Labor leader Keir Starmer boasted, in the run-up to the next British general election, that he had eradicated latent anti-Semitism in the Party, and that he had rid himself of his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn and the ideological burden of the radical left. But the ghosts have reappeared at the most inopportune moment.
The Labor candidate for the vacant seat for Rochdale (a town near Manchester with a 30% Muslim population) did not think of any other imprudence than to adopt the conspiracy theory -present on social networks- that Israel organized the October 7 massacre in order to have a pretext to invade Gaza and launch a full-scale attack.
Thirty-six hours is an eternity in politics, and during that time Starmer kept Azhar Ali as a candidate for deputy in the by-election on the 29th, with the argument that he had regretted it and asked for forgiveness. Only to finally execute one of his famous reverse maneuvers. He has earned a reputation as an indecisive man, with fluctuating convictions, who always goes where the current takes him.
In this way, Labor will be left without a seat that was its own and had in its pocket, with a clear majority, in a working-class district in the north of England. The deadline for registering candidates has already closed and the ballots have already been printed, with the name of Ali with the logo and the red rose of the party. He could still win, because many voters don’t follow the news and support a formation rather than a person, but in any case he has been suspended, should sit in the Commons as an independent, and the post it would only last him until the general election, when he would be back in the fray. The big beneficiary could be the radical left-wing pro-Islam George Galloway.
Despite Labor holding a 20-point lead in the polls, which, if confirmed, would translate into an outright majority, the past few days have been a disaster for Starmer. To combat conservative criticism that he will spend money that is not there, he has renounced the most ambitious project he had, star of the Labor manifesto: the annual investment of 30 billion euros in green energy to decarbonize the country and generate “sustainable ecological investments “.
With all this in mind, it is more important than ever for Labor to wrest the two seats up for grabs from the Conservatives on Thursday, and thereby assuage criticism, both internal and external, that Starmer is too timid, too cautious, and when he comes to power his hands will be tied and he will not have a mandate to carry out the economic and fiscal revolution that the country needs.
The Jewish electorate contributed to Boris Johnson’s majority in 2019. They stayed home or voted Tory in reaction to Corbyn’s tolerance of an anti-Semitic position within Labor that is part real, part criticism of the Israeli State and Government elevated to the category of anti-Semitism. But now Starmer has swung the pendulum, initially deeming it legitimate for Tel Aviv to cut off water and electricity to Gaza after the 9/7 attacks, and is at risk of a dent in the vote Muslim which could translate into the loss of a handful of seats.
While Starmer is coy, Tory Foreign Secretary David Cameron has suggested the UK could give formal, diplomatic recognition to a Palestinian state, even before the UN, rather than as a result of peace deals , but earlier, during the negotiations. “The last 30 years are the story of a failure on the part of Israel, because it has not been able to achieve security for its citizens”, pointed out the head of the Foreign Office, a free verse within the Government.
Three protesters who took part in a pro-Palestinian rally with images of paragliders on their T-shirts have been found guilty of supporting a terrorist organisation.
