After 14 years of disappointing Tory rule, it should be plain sailing for Labour ahead of the next general election, which almost no one believes it will lose. But the party is instead tearing itself apart over events in the Middle East.
Labour reluctantly dropped its support for Azhar Ali, its parliamentary candidate for the constituency of Rochdale, who said Israel deliberately allowed the October 7th terror attacks so it could strike Gaza back. The decision came on Monday following two days of deliberation dubbed as leader Sir Keir Starmer’s “biggest crisis” yet. Unfortunately for Labour HQ, it didn’t take long for suggestions that “there may [still] be worse” to come true.
On Tuesday, Starmer was forced to suspend his second parliamentary candidate in 24 hours after details emerged of other figures present at the event where Ali made his remarks.
Graham Jones was set to stand for election as Labour’s candidate in Hyndburn in Lancashire, where he previously represented the party between 2010 and 2019. But the party machine was quick to back out when he was revealed to have referred to “f*****g Israel” at the October 2023 public meeting and fumed that Britons who fight in the Israel Defence Forces “should be locked up.”
Starmer’s action in this case was far quicker than in Ali’s, despite the comments being less extreme. It appears that by this stage, he was running scared.
And so he might. Labour’s poll lead over the Conservatives has this week dropped to its lowest level since last June, and is unlikely to rebound any time soon. The Labour leader is now frustrating both his majority Muslim pro-Palestine supporters—and representatives—with his broadly pro-Israel stance, and his base who believed he really was tearing antisemitism out of the party “by its roots.”
The Campaign Against Antisemitism campaign group said it would have been far better if Labour had removed its support for both Ali and Jones “immediately, without the need for a public outcry,” adding:
It is time for Labour to reveal which other MPs, candidates and councillors were [at the public meeting in question] and why they said nothing about the remarks that were made, and indeed if more such remarks were made. Labour must continue to put a line in the sand and declare that it will not tolerate extremist views.
As the row rumbles on, Tory Home Secretary James Cleverly has criticised recent “antisemitic hatred and abuse” after reports pointed to the “highest levels of antisemitism” in over 40 years. And Labour hasn’t finished tarring its own credibility yet. A third Labour politician has already been “spoken to” by the party’s top brass over his attendance at the October public meeting, though he has not received any formal disciplinary action.
Labour officials are said to be “confident” that no other senior figures were present at the event, where it appears that no one thought to question a series of highly questionable remarks. But there is time yet for these hopes to be dashed too.
