Battleground Yorkshire: Bradford needs next year's city of culture

From 2025 it will be the UK’s city of culture, with work in the busy city centre already underway preparing it for the influx of tourism for what is already one of the country’s most international cities.

“Bradford hasn't had its fair share, and winning 2025 was huge for the city,” says Naz Shah, the local Labour MP, adding: “It's our time to shine.”

The need for a win is quite clear.

Out of Yorkshire’s 54 constituencies, Bradford West has the highest levels of child poverty, with the ability of families to earn their way out of low income hampered by the fact it has the highest proportion of people who have never worked.

Part of the issue for seats like this is a lack of investment and infrastructure to match the scale and ambitions of the cities.

“The rail infrastructure in Bradford is really needed,” says Ms Shah.

“It takes you longer to go to Wakefield now than it would in Edwardian times on the direct rail. This is a source of shame

“We’ve got the tenth largest economy in the country. We’re the fourth largest metropolitan council district in the whole of the country.

“Why haven’t we had that fair share and our slice of the cake for our people.”

Devolution gives the opportunity for Bradford to receive the attention and funding that is not achieved through its struggling council alone, if it can compete with its glitzy neighbour, Leeds.

Its council has seen responsibility for its children’s services taken out of its control, with its own budgets stretched to breaking point, and the lack of intervention during the cost of living crisis can be seen on its population.

“A third of the families in Bradford are experiencing poverty,” says Ms Shah.

“That’s a lot of children. And I’ve been told there are over 30,000 children across Bradford that have to skip meals every day.

“In 2024, that kind of stat. The idea that we’re not giving out free school meals, the idea that Sadiq [Khan] has just announced in London, it makes a difference to children.

“These are the bread and butter stuff of politics that are really important to the people of Bradford West, but there are others.”

The other issue of vital concern to people in the constituency is the conflict in Gaza.

Some 61.0 per cent of the seat is Asian or Asian British, compared to around 9.3 per cent nationally across England and Wales.

Around 23.9 per cent of Bradford West is White British, compared to 74.4 per cent across the country, and over 96 per cent in seats such as Bridlington and the Wolds.

The most international seat in this very international city, obviously has an international focus.

“We’ve had a lot of casework on that, in the thousands,” says Ms Shah.

“We have to have hope, politics is all about hope, hoping that things get better.

“We have to hope that the hostages are returned, we have to hope that there is an end to the violence, that’s what keeps us going.

“We’ve just celebrated Eid recently and Eid was so bittersweet for the Muslim families that I know because the whole point of fasting is resetting your connection with god, but it’s also about humility and resetting your relationship with life itself and reminding yourself what’s important in life and your role not just in your own family but your role globally as a human being.

“It’s been a really painful Eid and it really affects my constituents.”

Labour’s own relationship with Muslims has taken a real knock recently. The defining moment for many British Muslims was an interview which Sir Keir Starmer made on Sky News in October last year when he appeared to suggest that Israel has the “right” to withhold power and water from Gaza.

This interview is still referenced six months later, despite the Labour leader’s attempts to row back from the comments to say that Israel has the right to self defence.

The effect of this saw Muslim voters lose trust with the Labour Party, and, as has happened many times before, George Galloway was there to capitalise.

The Rochdale by-election was a wake-up call for Labour on the ability for Muslim voters to organise against the party that it has more often than not supported fully in UK elections.

Bradford West will be Labour’s biggest test on how well it has repaired its relationship with the Muslim community in the country.

Thankfully for Labour, its current MP has some experience winning Muslim votes when the party’s support is under threat.

“I’m the only Member of Parliament who has even unseated George Galloway,” says Ms Shah.

“It was one of my proudest moments sharing that joy with my constituents who voted for me.

“This is not about Galloway, this is about those actors, and it is the same when it comes to the Reform party, the Farrages, the Galloways.

“And the reason that void is there is because we haven’t seen that strong leadership from our leaders.

“I’ve said this to others when they asked how I beat Galloway. You have to lead. Leadership isn’t about pointing out their flaws.

“Demonstrate and show people the alternative and by definition you’re highlighting their incompetencies. It’s whether you take an approach of ‘I’m beating him’ or ‘I’m winning for you’.

“People feel aggrieved, and it’s up to us to fix those relationships. It’s up to the mainstream to step up and listen and respond to them and be honest.”

Under current polling, this seat will vote Labour, but this seat is one which defies national trends with its electorate.

There is an incredible amount of anger in the British Muslim community, and outside it, in reaction to the conflict in the Middle East.

Though it is not set to be a key issue for most voters in most seats, the ones where it is, it will be felt very keenly, and one that politicians would do well to avoid exploiting.

If a decade of political unrest and the murder of two MPs has taught us anything in the UK, it is that stoking the fires of the electorate is a dangerous game, and not one that most members of the public have any interest in playing.