The claim by Labour’s Rochdale byelection candidate Azhar Ali that Israel allowed the Hamas attacks on 7 October to provide pretext for invading Gaza was, he has admitted, “deeply offensive, ignorant, and false”. Labour’s election strategist Pat McFadden thought it “completely wrong”.
So it could be seen as surprising that Labour expended such time, energy and political capital trying to protect him this week. The party’s view on Monday morning was steadfastly that Ali had apologised and would learn his lesson. So much so, in fact, that a shadow minister was sent out on the morning media round to make the case.
That held for most of the day, before Labour took the path some had been urging it to all along and withdrew its support on Monday evening.
But how does this compare with Keir Starmer’s handling of outrage over other members’ behaviour?
Jeremy Corbyn
Arguably the biggest fight Starmer could have taken on in his drive to convince the country the party had changed from that riven by the row over antisemitism: the political fate of his predecessor.
And it was a long-running battle – the formal confirmation Corbyn would not stand as a Labour candidate at the next general election came nearly two-and-a-half years after his initial suspension. But it could not be said Starmer had shied away from the fight. He personally proposed the motion that finally ended Corbyn’s hopes.
Diane Abbott
Abbott threatened to reignite the row over whether or not Labour truly understands the severity of antisemitism last April when she suggested Jews were among a group of “white-seeming” people who experienced mere prejudice, not racism.
Her suspension as a Labour MP came very quickly – the same day – but the investigation that will decide what ultimately happens to her rumbles on.
Rebecca Long-Bailey
In terms of timing, one of the quickest and most decisive moves to enforce discipline by the Labour leader. A few hours separated Long-Bailey publicly approving of an interview in which the actor Maxine Peake claimed the Israeli state taught US police to kneel on a person’s neck and her sacking as shadow education secretary.
Peake later retracted the claims and Long-Bailey agreed to apologise, and to clarify that she had not meant to approve of everything the actor had said. But Starmer, she said, “had already made his decision”.
Kate Osamor
Another MP whose initial suspension came swiftly – another whose situation remains unresolved. Though, in Osamor’s case, this stretches to only a few weeks. She had the whip suspended in January while she is investigated for saying Gaza should be remembered as a genocide on Holocaust Memorial Day.
In the wake of the withdrawal of support for Ali, Martin Forde – the KC whose report found Labour was not properly addressing racism allegations – noted that, while Osamor and Abbott had both apologised immediately, in their cases things “seemed to drag on”.
Andy McDonald
The former frontbencher, who had already resigned his shadow ministerial post in disgust at the direction Starmer was taking the party, was suspended as a Labour MP after his speech at a march organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign called for peace between Israelis and Palestinians and referenced the controversial phrase “between the river to the sea”.
While its meaning is contested – some argue it calls for the wiping out of Israel, while others see it as simply a call for the freedom of Palestinians living in Israel and for Palestine to be respected – McDonald’s choice to reference it at a time of heightened antisemitism was deemed provocative.
He did not face immediate sanction for the comments made in October. But, two days later, he had been suspended. And he remains so, sitting as an independent, pending investigation.
Sam Tarry
When the former senior trade union official stood on a picket line with striking RMT workers in July 2022, it was a direct challenge to Starmer, who had said no frontbencher should do so. But it was the series of interviews he gave that were not felt to be in line with party policy that convinced the Labour leader to act.
In Tarry’s case, he did so quickly and decisively; sacking him as a shadow transport minister within hours. A few months later, Tarry was deselected as an MP by his local party members.
• This article was amended on 14 February 2024 to make clear what Andy McDonald had said. His words were: “We will not rest until we have justice, until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty.”
