A pro-palestine coalition may be electoral thorn in Starmer’s side
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Labour will do its best to portray the Azhar Ali saga as a little local difficulty, but behind the scenes Sir Keir Starmer will know that it is anything but.
The anti-semitic views expressed by the former Labour candidate for Rochdale – now standing as an independent – are supported by a large chunk of the electorate in some constituencies. That is surely why Mr Ali said what he did about Israel allowing the Hamas terrorist attack to happen so it could stage a “land grab” in Gaza.
It is also why Sir Keir dithered over withdrawing Labour’s support for Mr Ali, knowing that doing so would provide a fillip to George Galloway, the Workers Party of Britain candidate and perpetual fly in the ointment.
Should Mr Galloway win in Rochdale, a possibility that has just increased, Sir Keir knows that antizionist candidates would be encouraged to stand in seats with a large Muslim population, potentially costing Labour not just votes but constituencies in the general election.
In short, such candidates could be to Labour what Reform is to the Tories: a repository for the votes of the disillusioned, whose views are not reflected by the mainstream parties. Already a website called The Muslim Vote has been set up to tell Muslims “who to vote for”, in its own words.
It lists every constituency with at least a 10 per cent Muslim electorate, as well as how the current MP voted on the Gaza ceasefire and the name of the “community endorsed candidate”.
In Rochdale, that person is Mr Galloway.
Rochdale only comes 21st in terms of the proportion of Muslim voters; if Mr Galloway managed to win there, it would put at least 20 other Labour seats in jeopardy, and possibly more, depending on the size of Mr Galloway’s vote share.
In 2021 Mr Galloway managed to pull in 21.9 per cent of the votes in the Batley and Spen by-election, despite the emotional pull of the Labour candidate Kim Leadbeater, sister of the seat’s former MP Jo Cox, who had been murdered five years earlier.
In Batley and Spen, the support for Mr Galloway turned what had previously been a two horse race into a three-way split, reducing Labour’s majority from 3,525 to just 323.
It is no exaggeration to say that the Workers Party, or pro-palestine independents, could hold the balance of power in dozens of constituencies.
As one political strategist put it: “If I was a Conservative candidate in a marginal seat I would be delighted if a Workers Party or a Left-wing independent MP stood, because they are only going to take votes away from one party.”
Among the Labour MPS in constituencies with a bigger proportion of Muslim voters than Rochdale are Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, who has a majority of 5,218 in Ilford North and a 27.3 per cent Muslim electorate, and Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow paymaster general, who has a 31 per cent Muslim electorate in Leicester South but a much healthier majority of 22,675. Both abstained in the Gaza ceasefire vote in Parliament.
Mr Streeting will face opposition at the general election from independent candidate Leanne Mohamad, a British-palestinian woman who was described as “a fitting choice to stand against the genocide supporters” by one of her backers. Mr Ashworth is yet to discover who he will be up against, as Reform is the only party to have chosen a candidate in his constituency. Both can expect to be grilled on not only their position on Gaza, but also their position on the disputed territory of Kashmir when hustings events get underway before the election.
Mr Ali apologised profusely for his comments, and he may have been guilty of simply doing what countless politicians have done before, by saying what he thought a partisan audience wanted to hear.
But the longer the war in Gaza continues, the more Sir Keir will face danger from a highly organised pro-palestine coalition.