explode” following tensions in August and September 2022.

The constituency had been a Labour stronghold since Keith Vaz became the first south Asian MP since the second world war to win in 1987.

“It became clear on the doorstep that we were facing tactical voting,” said one Lib-Dem source.

“When we went to Rushey Mede and Troon we were told that they were told to vote for the Conservative candidate.

“They were also angry that the Labour candidate wasn’t from Leicester, so they were told to vote for someone local and someone Hindu.”

Hindus are the major religious groups in both Rushey Mede (60 per cent) and Troon (27 per cent) and in the Leicester East constituency.

The result was a surprising win for the Conservative Shivani Raja, who topped the poll with 14,526 votes, 4,426 more than her nearest rival, Labour’s Rajesh Agrawal.

Eastern Eye approached Raja for comment.

Keith Vaz (Photo credit: OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images)

Vaz trailed in fifth place with 3,681 votes, and party sources had expected him to perform better than he did.

“There’s no doubt in our minds that religion had a lot to do with his defeat,” said one party source who wanted to remain anonymous.

“Ever since the problems in 2022, we’ve noticed a change in Leicester.

“The consensus and coalition that Keith built up over more than 30 years are gone, this was a direct appeal to religion.”

Community cohesion

Vaz was not doing interviews, but in a message to his supporters, seen by Eastern Eye, he said, “It has been my privilege to have won eight consecutive elections spanning 32 years in Leicester East.

“It has been my passion to bring communities together.

“I have congratulated the new MP for Leicester East most warmly, and I wish her well representing this marvellous constituency.

“I hope we meet again soon.”

Shivani Raja (Pic credit: X)

Several sources have told this newspaper they were fearful of speaking up and commenting on what happened during these elections.

They are veterans of Leicester politics and of the city’s different south Asian communities.

“I don’t want to do the city down or add fuel to the fire,” said one, “but we’re sitting on a religious powder keg just waiting to explode.

“It’s hidden and no-one wants to talk about the tensions which exist.

“Go into the Hindu temples, go into the masjids, and there’s a definite difference which wasn’t there a decade ago.

“Something’s shifted, we’re no longer united, and that’s frightening.

“Some community leaders will deny we have a problem, and they’re the ones who’ll let us sleep walk into trouble.”

Absent Labour

Labour members have criticised their party for “foisting an outsider” on them.

Rajesh Agrawal, they said, did not know Leicester politics and made too much of his record as a deputy mayor of London.

Rajesh Agrawal

In a statement, the losing candidate said, “I am proud to have run a very positive campaign and though we didn’t get the result we hoped for in Leicester East, due to votes splitting, we now have the Labour government to deliver the change that our country so desperately needs after 14 years of Tory chaos.

“I have had thousands of conversations on the doorsteps in the past months in Leicester East and it is very clear that the people are fed up of the 14 years of Tory chaos and want change.

“The main issues that came up were [the] cost-of-living crisis, unemployment, lack of GP appointments, NHS waiting lists, lack of places in school for children and lack of quality and affordable homes.

“I am now looking to take a break and spend some time with my family who haven’t seen much of me during the campaign.”

But Labour sources are not happy and said that their party took the south Asian vote for granted.

“We’re fed up with Labour doing everything from the centre and imposing what they think is best for us,” said one source who described themselves as 100 per cent party loyalist.

“No matter what you think about Keith [Vaz], he was a bloody good MP who knew the city and was a national figure who had influence.

“He got things done.

“We’ve been rudderless for the past five years, and instead of choosing someone the city knows, they impose an outsider.”

Another unnamed source said, “It wasn’t Raj’s fault, he was the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“And who pays the price? We do.

“We now have a Tory MP who knows nothing about politics, who won’t be effective because the Tories don’t have a base here and no clout in parliament, and that’s Labour’s fault.

“My party was absent, they didn’t send any big names to Leicester East, instead they concentrated on places where Muslims threatened them, and look what happened.

“You just need to look at what happened in Birmingham [Perry Barr], Khalid [Mahmood] got his arse handed to him by someone who supported Palestine.”

Gaza factor

The new justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, MP for Birmingham Ladywood also survived a scare from Akhmed Yakoob.

Yakoob caused political tremors in the West Midlands, coming third in the mayoral election after scoring almost 70,000 votes.

Labour just scraped in, ousting Tory Andy Street.

Yakoob campaigned on Gaza and Kashmir, and voiced support for pro-Khalistan figures.

Back in Leicester East, and the businessman Jaffer Kapasi said he had noticed a shift towards people voting for candidates who shared the same religious beliefs.

“Leicester has always maintained a harmonious relationship over so many years,” he said.

“Faith was at a different level, and politics at a different level.

“"It's completely wrong to vote on religious lines.

“You [should] vote for a person's skills and what they can provide to the wider community, and how they can deal with issues which we have, unemployment, health, and there's so many inequalities in this country, rather than faith as a main basis.”

But the former MP, Claudia Webbe dismissed the idea that the election results in her former constituency was based on religion.

Claudia Webbe (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

Yet she said that despite concerns over the cost-of-living crisis, zero-hour contracts, the clothing firm Boohoo leaving the city and housing problems, the biggest talking point was the war between Israel and Palestine.

“They didn't think that I jumped on the bandwagon,” Webbe told Eastern Eye. “What they saw was that I've consistently raised issues that mattered to people living here, humanitarian issues abroad which matter to people living here.

“So, people remember that I was outspoken on the issue of Indian farmers and what happened in with regards to Indian farms, I was also outspoken on that when others weren't.

“People were also aware that I've been outspoken on the issue of Yemen for some time, so there was a consistent pattern that people saw in what I was doing.

“So, they didn't just talk about my work in relation to Gaza, but also all the other causes that I'd stood up for and that was very important.”

All the sources we spoke with were shocked that a south Asian would stand for Reform UK on a ticket of anti-immigration.

In the event, Raj Solanki polled 2,611 or 5.6 per cent of the total ballot, and this means he keeps his £500 deposit.

“The Tory voters voted Tory because the only alternative for the Tory voters was Reform,” said Webbe.

“If Reform had a different candidate, the Tories would have had fewer votes.

“They didn't want to vote for the Reform candidate because he had a south Asian name, and that's what I was hearing in those particular pockets.”

Additional reporting by Sarwar Alam.