Newham Leads the Way.
In an embarrassing volte face, the Labour Party have been forced to remove their endorsement of Azhar Ali. Labour was defending a majority of over 9,000 and Ali was facing a serious challenge from George Galloway. Both men were seeking to capitalize on the Muslim vote in a by-election that was dominated by events in Gaza. Does that sound familiar?
Ali was found out to be something of a closet antisemite after sharing his considered reflections on yet another conspiracy theory about the Jews.
Essentially, the Jews were responsible for the October 7th attacks, because they knew about the plans in advance and they wanted an excuse to kill lots of Arabs. The Labour establishment spent 24 hours defending Ali. He was forced to make an apology. Then, as more details emerged, (the Israelis were content to have 1400 Jews killed in order to make a land-grab in Gaza), Labour withdrew the endorsement.
Unfortunately, by the time the decision had been made it was far too late to change the candidate, so when the voters of Rochdale go to the polls on 29th February, Azhar Ali will appear as the Labour candidate even though Labour have disowned him.
Readers may recall that in 2022, when voters in Newham elected a new council, the voters of Canning Town South were left in the same position.
As one of the carefully vetted “high caliber” candidates chosen by Labour in 2022, Belgica Guana was selected to stand in Canning Town South. Unfortunately, like Ali, by the time her views on the Jews were uncovered, her name was on the ballot and it was too late to change anything.
Guana has latterly been endorsing pro-Palestinian protests, but it was not this that got her into trouble. She was clearly a student of history and had discerned that the Jews were responsible for WW2 and that Hitler was correct in his endeavors aimed at removing them from Germany, and everywhere else.
Guana has sat as an independent councillor (unrelated to the Independent Group), since 2022. In the unlikely event that Ali is elected, he will sit in the Commons as an independent.
South Asians make up roughly 30% of the Rochdale population. Their choice is now effectively between two candidates. George Galloway is representing the Workers Party and Simon Danczuk standing for the Reform Party.
Galloway is clearly capitalizing on Gaza and concerns about the deaths of Palestinians amongst people who appear to care very little about the deaths of Syrians or Yemenis (or Iranians or Kurds or Sudanese or Somalis or Malians or Nigerians or actually anyone else). His opponent is Simon Danczuk, another former Labour MP, this time suspended for sharing explicit text messages with a teenager.
The voters of Rochdale are left with an unenviable choice. The only silver lining to this particular cloud is that whoever is elected is unlikely to see out 12 months. We can assume that Labour will parachute in a safe pair of hands for the upcoming general election.
Rochdale reveals, that for all the work done by Starmer, and there has been much, Labour continues to have a problem with antisemitism.
The country has a problem in that this election will be fought along ethnic and religious lines. To talk of the Balkanisation of voters is too extreme, but it is certainly the direction in which we are moving in some urban areas.