Policy Exchange has a new report out on British Muslims’ political attitudes and vote intentions. Unsurprisingly, it’s very bad news for Sir Keir Starmer.

Back in 2019, when the party was led by Jeremy Corbyn, fully 86% of Muslims backed Labour. Now, you might say this isn’t particularly surprising as Corbyn is famously pro-Palestine — something many Muslims care about. But even in 2017, when the party was led by the somewhat less pro-Palestine Ed Miliband, about the same share of Muslims voted Labour. Which means that overwhelming Muslim support for Labour wasn’t a ‘Corbyn effect’. Muslims had already become a reliable voting bloc by the time he was elected leader.

Enter Starmer. While he managed to achieve a comfortable victory at the 2024 election — due in part to the Right-wing vote being split in many constituencies — support for his party among Muslims fell dramatically. Only around 60% are thought to have voted Labour, and support for the party fell most in heavily Muslim areas. This was widely attributed to a perception among Muslims that Labour had been insufficiently critical of Israel, as well as specific gaffes, such as when Starmer appeared to say that Israel had the “right” to cut off food and water to Gaza.

The new report from Policy Exchange confirms that the situation for Starmer has continued to deteriorate. Asked which party they would vote for today, only 33% of Muslims said Labour. By contrast, 27% said the Greens and 14% said pro-Gaza Independents. This represents an astonishing collapse in support.

It should be noted that, when asked which party they had voted for in 2024, only 41% said Labour (as opposed to 60% in some polls at the time). It is not clear what accounts for this difference. One possibility is that JL Partners (who conducted the poll on behalf of Policy Exchange) happened to get a sample that was particularly unsupportive of Labour. Another possibility is that some respondents incorrectly recalled their 2024 vote. If the difference is due to JL Partners’ sample being less representative, the 33% figure would need to be adjusted upwards. What is clear is that support for Labour among Muslims has collapsed further since 2024.

The report also found that almost half of Muslims would consider voting Green just to prevent a Labour candidate from winning in their area. This was practically identical to the percentage who said they’d do the same to prevent a Tory or Reform candidate winning, suggesting that Labour are now almost as toxic as the two Right-wing parties among Muslims.

Labour’s collapse in support among Muslims (and online Left-wing activists) mirrors the Conservatives’ collapse in support among social conservatives (and online Right-wing activists).

In both cases, you have a major party losing one of its most loyal support bases over an issue that dominates online discourse: Gaza in the case of Labour, and mass migration in the case of the Conservatives. Also, in both cases you have the party in question taking a position that’s wildly out of step with the views of influential activists on its own side.

Labour’s policy with respect to Gaza, Iran and Palestine Action is indeed more unpopular on the Left than on the Right. And the Conservatives’ immigration policy under Boris Johnson was far more unpopular on the Right than on the Left. It’s as if the two main parties (which are, of course, no longer the two main parties) decided to hand over policymaking on a key issue to their political opponents.

Exactly what explains this self-sabotage is unclear. But it’s a big reason so many council seats are expected to change hands tomorrow.