Starmer’s Labour said Ali was ‘our wonderful candidate’, but Starmer nowhere in sight in coverage of yet more chaos for his regime…

Channel 4 News announced this evening that Labour has withdrawn support for its candidate Azhar Ali in the Rochdale by-election – as Skwawkbox covered yesterday – because of his comments about Israel and Gaza.

Ali was selected from a shortlist of three prospective candidates hand-picked by the Labour regime and had received the wholehearted support of the leadership – yet the programme chose to illustrate its segment on Labour withdrawing support with a picture of Ali with Jeremy Corbyn:

Ali’s Twitter feed – at least at the time of writing – contained a video of party deputy leader Angela Rayner giving fulsome praise to ‘our wonderful candidate’:

Ali had proven deeply unpopular on the doorstep because of his association with Starmer’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, prompting rumours that Labour was trying to cut him loose rather than watch him lose as a Labour candidate to George Galloway, who has been warmly welcomed for his support for Palestinians. Others have claimed that pro-Israel party figures were sending a ‘warning shot’ to Keir Starmer not to soften on his support for Israel.

Whatever Labour’s reasons, it’s clear that the UK media are giving Keir Starmer the easiest possible ride despite the chaos that follows him and his faction.

SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.

If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.