How Labour withdrawing support from Azhar Ali impacts Rochdale by-election
Labour has withdrawn its support for its candidate in the Rochdale by-election after he made controversial comments about Israel’s invasion of Gaza.
Lancashire county councillor Azhar Ali, who was previously a government advisor under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, was selected as Labour’s candidate to be MP for Rochdale on 27 January.
He beat Wigan councillor Nazia Rehman and Paul Waugh, who stepped aside as i’s chief political commentator to apply for the candidacy.
But on Monday Mr Ali was dropped as Labour’s candidate, after past comments he made about the Israel-Hamas conflict were revealed in the media.
A by-election is being held in Rochdale on 29 February in the wake of the death of former MP Tony Lloyd last month.
Here is what has happened, and what will happen next:
Why was Azhar Ali dropped as Labour’s candidate?
On 10 February, the Mail on Sunday published comments from a secret recording of Mr Ali at a meeting of the Lancashire Labour Party shortly after the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October.
In the recording, he can reportedly be heard suggesting that Israel was pre-warned about Hamas’s plans, but “allowed” them to go ahead.
“The Egyptians are saying that they warned Israel 10 days earlier… Americans warned them a day before [that] there’s something happening… They deliberately took the security off, they allowed… that massacre that gives them the green light to do whatever they bloody want,” he is reported as saying.
The comments were widely condemned by the Jewish community, and piled pressure on Sir Keir Starmer, who has previously pledged to tackle antisemitism within his party.
In a statement, Mr Ali said: “I apologise unreservedly to the Jewish community for my comments which were deeply offensive, ignorant, and false.
“Hamas’s horrific terror attack was the responsibility of Hamas alone, and they are still holding hostages who must be released.”
On Monday evening, the party announced it was withdrawing its support for Mr Ali after “more comments” came to light.
It came after the Daily Mail published comments, made at the same meeting, in which Mr Ali allegedly blamed “people in the media from certain Jewish quarters” for the suspension of Andy McDonald from the Labour Party.
The Labour MP lost the party whip last year after using the controversial slogan “from the river to the sea” to express backing for Palestine at a rally.
The paper also reported that Mr Ali claimed that Israel planned to “get rid of [Palestinians] from Gaza” and “grab” the land.
Labour’s national campaign coordinator Pat McFadden said following the news that “the fact you have got very rare circumstances where a political party is withdrawing support for a candidate after nominations have closed” showed that Mr Starmer was serious about “rooting antisemitism out of the Labour Party”.
A Labour spokesperson said: “Keir Starmer has changed Labour so that it is unrecognisable from the party of 2019… it is vital that any candidate put forward by Labour fully represents its aims and values.”
What happens next in Rochdale?
The official deadline for a candidate to withdraw from the Rochdale by-election has passed, meaning Mr Ali will be listed as the Labour candidate on the ballot paper.
However, if elected, he will not hold the party whip and will sit as an independent MP. He is also unlikely to be selected as a Labour candidate in the forthcoming general election.
Electoral Commission rules state that candidates must withdraw 19 days before the by-election due to be held, and this deadline passed on 2 February.
“After the withdrawal deadline it is not possible to withdraw from the election, and your name will appear on the ballot paper. If the election is uncontested, you will be declared elected,” the rules state.
The decision leaves Labour without a candidate in the upcoming by-election, and leaves open the possibility that it could hand the Conservatives or Respect Party leader George Galloway an unlikely victory.
Labour has won the seat at every election since 2010, but this is not the first time an independent candidate will occupy it.
Simon Danczuk was the MP for Rochdale from 2010 to 2017 but lost the Labour Party whip in 2015 after reports emerged that he had exchanged explicit messages with an underage girl.
He ran in the 2017 general election as an independent candidate but lost to Labour’s Tony Lloyd. Mr Danczuk is now standing as the Reform UK candidate in the upcoming by-election.
What has Labour said about Azhar Ali?
Following the news that Mr Ali had been dropped as the candidate, a Labour Party spokeswoman said: “Following new information about further comments made by Azhar Ali coming to light today, the Labour party has withdrawn its support for Azhar Ali as our candidate in the Rochdale by-election.”
She added: “Keir Starmer has changed Labour so that it is unrecognisable from the party of 2019. We understand that these are highly unusual circumstances but it is vital that any candidate put forward by Labour fully represents its aims and values.”
Senior Labour figures had publicly condemned Mr Ali’s comments in the days following the reports but defended the party’s decision to stand by him in the Rochdale by-election.
The day after the reports emerged, Labour’s national campaign coordinator Pat McFadden said the comments were “completely wrong” and did not reflect the views of the Labour Party.
He told Sky News: “He’s issued a complete apology and retraction. And I hope he learns a good lesson from it because he should never have said something like that in the first place.”
Shadow minister Nick Thomas-Symonds told the BBC on Monday that Mr Ali’s comments were “completely and utterly unacceptable”, but insisted that the prospective MP understood the “gravity of the offence that has been caused” and had “unreservedly apologised”.
He claimed that Mr Ali had “fallen for a conspiracy theory” when he made the comments.
Azhar Ali was selected as the Labour candidate for Rochdale on 27 January, beating Paul Waugh, who stepped aside as i’s chief political commentator, and Wigan councillor Nazia Rehman.
