Yahoo News General Election London: Labour fights to win back Jewish voters in Thatcher's old seat of Finchley
Finchley and Golders Green, Margaret Thatcher’s old patch, offers the ultimate test of whether voters accept Sir Keir Starmer’s case that Labour has changed.
After the antisemitism toxicity of the Jeremy Corbyn years, its candidate Sarah Sackman insists that the party has now reverted to being a “safe space” for Jewish voters.
They represent 21 percent of the electorate here, the highest proportion of any UK constituency.
Out campaigning on a sweltering day in bohemian East Finchley, Ms Sackman notes that Sir Keir has expelled Mr Corbyn while high-profile Jewish deserters, such as Luciana Berger who took second place for the Liberal Democrats here in 2019, are back in the Labour fold.
“And that provides that sense of reassurance that a changed Labour Party is ready to change the country,” the candidate said, after a collapse in Jewish support pushed Labour into a humiliating third place here in 2019.
Five years later, the latest large-scale MRP poll by YouGov ranks the seat as the tightest Tory-Labour race in the country. Conservative candidate Alex Deane was on 36% of the vote share compared to 35% for Ms Sackman - a statistical dead heat.
Mr Deane acknowledges action by Sir Keir on antisemitism, but disputes the notion that Labour has transformed entirely.
“It doesn’t tally with what I am seeing to say that Labour is now free of the issues that came with Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership,” he said, stressing Labour divisions over the war in Gaza amid strong support here for Israel’s government.
Constituency-level polling is notoriously hard. More broadly, a new survey of 2,717 Jewish people, commissioned by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, found that 46% of British Jews intend to vote for Labour and 30% for the Conservatives.
In Finchley and Golders Green, the Lib Dems are hardly competing this time, focussing resources elsewhere in London. That should help Labour, which has built up a strong ground game as it bids to retake the seat for the first time since 2010.
Outgoing Tory MP Mike Freer declined to run again after coming under a deluge of abuse including death threats following the Israel-Hamas war.
The Conservatives’ constituency office in Finchley Central was also targeted in an arson attack. It was Mrs Thatcher's local nerve centre for years, and is now named in her honour.
Born and raised in the constituency, and a veteran of the Jewish Labour Movement, Ms Sackman is a barrister who already stood to be an MP here once, in the 2015 election.
Mr Deane, a PR consultant and TV commentator, has been commuting north of the river from Dulwich - where Mrs Thatcher first moved on her eviction from 10 Downing Street.
He concedes that his opponent enjoys local visibility but points to his media profile as helping to level the odds.
The former top aide to David Cameron (when he was still opposition leader) is happy quaffing beer and talking politics with Nigel Farage on GB News.
But Mr Deane insists he is hardly “bosom buddies” with the Reform UK leader.
“We are competing against one another. But in the United Kingdom, we used to believe in the ability to agree to disagree civilly, and to do so pleasantly,” he said, praising Ms Sackman and Lib Dem candidate Sarah Hoyle as “decent” people.
The Conservative candidate is a staunch backer of Israel over the war, while also highlighting Labour’s policy to end a 20% VAT exemption on private school fees.
Finchley’s borough of Barnet has a relatively high proportion of children in independent schools, mostly in Jewish private schools. Mr Deane would take a radically different tack - offering a tax rebate to parents who keep their children out of state education.
It’s an unorthodox stance and not official Tory policy. But the former barrister embraces the unorthodox.
Going door to door in shorts and flip flops in the heavily Jewish ward of Golders Green, Mr Deane describes himself as a “small-state, Thatcherite free marketeer”. He denies that his tax rebate idea would open Britain up to an “à la carte” system with people only paying for what they get out of the state.
But defending Labour’s plan to redistribute funding for state schools, Ms Sackman notes that the roof of one well-regarded secondary school in East Finchley is falling in after 14 years of Tory rule.
“It’s not the politics of envy, it’s the politics of fairness,” she said.
The Labour candidate stresses that regardless of any tensions over events in the Middle East, most Jewish and other voters in the diverse constituency - “across all different groups” - care just as much about the cost of living and NHS waiting lists.
“I think there is this sense that after 14 years in Government, the Conservatives’ time is up.”
The Evening Standard has compiled an interactive map of all 75 constituencies in London, including Finchley and Golders Green.
