Following 48 hours of criticism, Labour have tonight pulled their support for Azhar Ali. This morning, it seemed that Keir Starmer had chosen the unpalatable over the disastrous: backing Ali to avoid George Galloway returning as an independent to the Commons. Yet during the course of the day, the calculation appears to have changed.
The decision to disown Ali was announced shortly before 8 p.m, with a party spokesman referring to ‘new information coming to light.’ The timing of this statement suggests that a day three story about Ali’s past comments will be published in tomorrow’s papers and Labour are now belatedly trying to get ahead of this story. Ali will appear on ballot papers in Rochdale, along with the party’s logo, but does not enjoy official support. He has also been suspended as a Labour member.
George Galloway’s path to victory now looking much more likely. His main challenger has now had his support pulled, with the resources of Labour’s formidable by-election machine denied to Ali. Galloway is now trying to make the most of his former party’s woes, declaring on Twitter/X that ‘Now there is no Green candidate, there is no Labour candidate. But I’m their candidate… We are determined to rid Rochdale of Labour and all of its works. So now, I’m fighting for a landslide victory here in the Rochdale by-election.’
Within Labour, there will be significant internal criticism of the way in which the row has been handled. For the second time in a week, following the £28bn green new deal debacle, Keir Starmer’s team made a major strategic misjudgment. They gambled that they could ride out this storm and even sent Lisa Nandy to campaign for Ali and Nick Thomas-Symonds out on the airwaves to bat for him. Neither will be feeling well-disposed to the Labour leadership this evening. MPs loathe looking stupid in public: one of the reasons Boris Johnson fell in 2022 was that ministers were no longer prepared to go out and back an indefensible line on the media round.
For as long as he remains 20 points ahead, Starmer will likely continue to enjoy the benefit of the doubt with his MPs. But it’s worth considering the consequences if these strategic errors were to occur in a general election, when a watching public takes note of every misstep.
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