Birmingham's first Independent MP heads to Parliament

General Election revisited

Morning Insiders! Later today I’ll be in the council chamber as Birmingham City Council meet for the first time since a Labour government came to power. Labour now rule every layer of government here - city, region, nation - which is either brilliant or terrifying, depending on where you stand politically.

Hopes are high that the incoming Government will work with Birmingham closely to fix its problems - I outlined ten critical issues we face in a piece you can link to here, from ending child poverty to fixing public transport.

As a first measure of a likely closer relationship between Keir Starmer’s cabinet and the region, Mayor Richard Parker is heading to Whitehall this morning to hear how more resources and powers will be devolved to him by the PM and his deputy Angela Rayner, who will oversee a new-look department for Housing, Communities and Local Government. The tarnished levelling up phrase has been banished already. Labour promise a new partnership approach and to agree early actions needed to ‘scale up devolution and empower regions to deliver change for their communities, helping to unlock economic growth and tackle regional inequality.’

It’s a confident, uplifting start to a Labour government’s term of office. Locally, the Labour group in charge in Birmingham still has a way to go to recover its confidence.

The group’s leadership and scrutiny failings have been publicly picked over for more than 12 months, and no doubt those at the helm are now eager to escape the ‘basket case’ label that has haunted them, to varying degrees, for years.

They appear to think doing so involves showing a united front at all times, with on-point messaging and carefully sanitised commentary that gives the superficiality at least of a collective mission. That might explain the heavy-handed memo that was circulated to the 65 Labour councillors in the immediate aftermath of the election win.

The day after the election, Labour chief whip Ray Goodwin sent round what amounted to a gagging order, warning members they were not allowed to ‘speak to the press’ or ‘give press interviews’ without the authorisation of him or leader John Cotton. “There will now be extra focus on all of us at Birmingham City Council,” he said.

In passive aggressive tones that had shades of ‘adult talking down to child’, members were warned about their ‘behaviour’ during the five hour full council meeting ahead. “In the meeting, without exception, colleagues will be in the chamber and there will be no walking around the council house, colleagues will be seated for voting at all times.” It will be fascinating to see how this translates this afternoon, and how those requests for permission to ‘please can I speak, sir’ play out.

Before the meeting, a second protest in two months will be held, coordinated by Brum Rise Up, a coalition of citizens, service users, community activists, and trade unions, brought together by the People's Assembly. They’re campaigning against the devastating cuts to vital services and the arts in Birmingham and want to halt the fire sale of community assets.

Kate Taylor, spokesperson for Brum Rise Up, said question marks over the extent of the equal pay claim, the cost of Oracle and the need for such swingeing cuts over two years - totalling £365m - were their key concerns. “Why are the council and commissioners racing ahead and pushing through cuts when we don’t actually have an audited figure or any kind of impact assessment? The cuts we make now could end up costing us more in the future.”

While the city council meets, Perry Barr’s new MP Ayoub Khan will be in Westminster, learning the ropes as he prepares to be sworn in after drumming Labour’s veteran MP Khalid Mahmood out by a tight margin.

His was the shock result of a crazy election night.

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For a city that has been a Labour heartland for years, the exit poll that emerged at 10pm as voting closed on July 4th should have seen the party’s candidates, most of them sitting MPs, rubbing their hands gleefully, certain of victory.

But something catastrophic was happening to their vote - the political earthquake that troubling and troublesome Akhmed Yakoob had promised was upon us.

Buoyed by success in the May mayoral elections - he came third with nearly 70,000 votes across the region - he was the catalyst. In seven seats - Yardley, Ladywood, Hodge Hill and Solihull North, Hall Green and Moseley, Selly Oak, Edgbaston and Perry Barr - Independent challengers emerged.

At the forefront of their campaigns was the conflict in Gaza that had entered a new phase after Palestinian terrorists from Hamas murdered and kidnapped Israelis in a border insurgency on October 7. The ensuing Israeli attacks on Gaza quickly prompted fury.

In Birmingham, two separate but connected groups of pro Palestine activists had begun to mobilise. Their target was not the Tory Government in power that was actually involved in direct discussions with the Netanyahu-led Israel and Hamas, but the Labour opposition. Keir Starmer was deemed to have failed Gazans by not calling for an urgent ceasefire or condemning Israel’s retaliatory strikes from the get-go.

First signs of trouble came in late October, when a van and posters began to tour the Birmingham inner city condemning city councillors and Labour MPs for being ‘complicit’ in the Gaza crisis. The faces of dead children were juxtaposed with the faces of representatives accused of ‘staying silent’. In some protests, they were accused of being ‘baby killers’.

It set the tone for the aggressive campaign that followed.

Instead of celebrating easy wins and a triumphant night for Labour, party candidates were left clinging on, anxious and at risk. Among them were the charismatic Jess Phillips, Hodge Hill’s veteran MP Liam Byrne and frontbench justice chief Shabana Mahmood. They made it, just, Byrne and Phillips by very tight margins. Tahir Ali was assisted by conflict between two Independents so had a relatively easy time of it but was still left in no doubt he’d been in a fight.

Ayoub Khan, MP for Birmingham Perry Barr

But one didn’t make it - Khalid Mahmood was cut adrift in Perry Barr, losing by 507 votes to Independent rival Ayoub Khan. Mahmood had spent the last week before polling day feverishly tweeting that Khan was spreading misinformation about his record on Gaza, and that Khan had not spoken up for a city council motion about the Palestine crisis. It was a clear sign of his anxiety.

Shock of the night

When Ayoub Khan made the calculated gamble of quitting the Liberal Democrats to stand as an Independent in Birmingham Perry Barr, he did so knowing he had the backing of multiple Muslim organisations and influencers in the area who had lost faith in Labour.

In the months prior to the election, Khan, still a Lib Dem on the city council, had been accused of anti-Semitism, a claim he denied, over comments he made on TikTok in which he cast doubt on descriptions of what happened when Hamas terrorists killed, raped and kidnapped hundreds of Israelis on October 7. He claimed he was simply applying his lawyer curiosity to pick over accounts of what unfolded.

That led to a Lib Dem inquiry and publication of an ‘apology’ on his behalf and a pledge to take ‘anti Semitism’ training - a move that infuriated Khan, who said he had not agreed to the statement issued nor intended to do any such training as he didn’t need it. “I am not anti-Semitic,” he declared, and was subsequently cleared of wrong doing over the posts.

But that only fuelled his belief that being a Lib Dem and subject to party rules did not suit him. He went it alone, backed by powerful independent allies and significant funding.

In the last days of the campaign, the writing was clearly on the wall. Khalid Mahmood’s social media posts became almost wholly digs about Khan, with an attempt to undermine his ‘pro Gaza’ credentials by reference to the minutiae of a motion to the city council. It was a last gasp effort to shore up his vote, particularly among the area’s Muslims, and especially Pakistani Kashmiri population.

On the night the Perry Barr counting hall was the most frenetic. At the end, with around 500 votes in it, Mahmood demanded a full recount but in the end was allowed a bundle check - this is when votes already piled into bundles for each candidate are ‘flicked through’ to see if there are any errant votes among them. It did not save him.

The final result was declared to a largely empty ICC, and lacked the thrill it ought to have had. By the time Khan and his rivals for the seat of Perry Barr had made their way to stand on the stage in Hall 3, the lights had been turned down, tables stacked up and journalists had largely disappeared.

Khan, draped in a Free Palestine flag, is the first Independent MP to represent the city in the modern political era. He overcame veteran Labour MP Khalid Mahmood by 507 votes. There was no fulsome handshake between the two men at the end - Khan said he’s approached Mahmood to do so earlier in the night but had been rejected, while Mahmood told journalists his defeat had been a takedown by Muslim forces that had long been after his scalp.

He told Times Radio he had lost to a ‘fabricated agenda’ spearheaded by MEND (Muslim Engagement and Development) - an organisation that Michael Gove had referenced as ‘extremist’. Also against him, said Mahmood, were the news outfit Five Pillars and The Muslim Vote organisation. They had supported Khan and ‘hyped up’ claims that Mahmood was not pro-Palestine ‘enough’ when he had in fact voted for a ceasefire and long advocated for a Palestinian state, he said.

He said there was a ‘clear agenda’ to besmirch the Labour Party over this issue. “These people have done nothing for Gaza themselves, while I have been working on the issue (of a Palestine two state solution) for more than 30 years. They have pulled the heartstrings of the Muslim community and sought to blackmail them into this position, and that’s where we are.”

He said he would continue to fight against people with a ‘clear Islamist agenda’.

Mahmood was not alone in speaking of nefarious forces and aggressive tactics. Earlier in the evening, Jess Phillips and Shabana Mahmood had spoken up forcefully about the harassment and intimidation they and their supporters had experienced on the campaign trail.

Birmingham Ladywood MP Shabana Mahmood told me how she had needed armed police at some points during the campaign to unseat her by Independent Akhmed Yakoob because of ‘credible threats’ (important to note that nobody suggested those came from Yakoob or his campaign team). She spoke of young supporters being ‘stalked and filmed’, of taunts of ‘infidel’, and of her Muslim faith being questioned. At one community meeting, masked men burst in, she said.

The diminutive MP came out fighting as the result was announced, against a backdrop of boos and taunts. Jess Phillips had earlier defiantly stared down the cluster of supporters who had gathered to cheer on Independent Jody McIntyre as the Yardley result was announced.

Both women had been left furious by antics on the campaign trail that they said had ‘sullied politics’. Mahmood called it an affront on democracy. Phillips reported that a community activist and supporter had her car tyres slashed, on polling day. Her angry office manager John O’Shea spoke of ‘thuggish behaviour.’ Mahmood campaign chief Marcus Bernasconi said it had at times been horrific and very worrying.

But any distant hope they might have entertained that defeat would result in reflection and quiet have already been dashed. Akhmed Yakoob, stalking the ICC corridors, had a face like thunder as it became clear he had lost. He had hoped to, as he described it, “get another Zionist out of Parliament” and would press on.

His friend Shakeel Afsar, who had stood in Hall Green and Moseley, was also defeated but unbowed. “We have a 20 year plan. We are going to take over, and take down Labour,” he said. “We will be standing a candidate in every council seat in 2026. We are going nowhere,” he said.

Afsar was one of that cluster of men at the Yardley count who Phillips later called ‘idiots’ and said did not represent Muslim communities in Birmingham. Also among them was Abu Umaymah, a youth and community activist.

He said Phillips needed to ‘think on’ her comments alleging she was a victim of misogynistic men. “The same men she has labelled as misogynists have helped her get elected in the past…and backed strong women in other seats. The problem isn’t with strong women standing - rather it’s their affiliation with a party that has let us down continuously over the past year and has accepted the killing of innocents in Palestine,” he claimed. (Phillips has repeatedly countered this line before, pointing to her record of directly helping families escape Gaza, meeting with women activists, championing aid, quitting her frontbench job over the ceasefire vote and calling for an end to arms sales.)

Shabana Mahmood’s elevation to the new Cabinet had ‘sparked a lot of hatred amongst the people,’ he claimed in a series of messages to me. “As long as Keir Starmer is leading the Labour party things will never the same…people feel betrayed.”

McIntyre, a disabled activist and long-standing pro Palestine campaigner, also intends to use the election campaigns as a platform for future elections. He struck a much more positive tone about his plans, however. “Busy planning for the future. Will be opening an office in the constituency soon, offering the following: Free, confidential legal advice from a female lawyer for victims of domestic abuse. Assistance with filling out forms and housing advice. A foodbank for those struggling,” he tweeted this weekend.

He also spoke of the ‘thousands’ of abusive messages he had received, many focussed on his disability or appearance, many of them Islamaphobic, while asking if anyone from Labour had called that abuse out as readily as they had criticised ‘robust challenges’ over Gaza.

New MP Mr Khan said he has huge sympathy with those who experienced intimidation and harassment on the campaign trail and says there is ‘no place in politics’ for threats and people feeling unsafe. “That is absolutely unacceptable,” he said. “I would never condone that and it should not happen.”

But he also highlighted behaviour by Labour candidates and supporters in previous elections that he said had ‘besmirched the political system’. He referenced the 2004 postal ballots scandal; fighting on the election trail in 2022; the ‘gifting’ scandal that he exposed in 2022; and the way that Labour candidates in the past had allegedly used similar tactics on polling day to get their vote out to those they were now complaining about. “It does seem these things are only a problem when someone else does it.”

He also maintained that the city had seen a similar backlash against Labour before, when they were in Government during the Iraq War. “This is very similar - people are seeing atrocities and want those they elected to speak up more loudly about them.”

He added: “I don’t think what we are seeing is particularly new. People were angry then, they are angry now. Then, the anger was expressed in leaflets and on the doorstep and in a big protest march - now we see it through social media, ring doorbell videos, clips circulating on tik tok and facebook, as well as protest rallies - together is all seems more intense.

“I think it’s just the delivery mechanism that has changed.” And he added: “I have been in and around the political arena a long time. Emotions are fired up, fair minded people can see something is not right over Gaza, and we need to see action.

“I hope that time may heal, but Labour are going to have to reflect on what has happened here.”

In his election speech, he spoke of it as a “victory not only for the residents of Perry Barr constituency, it is for the martyrs, women and men who have been massacred and are still being killed even today.”

Khan denies, however, being part of an ‘Islamist masterplan’ to take over Birmingham. But he says he does see potential in being a ‘peace maker’ among the city’s hurt and disparate voices and parliamentarians. “My focus first will be on my constituents and the city and I’ll work with all political parties to deliver to them. Community cohesion is hugely important for our city - we have a very diverse community in Perry Barr and I will reach out to all groups.”

Khan, a criminal barrister, spent the weekend after his election victory working with law colleagues coming up with a plan for dealing with his imminent caseload as he comes to terms with his new role as an MP.

While he hoped for victory, he hadn’t made a clear plan in the event of actually winning, so was working through a to-do list to ready himself for his first day in Parliament today when we spoke. “I’m in unchartered waters here,” he said.

His future as a city councillor for Aston is ‘being considered’ - “I will have to think about how to deliver on that, it will be part of wider discussions and reflections I will have to think that through.”

Khan also revealed that part way through the short election campaign he had to abandon the trail to support his ill wife, Sofia. She suffered a head injury while out walking and later experienced seizures, with medics exploring a possible bleed on the brain or stroke, with uncertainty about the exact prognosis. “She is recovering well but it was a really worrying time,” said Khan.

It also brought him up close with the challenges facing the NHS, including several waits of over four hours in City and Sandwell hospital A&Es after first being stuck on an ambulance. “We were in the ambulance, and she was going in and out of these very frightening episodes of being conscious and then not, and, you know, I truly thought that this was, you know, like a brain hemorrhage or something really catastrophic,” he said.

He said he was so desperate that at one point he contacted the hospital’s management team direct and asked for more urgency. His wife ended up in hospital for eight days. “So that obviously took priority over my campaign for a couple of weeks, which makes it more of a miracle that I won,” he said.

Birmingham Perry Barr Result

• Khalid Mahmood (Labour) - 12,796 votes

• Ayoub Khan (Independent) - 13,303 votes

• Garry Hickton (Conservatives) - 4,227 votes

• Kefentse Dennis (Green Party) - 2,440 votes

• Sabah Hamed (Liberal Democrats) - 1,302 votes

• Akshay Khuttan (Reform UK) - 2,446 votes

• Shangara Singh (Socialist Labour Party) - 453 votes

Rest of the results in full:

Birmingham Edgbaston

• Preet Kaur Gill (Labour) - 16,599 votes

• Ashvir Sangha (Conservative) - 8,231 votes

• Colin Green (Liberal Democrats) - 2,102 votes

• Joshua Matthews (Reform UK) - 4,363 votes

• Nicola Catherine Payne (Green Party) - 2,797 votes

• Ammar Waraich (Independent) - 3,336 votes

Birmingham Erdington

• Paulette Hamilton (Labour) - 14,774 votes

• Steve Knee (Conservative) - 5,402 votes

• Jack Brookes (Reform UK) - 7,755 votes

• Ann Farzana Aslam (Liberal Democrats) - 1,128 votes

• Karen Trench (Green Party) -2,452 votes

• Corinthia Ward (Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition) - 37 votes

• Shaukat Ali (Independent) - 2,250 votes

Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley

• Tahir Ali (Labour) - 12,798 votes

• Zain Ahmed (Green Party) 3,913 votes

• Shakeel Afsar (Independent) 7,142 votes

• Mohammad Hafeez (Independent) 6,159 votes

• Izzy Knowles (Liberal Democrat) 4,711 votes

• Henry Morris (Conservative) 3,845 votes

• Stephen McBrine (Reform UK) 2,305 votes

• Babar Raja (Independent) 733 votes

Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North

• Liam Byrne (Labour) - 10,655 votes

• Caroline Clapper (Conservative) - 4,634 votes

• Qasim Esak (Liberal Democrats) - 942 votes

• James Giles (Workers Party of GB) - 9,089 votes

• Imran Ali Khan (Green Party) - 2,060 votes

• Jamie Pullin (Reform UK) - 6,456 votes

Birmingham Ladywood

• Shabana Mahmood (Labour) - 15,558 votes

• Shazna Muzammil (Conservative) - 2,218 votes

• Akhmed Yakoob (Independent) - 12,137 votes

• Irene Yoong-Henery (Reform UK) - 1,477 votes

• Lee Dargue (Liberal Democrats) - 1,711 votes

• Zoe Challenor (Green Party) - 3,478 votes

Birmingham Northfield

• Gary Sambrook (Conservative) - 9,540 votes

• Laurence Turner (Labour) - 14,929 votes

• Jerry Evans (Liberal Democrat) - 1,791 votes

• Rob Grant (Green Party) - 2,809 votes

• Stephen Peters (Reform UK) - 7,895 votes

• Dean Gwilliam (Independent) - 163 votes

• Atlaf Hussain (Independent) - 310 votes

• Dick Rodgers (Common Good) - 215 votes

  

  Successful Labour MPs Laurence Turner, left, Northfield, and Al Carns, right, Selly Oak

Birmingham Selly Oak

• Alistair Carns (Labour) -17,371 votes

• Simon Phipps (Conservatives) -5,834 votes

• Kamel Hawwash (Independent)- 2,842 votes

• Dave Radcliffe (Liberal Democrats) - 2,324 votes

• Erin Crawford (Reform UK) - 5,732 votes

• Jane Baston (Green Party) - 4,320 votes

Birmingham Yardley

• Jess Phillips (Labour) - 11,275 votes

• Yvonne Beverley Clements (Conservative) - 3,634 votes

• Roxanne Green (Green Party) - 1,958 votes

• Roger Harmer (Liberal Democrats) - 3,634 votes

• Nora Kamberi (Reform UK) - 5,061 votes

• Jody McIntyre (Workers Party of Britain) -10,582 votes

Sutton Coldfield

• Andrew Mitchell (Conservatives) - 18,502 votes

• Rob Pocock (Labour) - 15,959 votes

• John Sweeney (Liberal Democrats) - 2,587 votes

• Ben Auton (Green Party) - 2,419 votes

• Mark Hoath (Reform UK) - 8,213 votes

• Wajad Burkey (Workers Party of Great Britain) - 653 votes

Elsewhere across the region

Aldridge-Brownhills

• Wendy Morton (Conservative) - 15,901 votes

• Luke Davies (Labour) - 11,607 votes

• Graham Eardley (Reform UK) - 9,903 votes

• Ian Garrett (Lib Dems) - 1,755 votes

• Clare Nash (Green Party) - 1,746 votes