New Worker Banner

The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain

Meanwhile in Rochdale...

A former Labour leader tells us the party’s leadership has sometimes lacked political “savvy” with its handling of recent crises, including its green spending pledge and the Rochdale by-election. But Neil Kinnock, a grandee who now sits in the House of Lords, was perhaps understating the crisis of confidence that has shaken the Starmer leadership over the past few weeks.

Labour still has a huge lead over the Tories but the mounting anger at Starmer’s refusal to call for an immediate end to the fighting in Gaza is undermining Labour’s support throughout the movement. Dumping the Labour candidate in the Rochdale by-election shows how unfit Starmer is to lead the Labour Party. The Zionist lobby that launched the witch-hunt that drove Ken Livingstone and many other supporters of the Palestinians out of the Labour Party worked hand in glove with Blairites to undermine Jeremy Corbyn.

Last week they joined the Tory media to force Starmer to get rid of Ali. Azhar Ali, a member of the Muslim community, has been suspended after making some anti-Israeli remarks at a private meeting deemed to be “anti-semitic” by the Tory press. The leader of the Labour group on Lancashire County Council; an advisor to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown during the last Labour government had been, until last week, a staunch supporter of Starmer & Co and was seen a safe pair of hands to hold Rochdale. Disowned by Labour but too late to replace him Azhar Ali’s name will still appear on the ballot paper as the official Labour candidate at the end of the month.

Now the door’s wide open for yet another George Galloway comeback. Standing on his own “Workers Party of Britain” platform the veteran Palestinian solidarity campaigner hopes to be swept back into Parliament by a protest vote that goes far beyond Rochdale’s Muslim community.