Labour wins 8 out of 10 seats from Birmingham

BIRMINGHAM: Despite Conservative Party inflicting a big dent in Labour’s vote bank in many areas, Birmingham remains Labour’s stronghold for now. The city’s 10 parliamentary seats were up for grabs in Thursday’s general elections with a total 53 candidates trying their luck to secure a seat in Parliament.

But as the exit polls came out and the counting of ballot papers started, it was inevitable that Labour might not be able to hold on all the nine sets that the party won back in 2015 and 2017.

Labour won on 8 out of 10 seats, by losing Northfield constituency to the Conservatives. The other constituency in which the Conservative Party won was their safe seat of Sutton Coldfield.

Among those 8 winners of Labour Khalid Mahmood, Shabana Mahmood and Tahir Ali are of Pakistani origins. For the first time three candidates of Pakistani background elected from one city will be part of the Parliament.

From Birmingham Perry Barr, Khalid Mahmood won for the record sixth consecutive time by securing 26,594. Elected first back in 2001, Khalid was the first MP of Pakistani origin elected from England. He is currently the most senior Muslim Parliamentarian in British politics.

Fellow Labour candidate Shabana Mahmood also won from neighbouring Ladywood constituency for the 4th time in a row. She was first elected in 2010 and was the first female member of parliament of Kashmiri origin. Shabana got 33,355 votes and won by a whopping majority of 28,583 votes.

The newest edition to the list is Tahir Ali, who has become a member of the Parliament from Hall Green for the first time. Tahir who is Counsellor from city’s Nechels Ward has also served as cabinet member in Birmingham city council.

Tahir was up against former Labour MP from Hall Green Roger Godsiff who was standing as an independent candidate after the party gave ticket to Tahir Ali instead.

Tahir received total 35,889 votes with a landslide majority of 28,508 votes. Another Pakistani origin candidate, Lib Dem’s Wahid Rafiq was up against Labour’s Liam Byrne in Hodge Hill. But the Liberal Democrats pulled its support after anti-Semitic social media posts by Rafiq were discovered. He did not even turn up for the results. Liam got 35,397 votes and won again this seat by a margin of 28,655 votes. He has been MP from Hodge Hill since 2005. In other constituencies, Labour’s Jess Phillips retained her Yardley seat. She got 23,379 votes. From Edgbaston Preet Kaur Gill also won again on Labour’s ticket. She received 21,217 votes. From Selly Oak, Steve McCabe also retained his seat for Labour, he got 27,714 votes.

Labour Jack Dromey won from Erdington again. He was a tough battle against Conservative Party’s Robert Alden. Robert is a Counsellor and leader of Conservative group in the city council. Jack got 27,714 votes with a majority of 3,601 votes. The biggest upset of the night in Birmingham was Northfield which Labour lost to Conservatives. Conservative Party’s Garry Sambrook knocked former MP Richard Burden out by getting 19,957 votes. Richard, who has been MP from this constituency since 1992, could only manage to get 18,317 votes. Garry won for the first time by a narrow margin of 1,640 votes. Sutton Coldfield is traditionally a safe Conservative seat and this time too Conservative’s Andrew Mitchell won it easily. Andrew got 31,604 and won by lead of 19,272.