Starmer’s mess in Rochdale

Labour will lose its seat in Rochdale in just over two weeks. And the mess surrounding its disgraced former by-election candidate could cost the party some more seats too.

Keir Starmer has withdrawn support from Azhar Ali – the candidate previously set to defend Labour’s majoirty of over 9,000 in the Rochdale by-election on 29 February – after he claimed at a meeting of the Lancashire Labour party that Israel had allowed Hamas’s October 7 attack as a pretext for an invasion of Gaza. 

In a recording obtained by the Mail on Sunday, Ali can be heard telling local members and councillors: “[Israel] deliberately took the security off, they allowed … that massacre that gives them the green light to do whatever they bloody want.” 

It has since emerged that, during this same meeting, Graham Jones, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Hyndburn also said that UK citizens who volunteer to fight for the Israeli Defence Forces”should be locked up”. Jones was suspended from the party this evening. 

Ali will now stand as an independent candidate in Rochdale – a by-election prompted by the death of Labour MP Tony Lloyd and one which Labour now has no chance of winning. It’s too late to put forward a replacement candidate although, confusingly, Ali will still be listed as Labour on the ballot paper since, under electoral law, the deadline to remove his name has passed. 

Ali, a Lancashire county councillor who served a five-year stint as a government advisor under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, was selected last month by Labour to contest the Rochdale race. 

After the recording of him emerged on Sunday, he swiftly apologised and Starmer defended him. It wasn’t until Monday evening that Labour changed position and announced it was withdrawing support for him. It’s understood Ali has now been suspended from the party pending an investigation.

Starmer says the delay in withdrawing support was because “new information” emerged yesterday. Others would argue that any delay in ditching Ali – given the incendiary nature of his comments already revealed over the weekend – reflects poorly on a leader who has vowed to purge his party of antisemitism. 

Those on the Labour left meanwhile complain of double standards, accusing Starmer of being quick to suspend the whip from Kate Osamor, the MP for Edmonton, for describing the bombardment of Gaza as a “genocide” yet dithering to discipline those from the right of the party for more incendiary comments. 

Starmer insists that sacrificing the seat of Rochdale is evidence of his commitment to rooting out antisemitism within his party. “It is a huge thing to withdraw support for a Labour candidate during the course of a by-election.” he said today. 

Regardless of Starmer’s handling of the saga, this will be damaging to him. Voters will question how many others within the party share similar views to Ali. Some have already pointed out that, in the obtained recording of this informal Labour meeting, Ali’s comments appear to go unchallenged. 

Curiously, three of the contestants at the Rochdale by-election are individuals who’ve been suspended from the Labour party following scandals. 

Standing for Farage’s Reform UK party is Simon Danczuk, who was elected as Labour MP for Rochdale in 2010 but suspended from the party in 2015 for sexting a teenager. Standing for his Workers Party of Britain is the disgraced former Labour MP George Galloway, who was expelled from the party in 2003 after being embroiled in multiple scandals, 

In a constituency with a high proportion of Muslim voters, Galloway – who says he is running to “teach Labour a lesson”- will seek to gain votes by campaigning against Starmer’s stance on Gaza. 

The Rochdale by-election perfectly illustrates the sticky position Starmer is in. His refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza has alienated many British Muslim voters and much of the Labour left. And yet stark evidence of his failure to purge his party of antisemitism could see him fail to win back the trust of Jewish voters. 

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