VOTES OF NO CONFIDENCE

Why recent U.K. election results will ring alarm bells for Joe Biden

- EWAN PALMER

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN MAY BE looking across the Atlantic with trepidation as Britain's left-leaning Labour Party suffers heavy losses among Muslim voters across the country.

Earlier this month, England and Wales saw hundreds of local council, mayoral and police crime commissioner elections taking place, with the opposition Labour Party scoring a number of key victories in the latest sign that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the Tory Party are on course for a crushing defeat in the next as-yet unannounced U.K. general election.

Nevertheless, Labour lost scores of votes in areas with significant Muslim populations, with the BBC reporting that the party's vote is down 8 percent compared to last year in wards where more than one in 10 residents identify as Muslim. The falling Muslim support is seen as a direct response to how Labour and its leader, Keir Starmer, reacted to Israel's war against Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.