Which constituencies do Muslim MPs represent in the UK Parliament in 2025?
Executive summary
There is no single, authoritative list of MPs’ religions, so press outlets and community groups offer competing tallies for 2024–25 — most report roughly 24–25 Muslim MPs in the House of Commons, clustered in urban seats and including a mix of Labour, Conservative and independent victors (reports: 25; 24; 18–25) [1] [2] [3]. Independent pro‑Palestine winners shifted representation in several traditionally Labour, heavily Muslim constituencies, but the exact roster of which constituencies are represented by MPs who identify as Muslim varies across sources and is not officially recorded [4] [5].
1. The headline numbers and why they disagree
Multiple outlets and Muslim community organisations reported a “record” number of Muslims elected in 2024 — commonly 24 or 25 MPs — with breakdowns such as 18–19 Labour, two Conservatives and four independents cited by different reporters and think‑tanks [1] [3] [2]; however, Wikipedia and the House of Commons do not maintain an official register of MPs’ religions and Reuters explicitly warned there is no verifiable public record to confirm the exact figure, so discrepancies reflect different methodologies and self‑identification assumptions [6] [5] [7].
2. The constituencies repeatedly named in reporting
Local and national news stories consistently link Muslim-identifying MPs to a cluster of urban seats across England and one in Scotland: examples cited across outlets include Glasgow South West (Scottish Westminster) [8], Leicester South [9] [10], Dewsbury and Batley [9], Blackburn [9], Birmingham Perry Barr [9] [4], Sheffield Central [9] [11], North Somerset [9], Stratford and Bow [8], and a string of West Yorkshire and Midlands constituencies such as Bradford West/East and Ilford South where Muslim electorates are large and where Muslim MPs or Muslim‑heritage candidates have been active in recent cycles [10] [4] [9]. These names recur because independent pro‑Palestine campaigns flipped or seriously contested several of those seats in 2024, producing high‑profile Muslim victors or near‑victories [4] [9].
3. Independents and the ‘Muslim constituencies’ effect
Reporting emphasises that five independent pro‑Palestine candidates — four of whom were Muslim — won in constituencies with large Muslim populations, specifically Dewsbury and Batley, Blackburn, Birmingham Perry Barr and Leicester South, marking an unusual independent surge and showing how local Muslim electorates reshaped outcomes [4] [9]. Commentators and campaign groups such as The Muslim Vote linked those results to mobilisation around Gaza; critics and some mainstream outlets framed the pattern as Labour losing ground in heavily Muslim seats because of foreign‑policy disagreements [4] [12] [13].
4. Where reporting diverges and what cannot be confirmed
Different trackers — community media, mainstream outlets and think‑tanks — list slightly different names and numbers [1] [3] [2], and several caveats appear repeatedly in the sources: MPs are not required to disclose religion, some individuals of Muslim heritage do not identify as Muslim, and fact‑checks have flagged images and lists circulating online as incomplete or outdated [5] [7] [3]. Therefore any published list is an informed estimate rather than an official registry; verification requires relying on MPs’ own public statements or biographies, which the sources do not uniformly supply [7] [5].
5. What this means for readers trying to map representation
The reliable takeaways are that—according to multiple independent reports—around two dozen MPs who identify as Muslim serve in Westminster as of 2025, concentrated in diverse, urban constituencies across England with at least one notable Scottish seat (Glasgow South West), and that several independents shifted representation in key Muslim‑majority or Muslim‑plurality constituencies in the 2024 election [1] [8] [4]. Beyond that, any definitive list of “which constituencies do Muslim MPs represent” requires collection and confirmation of self‑identification from individual MPs or careful cross‑checking of local reporting, because no central official record exists [5] [7].