Keir Starmer’s by-election bind

It’s the nightmare scenario Labour dreads. A triumphant George Galloway, carried aloft on his supporters’ shoulders, hailing a shock by-election victory in a left-wing stronghold. Twelve years after his stunning upset in Bradford West, the odds of a repeat triumph in Rochdale have only increased after a storm of criticism this weekend over Labour’s chosen candidate.

Following the death of the incumbent MP Tony Lloyd in mid-January, Labour rushed to select his replacement. The party feared that a long campaign would bolster the chances of a more-avowedly pro-Palestine candidate, in a seat where 30 per cent of voters are Muslim. They therefore chose to move the writ for a by-election on 29 February and quickly selected Azhar Ali as their candidate – just ten days after Lloyd’s death.

However, it has now emerged that, in the aftermath of the 7/10 terror attacks, Ali claimed that Israel deliberately let Hamas massacre its citizens. At a meeting of the Lancashire Labour party, he accused the Israelis of paving the way for the slaughter of their own people, in order to get the ‘green light’ to attack Gaza.