Starmer apologises to voters for Rochdale result, but says he was right to disown Labour’s candidate
Keir Starmer has restated Labour’s apology to the people of Rochdale for what happened in the byelection. But, in a clip for broadcasters, he sought to extract a positive message from the saga, suggesting that his decision to disown Azhar Ali, the candidate, over antisemitism at a point where it was too late to replace him showed his determination to transform the party.
Starmer said:
Galloway only won because Labour didn’t stand a candidate.
I regret that we had to withdraw candidate and apologise to voters in Rochdale.
But I took that decision. It was the right decision. And when I say I changed the Labour party, I mean it.
Obviously we will put a first class candidate, a unifier, before the voters in Rochdale, or the general election.
Key events
Sunak says Rochdale byelection ‘one of most divisive in recent times’
Rishi Sunak has described the Rochdale byelection as “one of the most divisive in recent times” and claimed he was pleased his party at last ran a positive campaign.
Speaking in Scotland, where he will be addressing the Scottish Conservative party’s conference in Aberdeen this afternoon, Sunak said:
It was very concerning to see the reports of intimidation through the byelection, and by all accounts one of the most divisive campaigns that we’ve seen in recent times.
I’m pleased the Conservative party was the only party to run a really positive campaign focused on local issues with a great local candidate, Paul Ellison.
Starmer apologises to voters for Rochdale result, but says he was right to disown Labour’s candidate
Keir Starmer has restated Labour’s apology to the people of Rochdale for what happened in the byelection. But, in a clip for broadcasters, he sought to extract a positive message from the saga, suggesting that his decision to disown Azhar Ali, the candidate, over antisemitism at a point where it was too late to replace him showed his determination to transform the party.
Starmer said:
Galloway only won because Labour didn’t stand a candidate.
I regret that we had to withdraw candidate and apologise to voters in Rochdale.
But I took that decision. It was the right decision. And when I say I changed the Labour party, I mean it.
Obviously we will put a first class candidate, a unifier, before the voters in Rochdale, or the general election.
According to Sam Coates on Sky News, George Galloway will be introduced by Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, and David Davis, the Conservative former Brexit secretary, when he takes his seat in the Commons next week.
Teaching unions criticise government’s advice to pay review body for salaries in 2024-25
Richard Adams
Teaching unions in England have been angered by the Department for Education’s evidence to the independent School Teachers Review Body (STRB), ahead of the body’s pay recommendations for 2024-25.
The DfE has not named a percentage increase that it would support, and instead asked the STRB that the pay award be “sustainable” in the light of school finances – implying that schools can’t expect anything in the coming budget.
The DfE’s case is that pay increased by 5% per cent for most teachers in 2022 and a further 6.5% last year. It also argues that a forecast rise in unemployment “is expected to ease the level of vacancies across the private and public sector, supporting recruitment and retention” – in other words, that fewer teachers will leave the profession if unemployment is higher elsewhere in the economy.
Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said:
The government evidence talks about teacher pay awards returning to a ‘more sustainable’ level – but it is the damage to education caused by government policy that is not sustainable. The recruitment and retention crisis, driven by pay cuts and excessive workload within an environment of funding shortages, is causing severe damage not just to teachers and school leaders but to the pupils and communities they serve.
We need a fully funded, major correction to teacher pay to repair the damage to teacher living standards and to the competitive position of teaching, and to protect our education service.
The NEU is opening on Saturday a preliminary ballot of teachers members in England calling for a fully-funded above inflation pay increase. This latest announcement from government will anger our members. Strike action is a last resort but it will be an option our members will seriously consider.
Azhar Ali was selected as Labour’s candidate in Rochdale (before he was disowned) after narrowly beating Paul Waugh in the selection contest. Waugh is a prominent political journalist who gave up his job as the i’s chief political commentator to try to become Labour MP for his home town, and he must have a good chance of being selected as Labour’s candidate for the general election.
In a column for the i, which blames Ali for Labour’s defeat, Waugh argues that his town won’t benefit from having George Galloway, with his “bilious brand of divisive politics”, as its MP. He says:
The sign that greets everyone coming from the M62 declares “Rochdale – birthplace of co-operation”, highlighting that it was here in 1844 that a group of weavers got together to form a co-op, the start of what became a global movement for social justice.
But Galloway has always preferred confrontation to co-operation, bombast to bread and butter issues. His previous election and by-election campaigns have seen appalling abuse directed at Labour women like Naz Shah in Bradford and Kim Leadbeater in Batley and Spen.
He arrives in a blaze of noise and publicity, but often doesn’t stick around. Sooner or later, people realise it’s all about him, not them. Like all circuses, he’ll leave this town eventually too, the question is how much damage he leaves in his wake.
Many people of all backgrounds are appalled by the death toll of women and children in Gaza in Israeli attacks. But when Galloway explained his priorities for Parliament, he actually admitted in one interview that if he got to the Commons he would speak about Gaza first, then Rochdale “second”.
Yet even those who care passionately about Gaza actually have more local concerns. When I canvassed for Labour, before Azhar Ali was disowned, it was the cost of living, the state of the NHS, town centre crime and the shortage of affordable housing that were raised most often on the doorstep.
A reader asks:
Any idea @AndrewSparrow on what basis Prof Sir John Curtice says “although most Labour supporters don’t take a side in the current conflict in the Middle East”?
This is a reference to what Curtice said on BBC Breakfast this morning. (See 8.42pm.) He seemed to be referring to a polling question that asks people if they sympathise more with the Israelis or more with the Palestinians in the Middle East conflict. As this YouGov chart, with data going back to 2019, shows, amongst the public at large there is more sympathy for the Palestinians than for the Israelis, but generally there are even more people who say they sympathise with neither side, or who don’t have an answer.
Amongst Labour supporters, there is much more support for the Palestinians than there is for the Israelis. The chart below shows data for this group from a survey on 15 January. It suggests 56% of them do have a view (46% pro-Palestinians, 9% pro-Israelis), but Curtice was presumably trying to make the point that a sizeable chunk of Labour supporters don’t take sides. Or perhaps he has seen more recent or alternative data.
Neal Lawson, director of Compass, the leftwing group committed to more pluralistic politics, says the Rochdale result suggests Labour has been taking its supporters for granted.
We don’t know if Rochdale is a blip or part of a more seismic trend in terms of the Muslim community’s support for Labour. But our first past the post voting system tends to disguise tectonic shifts in voting behaviours, as we’ve seen in Scotland and then the red wall.
FPTP encourages Labour to take its big blocks of voters for granted, in the presumption that they have nowhere else to go. The SNP, then Ukip/Brexit and via them the Tories, and now Galloway have proven to be alternatives. Labour MPs and candidates in seats with big Muslim votes will be nervous today. People don’t like being taken for granted.
Richard Tice, the Reform UK leader, has denied George Galloway’s claim that he invited Galloway to join his party (see 6.44am), Harry Cole from the Sun reports.
Tice: “I genuinely have no idea what Mr Galloway is referring to. It is clearly an attempt to distract attention away from the appalling way that this by election in Rochdale has been conducted”
Tice: “I genuinely have no idea what Mr Galloway is referring to. It is clearly an attempt to distract attention away from the appalling way that this by election in Rochdale has been conducted” https://t.co/1hEwhOvodj
— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) March 1, 2024
Galloway says he would ‘love to crush the Labour party’
Sky News has been showing footage of an interview that George Galloway did with Sam Coates in the early hours this morning after the result of the byelection was declared at the count. Here are the main points.
I’d love to crush the Labour party. I see it as my mission in life.
I don’t know if Sky will allow me to quote Malcolm X. But the difference between the wolf and the fox is this. The wolf is quite clear about its intentions. As it comes towards you, you know what it’s going to do. The fox on the other hand looks like it’s smiling, looks like it’s friendly.
That’s the difference between the Conservative party and the Labour party. And so my ire against the Labour party is for precisely that reason. The Tories don’t pretend to be friends of the people. The Labour party does.
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He said he did not believe Keir Starmer was genuined committed to a ceasefire in Gaza. Asked if he thought Starmer genuinely wanted a ceasefire, Galloway replied:
If you believe that, I’ve got a bridge in London I could sell you going cheap. Nobody believes that. If he really did, he wouldn’t have wrecked the SNP motion in the house just a week or so ago. He would have backed the SNP’s motion. Or better he’d have called a debate himself and put his own motion down.
He didn’t do any of those things. He preferred to force the speaker into a monstrous manipulation of parliamentary conventions and cause the scenes that you saw. He’s a phoney. He’s doing everything that he can to protect Israel from the righteous wrath of the international community and the people of Britain.
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He said he wanted the current state of Israel to be replaced by an enlarged, secular country, taking in Palestine, where Jews and Muslims could live together. He said:
If you’re really asking me what should be the final state of affairs in Israel and Palestine, well, my position is quite well known. I think there should be one democratic and secular state, between the river and the sea. And if I was doing their marketing, I’d call it the Holy Land.
Asked if that meant he did not want Israel to exist, he replied:
No state has a right to exist, not the Soviet Union, not Czechoslovakia, not the Zionist apartheid state of Israel. I believe that the best solution for everybody is, as it was in South Africa, freed from apartheid, a democratic state where white people and black people, Jews, Christians, Muslims, live as equal citizens under the law.
I’ll be using such parliamentary skills as I have acquired over the best part of 30 years, in six previous parliamentary terms. I’ll be using such gifts that God gave me as a speaker, as a debater.
And I’ll be speaking for millions of people who feel that they’re not being heard by the British political class, or the journalists for that matter, that their earnest feelings of anguish about what’s happening in Gaza is being ignored, or worse distorted into a kind of Islamophobic fervour which the political class, and much of the media, has been whipping up over the last few weeks.
Galloway’s ally Chris Williamson provokes outrage by failing to condemn Hamas’s massacre of Israelis on 7 October
In his Today programme interview Chris Williamson, George Galloway’s ally and deputy leader of the Workers Party of Britain, Galloway’s party, declined to condemn the Hamas massacre of Israelis on 7 October.
Asked by Mishal Husain to condemn those attacks, Williamson replied:
The two main parties have not called for a ceasefire. They’ve not condemned the Israeli regime’s activities. You can’t expect to live in a situation where a people have been oppressed for 75 years and not expect a reaction.
Asked if he was saying the attacks were understandable, Williamson replied:
What about the Palestinian people that have been massacred over 76 years now. Where is the media outrage at that? In international law oppressed peoples have an absolute right to armed resistance.
Husain said that did not cover killing innocent people, like children and the elderly. In response, Williamson claimed most of the innocent people killed on 7 October were killed by Israeli forces. Husain said the evidence did not show that, and she moved the discussion on as Williamson began to articulate a conspiracy theory about the Hamas massacre.
Husain also asked Williamson if he was happy about the fact that Galloway was endorsed by Nick Griffin, the former leader of the British National party. In a message on X yesterday, Griffin said:
If you follow me in #Rochdale, get out and vote for George Galloway today. He’s not perfect, but it’s the best way by far to stick two fingers up to the rotten political elite and their fake news media cronies.
Williamson replied:
If people want to endorse, you can’t spurn endorsement, or indeed control people who want to endorse a political party.
Husain said that Griffin said on his X feed he wanting to free Britain from Zionist control. She said if Williamson was uncomfortable with Griffin’s endorsement, he could say so. Williamson replied:
You’re trying to damn George Galloway and the Workers party by association. It’s up to people. If they want to endorse a political party, that’s entirely a matter for them. I’m not going to play those games.
Williamson claimed Galloway, himself and the Workers Party of Britain had “a long track record of standing up to racism and bigotry in all its forms’.
Ellie Reeves, Labour’s deputy national campaign coordinator, was interviewed immediately after Williamson. She said:
Can I just start by saying that I’m utterly appalled by Chris Williamson’s failure to condemn Hamas attacks on 7 October, and likewise his failure to distance his party from the endorsement of Nick Griffin.
Galloway’s election ‘dark day for Jewish community’, says Board of Deputies
The Board of Deputies of British Jews has described the election of George Galloway as “a dark day for the Jewish community”. In a statement it said:
George Galloway is a demagogue and conspiracy theorist, who has brought the politics of division and hate to every place he has ever stood for Parliament. His election is a dark day for the Jewish community in this country, and for British politics in general. We believe he should be shunned as a pariah by all parliamentarians.
And the Campaign Against Antisemitism has said:
Given his historic inflammatory rhetoric and the current situation faced by the Jewish community in this country, we are extremely concerned by how (Galloway) may use the platform of the House of Commons in the remaining months of this parliament.”
Galloway has campaigned on behalf of Palestinians for all his politcal life, but he strongly denies being antisemitic.
Here is a Guardian graphic showing the Rochdale results.
Chris Williamson said this morning that George Galloway’s return to parliament next week would send shockwaves through the corridors of power. (See 8.59am.) In his analysis of the byelection result, my colleague Peter Walker explains why that is unlikely.
Galloway’s return to parliament comes only days after Rishi Sunak argued that “mob rule” had taken over British politics, a reference to regular pro-Palestine demonstrations and threats to MPs over the issue.
Expect some politicians, perhaps Suella Braverman, who has already claimed Islamists are “in charge”, to respond to Galloway’s win via the ruthless targeting of one demographic as another sign of shattered community cohesion.
The reality is perhaps less apocalyptic, if nonetheless messy. Galloway won in the same way in Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005, and Bradford West in 2012. He served one term in each with minimal impact in parliament, the country more widely, or, his critics said, for his constituents.
Galloway will hope to arrive back in Westminster as the figurehead for Gaza. But he is too divisive and controversial a figure to have broad appeal, and past experience shows he much prefers campaigning to become an MP than the slightly more prosaic business of actually being one.
Peter’s article is here.
