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Sir Keir Starmer was hit on Tuesday with the fallout from his chaotic handling of a dispute over alleged antisemitic remarks by the Labor candidate in the Rochdale by-election.
The Labor leader insisted he took “decisive action” by withdrawing support for Azhar Ali on Monday evening, but was accused of presiding over “chaos” by initially agreeing to stand by him.
Supporters of former leader Jeremy Corbyn said Starmer was guilty of double standards and was willing to take immediate action against alleged antisemitic remarks from those on the left of the party, while being more lenient towards those – such as Wings – right.
Starmer pledged to eradicate antisemitism from Labour’s ranks once he became leader in 2020, after his far-left predecessor Corbyn was heavily criticized for his handling of abuse allegations.
“Yesterday further information emerged that required decisive action, so I took decisive action,” Starmer said. “It’s a huge thing to withdraw support for a Labor candidate during a by-election.”
Bookmakers have now named George Galloway, the former Labor MP, as the new favorite to win the February 29 contest, triggered by the death of Sir Tony Lloyd last month.
Galloway’s Workers party sought to exploit Labor tensions over Starmer’s position on the war in Gaza. In a leaflet he described the competition as a “right choice between George who will fight for Palestine” and Starmer who “will fight for Israel”.
Starmer had initially agreed to let Ali continue as Labor candidate after a weekend report that the Lancashire county councilor had claimed Israel had allowed Hamas to attack on October 7 to give it a pretext to launch an assault on Gaza.
Shadow ministers publicly defended Ali, stressing that he had apologised. But on Monday evening, the party said it would withdraw its support after “new information” about Ali’s comments came to light.
The Daily Mail reported that it had obtained an audio tape in which Ali accused “people in the media from some Jewish neighborhoods” of fueling criticism of a pro-Palestinian Labor MP.
As nominations for the contest have closed, Ali will appear on the ballot papers as a Labor candidate, even though the party has formally withdrawn its support. If elected he would not sit as a Labor MP.
Martin Forde, a KC who led an independent review into allegations of racism and bullying in the Labor Party, told the BBC it would have been “sensible” to withdraw support for Ali when his comments first emerged.
He said there is a perception among some left-wing MPs “that if you are on the right faction of the party, so to speak, then things are handled more leniently or more quickly”.
Andrew Fisher, former head of policy under Corbyn, said Starmer’s handling of the issue was “a disaster” and revealed “double standards in the Labor Party”.
Fisher said Ali had been given the benefit of the doubt by the party leadership. “That never applies to people on the left,” she said.
Pat McFadden, Labour’s campaigns manager, defended Starmer. “The fact that there are very rare circumstances where a political party withdraws support for a candidate after nominations close” shows that the leader was serious about “eradicating antisemitism from the Labor Party”.
Voters in the Rochdale by-election will now face the extraordinary situation where there are three former Labor candidates on the ballot paper but no officially endorsed party candidates.
In addition to Ali and Galloway, the contest is also fought by Simon Danczuk, former Labor MP for Rochdale and candidate for the populist Reform UK party.
Danczuk was suspended by Labor in 2015 over allegations he sent explicit messages to a teenage girl. He later accepted that his behavior was “inappropriate” and apologised.
Danczuk said his campaign will now focus on stopping Galloway. “My campaign will be to tell the electorate that they won’t want an MP who prioritizes Palestine over Rochdale,” he said.