Post by YL on Dec 10, 2023 21:09:10 GMT
Bradford West is an extremely distinctive constituency. This is already apparent when looking at its election results: although it has voted Labour in every General Election since 1974 (when it underwent significant boundary changes) it swung to the Conservatives in 1997 and Labour's winning margins in each of Tony Blair's election victories here were only a few thousand, while more recently it was lost by Labour in a spectacular by-election in 2012 but then swung dramatically towards Labour, with them winning over 75% of the vote in 2019. This is not a constituency which takes much notice of national trends, and in Labour's landslide win in 2024 it moved sharply away from them again, nearly being lost to an Independent candidate.
It is the most Muslim constituency in England and Wales, at nearly 60% of the population, and also the constituency with the highest proportion identifying as ethnically Pakistani, just over half of the population. It also stands out on some other measures: it is a notably young constituency, with the fourth highest proportion of people under 15 and low proportions in the oldest age groups. It is sixth highest for the proportion with no qualifications, and the highest for those who are reported as having never worked or being long term unemployed. Unsurprisingly, deprivation is high: the 16th highest among the constituencies in the UK according to the all-UK dataset used by Alasdair Rae.
The constituency was completely unchanged in the 2024 boundary changes. It contains Bradford's city centre, including the area around the University. It thus includes some impressive commercial buildings such as those in Little Germany, as well as the recently redeveloped core of the city and the National Science and Media Museum. Many people here live in flats, either new build or converted, and the actual city centre is one of the less Muslim parts of the constituency; it is also a little less deprived than most of it, and has quite high education levels.
To the north and north-west of the city centre it contains the Victorian residential areas to the west of the valley of Bradford Beck: Manningham, Heaton and Frizinghall. There is some fine Victorian architecture here, including in and around Lister Park, but there is also much small Victorian housing, including, as in some other parts of West Yorkshire, surviving back to backs. This area is particularly heavily Muslim, with the proportions in most Output Areas above 70% and in quite a few above 90%.
To the west the constituency extends out into Bradford's western fringe climbing into the Pennines. This includes Clayton, and further north Fairweather Green, Allerton, Thornton and Sandy Lane. This area is a bit less Muslim, but much of it is becoming more so, especially parts of Allerton and Fairweather Green; Thornton and parts of Clayton remain less Muslim. It is mostly quite deprived, though not quite as much as the inner city areas to the east, but some census areas on the edge of the built up area are less so. The two wards covering these areas used to be Conservative voting (Thornton & Allerton) and Labour leaning but capable of voting Conservative (Clayton & Fairweather Green) but have become increasingly strong for Labour in recent years, presumably at least partly because of demographic change, and now look essentially safe.
One factor in the unpredictable politics of the area over the years has been "biraderi" (spellings vary) politics. The word refers to kinship networks, and in local elections the effect can be that candidates favoured in these networks can do well apparently regardless of party affiliation, creating Conservative wins in spite of apparently unfavourable demographics, some sharp swings from one year to the next and, in all up elections (last used in Bradford in 2004) cases where different candidates from the same party can get dramatically different votes. Before 2024 the unpredictable results have died down within this constituency, but in that year's local elections, following a pattern found in many strongly Muslim areas in northern England, Independent candidates defeated Labour in four of its six wards.
The reason for the close results in the Blair years is generally believed to be to do with unhappiness in parts of the Muslim community with the selection of a Sikh candidate, Marsha Singh, to stand for Labour in 1997. In 2010 Singh's vote increased against the trend and the seat started to look safer again, but he became seriously ill and resigned his seat early in 2012. (He died later in the year.) This provided an opportunity for George Galloway, then of Respect, who somewhat unexpectedly (at least to those outside the constituency) won the by-election in a landslide, defeating the current Bradford East MP Imran Hussain; the Conservative vote completely collapsed, with their share falling even more than Labour's.
Following the by-election, Respect then won several seats in the Bradford council elections in May, but the councillors did not remain in the party for long and the Respect candidates in 2014 were not close to winning. Galloway was then defeated in 2015 by Labour's new candidate Naz Shah after an acrimonious campaign; Shah then increased her majority in 2017 and 2019, but in 2024 she only narrowly held the seat over Independent candidate Muhammed Ali Islam, who had been elected representing Manningham ward in the local elections earlier in the year, and she may only have been saved by a split of the Independent vote. In terms of percentage points, the fall in the Labour vote was the biggest in the country.
2019 result (no boundary change):
Lab 33736 (76.2%)
Con 6717 (15.2%)
Brexit Party 1556 (3.5%)
Lib Dem 1349 (3.0%)
Green 813 (1.8%)
Other 90 (0.2%)
Lab majority 27019 (61.0%)
2024 result:
Naz Shah (Lab) 11724 (31.6%)
Muhammed Islam (Ind) 11017 (29.7%)
Khalid Mahmood (Green) 3690 (10.0%)
Akeel Hussain (Ind) 3547 (9.6%)
Nigel Moxon (Con) 3055 (8.2%)
Jamie Hinton-Wardle (Reform UK) 2958 (8.0%)
Imad Ahmed (Lin Dem) 756 (2.0%)
Umar Ghafoor (Ind) 334 (0.9%)
It is the most Muslim constituency in England and Wales, at nearly 60% of the population, and also the constituency with the highest proportion identifying as ethnically Pakistani, just over half of the population. It also stands out on some other measures: it is a notably young constituency, with the fourth highest proportion of people under 15 and low proportions in the oldest age groups. It is sixth highest for the proportion with no qualifications, and the highest for those who are reported as having never worked or being long term unemployed. Unsurprisingly, deprivation is high: the 16th highest among the constituencies in the UK according to the all-UK dataset used by Alasdair Rae.
The constituency was completely unchanged in the 2024 boundary changes. It contains Bradford's city centre, including the area around the University. It thus includes some impressive commercial buildings such as those in Little Germany, as well as the recently redeveloped core of the city and the National Science and Media Museum. Many people here live in flats, either new build or converted, and the actual city centre is one of the less Muslim parts of the constituency; it is also a little less deprived than most of it, and has quite high education levels.
To the north and north-west of the city centre it contains the Victorian residential areas to the west of the valley of Bradford Beck: Manningham, Heaton and Frizinghall. There is some fine Victorian architecture here, including in and around Lister Park, but there is also much small Victorian housing, including, as in some other parts of West Yorkshire, surviving back to backs. This area is particularly heavily Muslim, with the proportions in most Output Areas above 70% and in quite a few above 90%.
To the west the constituency extends out into Bradford's western fringe climbing into the Pennines. This includes Clayton, and further north Fairweather Green, Allerton, Thornton and Sandy Lane. This area is a bit less Muslim, but much of it is becoming more so, especially parts of Allerton and Fairweather Green; Thornton and parts of Clayton remain less Muslim. It is mostly quite deprived, though not quite as much as the inner city areas to the east, but some census areas on the edge of the built up area are less so. The two wards covering these areas used to be Conservative voting (Thornton & Allerton) and Labour leaning but capable of voting Conservative (Clayton & Fairweather Green) but have become increasingly strong for Labour in recent years, presumably at least partly because of demographic change, and now look essentially safe.
One factor in the unpredictable politics of the area over the years has been "biraderi" (spellings vary) politics. The word refers to kinship networks, and in local elections the effect can be that candidates favoured in these networks can do well apparently regardless of party affiliation, creating Conservative wins in spite of apparently unfavourable demographics, some sharp swings from one year to the next and, in all up elections (last used in Bradford in 2004) cases where different candidates from the same party can get dramatically different votes. Before 2024 the unpredictable results have died down within this constituency, but in that year's local elections, following a pattern found in many strongly Muslim areas in northern England, Independent candidates defeated Labour in four of its six wards.
The reason for the close results in the Blair years is generally believed to be to do with unhappiness in parts of the Muslim community with the selection of a Sikh candidate, Marsha Singh, to stand for Labour in 1997. In 2010 Singh's vote increased against the trend and the seat started to look safer again, but he became seriously ill and resigned his seat early in 2012. (He died later in the year.) This provided an opportunity for George Galloway, then of Respect, who somewhat unexpectedly (at least to those outside the constituency) won the by-election in a landslide, defeating the current Bradford East MP Imran Hussain; the Conservative vote completely collapsed, with their share falling even more than Labour's.
Following the by-election, Respect then won several seats in the Bradford council elections in May, but the councillors did not remain in the party for long and the Respect candidates in 2014 were not close to winning. Galloway was then defeated in 2015 by Labour's new candidate Naz Shah after an acrimonious campaign; Shah then increased her majority in 2017 and 2019, but in 2024 she only narrowly held the seat over Independent candidate Muhammed Ali Islam, who had been elected representing Manningham ward in the local elections earlier in the year, and she may only have been saved by a split of the Independent vote. In terms of percentage points, the fall in the Labour vote was the biggest in the country.
2019 result (no boundary change):
Lab 33736 (76.2%)
Con 6717 (15.2%)
Brexit Party 1556 (3.5%)
Lib Dem 1349 (3.0%)
Green 813 (1.8%)
Other 90 (0.2%)
Lab majority 27019 (61.0%)
2024 result:
Naz Shah (Lab) 11724 (31.6%)
Muhammed Islam (Ind) 11017 (29.7%)
Khalid Mahmood (Green) 3690 (10.0%)
Akeel Hussain (Ind) 3547 (9.6%)
Nigel Moxon (Con) 3055 (8.2%)
Jamie Hinton-Wardle (Reform UK) 2958 (8.0%)
Imad Ahmed (Lin Dem) 756 (2.0%)
Umar Ghafoor (Ind) 334 (0.9%)
