feb 12, 2024 - Labour’s self-sabotage leaves Rochdale byelection up for grabs

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It was the arrival of George Galloway that Labour feared would cause the party the biggest headache in the Rochdale byelection at the end of the month.

But in the end it was Labour’s own candidate, the Lancashire county councillor Azhar Ali, who has sabotaged what should have been a safe Labour seat (majority: 9,668) and made a Galloway victory a slightly more likely prospect on 29 February.

Starmer disowned Ali on Monday night, 36 hours after the Mail on Sunday reported leaked remarks in which Ali said the Israeli government deliberately allowed 1,139 of its citizens to be massacred on 7 October in order to give it the “green light” for military action.

It initially looked like Ali might survive, with a Jewish Labour grandee, the former Liverpool Riverside MP Louise Ellman, lured out of retirement to say that he was an “ally” of the Jewish community.

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