George Galloway is back. The former Labour MP has triumphed in the Rochdale by-election, taking the seat from Starmer’s party with a majority of 5,697. Galloway – standing for the Workers Party of Britain – won comfortably with nearly 40 per cent of the vote at 12,335 votes. The independent candidate David Tully came in second place on 6,638, the Tories in third on 3,731 and Labour in a dismal fourth place on 2,041 votes in their former seat after Keir Starmer suspended the party’s candidate part way through the campaign. The Reform party – which put up another former Labour MP in Simon Danczuk as its candidate – came sixth with 6 per cent of the vote (1,968 votes) meaning they just managed to keep their deposit.
On hearing the news in the early morning of Friday, Galloway used his victory speech at the count to deliver a message to the Labour leader: ‘Keir Starmer – this is for Gaza’. Galloway, who served as a Labour MP between 1987 and 2003 and for the Respect party between 2005 and 2015, warned that this was just the beginning and his old party will ‘pay a high price’ for ‘enabling, encouraging and covering for the catastrophe’ being inflicted on Palestinians. In an interview with the BBC, Galloway claimed Rochdale would not be a one-off: ‘Beginning here in the north west, in the west Midlands, in London, from Ilford to Bethnal Green and Bow, Labour is on notice that they have lost the confidence of millions of their voters who loyally and traditionally voted for them, generation after generation.’
Starmer will likely come under pressure once again to toughen his ceasefire line in support of Gazans
So, how bad is the result for Labour? As soon as Labour had to suspend its candidate there was so such thing as a good result for Starmer here. In the end, Labour managed its worst ever performance in a post-war by-election. Ever since Starmer had to belatedly suspend Azhar Ali, the Labour candidate for the Rochdale by-election for comments he made claiming Israel had allowed Hamas to attack on 7 October, it’s been clear the vote would be messy. A fear in Labour that suspending Ali would allow Galloway a route into parliament is what initially stopped the party from suspending Ali – only to make the decision a few days later when more comments came to light.
Since then, Galloway has been the bookies’ favourite. But Labour figures thought Ali still had a chance of winning as a result of the postal vote (which went out much earlier) as well as focus groups suggesting voters cared about domestic issues more than Israel/Palestine. When pressed in interviews on how people should vote, various Labour frontbenchers suggested voters could spoil their ballot given there was no official Labour candidate. This is in part because it is against party rules to endorse a non-Labour candidate. However, it was still clear that they saw Galloway as the very worst option. Over the weekend, frontbencher Lisa Nandy urged voters to ‘please consider voting for anybody who you believe will help to bring an end to this hate and division’.
Galloway winning is an uncomfortable outcome for Labour. Galloway not only won but won comfortably by running a single message campaign urging voters in the constituency, which has a large Muslim community (three in ten people in Rochdale identify as Muslim according to the census), to send a message to Westminster over Israel/Gaza. By-elections are often protest votes and this time Galloway has succeed to get the vote out on these grounds. It means Starmer will likely come under pressure from the left of his party once again to toughen his ceasefire line in support of Gazans.
Starmer managed to get himself out of a difficult vote last week when the Speaker Lindsay Hoyle ripped up convention in the SNP’s opposition day debate calling for a ceasefire to allow a Labour amendment with its own carefully calibrated position to be voted on. This led to uproar from both the SNP and Tories given the result was to effectively get Starmer off the hook and allow him to avoid a large Labour rebellion on the issue. The Rochdale result, however, shows that he is still not out of the woods on the issue. Some in Labour argue it could have been worse for them if they had contested the seat only for the party to then come second after Galloway despite their efforts.
It’s worth pointing out that it also wasn’t a great night for the Tories – given they only managed third, with an independent candidate in second place. However, the mood in Conservative Campaign Headquarters is still likely to be pretty chipper this morning. Of course the usual caveats apply when it comes to reading into by-election results: they are often not a reliable indicator of what will happen in a general election. But this will be taken as evidence that Starmer does have an electoral problem when it comes to British Muslim voters as result of his position on Israel/Gaza. That could manifest itself in a general election in a handful of Labour seats if alternative candidates are available. Don’t be surprised if some in the Tory party use this to argue there could be an incentive to going to the polls sooner rather than later.
For now though, Starmer’s more immediate problem is Galloway’s return to the House of Commons. With it, expect plenty of theatre now that Galloway is able to put pressure on his former party from the Commons chamber.
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