Labour has withdrawn its support for Azhar Ali, its candidate for this month’s Rochdale byelection, in the wake of controversial comments he made about the 7 October attacks on Israel.
In line with electoral law, Labour cannot replace Ali with another candidate because the deadline passed on 2 February. He will stand as a Labour candidate on the ballot paper, but if elected he will not hold the party whip and will sit as an independent MP.
Labour sources said that campaigners in Rochdale were told to stop leafleting and social media activity on Ali’s behalf at 5.30pm on Monday – an instruction that came from party HQ.
What an embarrassment. Months and months of Labour walking on eggshells, only to end up with an egg in the face anyway, and at the least opportune time.
I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come. I also hope the people of Rochdale get some better choices come the next election. This by election appears to be turning into a sort of rogues gallery.
He’s not wrong though. Israel did know. They had a copy of the Al-Aqsa Flood plan months before it happened.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-attack-intelligence.html
Egypt also warned Israel.
They also moved troops away from the Gazan border before the 7th
All of this is publicly available, just not really reported in the British press. Labour, like the Tories, are providing diplomatic cover for Israel. They’ve ousted him for telling the truth.
I’m not sure what else Labour could have done here apart from withdrawing support / replacing him earlier. If a candidate makes comments like this with no evidence… especially such incendiary comments… what is Labour supposed to do?
No evidence? It’s publicly available. See my comment.
No evidence?
From the article:
Azhar Ali, who suggested Israel had allowed 7 October attack to happen
You can’t be suggesting that the is evidence for this? I don’t think you are and we might have our wires crossed, but just to check.
Yes. That’s literally what happened.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Labour MPs and members voiced their concern at the leadership’s continued support of Ali, saying it marked a “huge and disappointing shift” from Starmer’s promises of taking a “zero-tolerance” approach to antisemitism and all forms of racism.
Galloway, who is concentrating on Rochdale’s sizeable Pakistani and Kashmiri Muslim community for votes, is expected to benefit from the row, with some local activists saying that Ali’s suspension makes him favourite to win on 29 February.
The shadow minister Nick Thomas-Symonds told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he believed Ali had fallen “for an online conspiracy theory” and he understood the “gravity of the offence that has been caused”.
According to a story published by the Daily Mail on Monday night, Ali said “people in the media from certain Jewish quarters” were “giving crap” about Andy McDonald, who was suspended by Labour after he used the controversial phrase “between the river and the sea” in a speech during a rally.
Last year, Martin Forde KC, the senior lawyer commissioned by Starmer to investigate the Labour party’s culture, criticised the leadership for vowing to take a “zero-tolerance” approach to antisemitism and all other forms of racism without having “transparent systems in place”.
Kate Osamor, a Labour MP, was suspended in January for saying Gaza should be remembered as a genocide on Holocaust Memorial Day, while McDonald lost the whip in October for telling a pro-Palestine rally: “We will not rest until we have justice.
The original article contains 1,226 words, the summary contains 243 words. Saved 80%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Good. Pity it’s too late to replace him.
Yes, it’s all a bit of mess - apparently the Green candidate has been dropped by their party too. It feels like this should be changed in the law - I know it’s their to stop shenanigans but it needs to be more flexible.
All that really needs to happen is that parties need to get better at vetting their candidates.
If the media can find these comments, why can’t the apparatchiks in the party who are paid to find them? Or if they did find them, why did they not flag them up?
They’re a fucking mess.
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