Keir Starmer is under pressure to suspend councillors who attended a meeting in Hyndburn over claims that they failed to call out antisemitic remarks by Azhar Ali, the former Labour candidate for the Rochdale byelection.
On Tuesday, Labour suspended Graham Jones, the candidate for Hyndburn in Lancashire, less than 24 hours after the party withdrew its support from Ali over remarks he made at a meeting in Hyndburn when he repeated conspiracy theories about Israel’s attack on Gaza and complained about the influence of “certain Jewish quarters” in the media.
At the same meeting, Jones referred to “fucking Israel” and questioned why British citizens were fighting with the Israel Defense Forces in the invasion of Gaza.
The Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) has called for the suspension of other councillors or candidates in attendance over claims they failed to criticise these remarks. The call came as it was reported that the Hyndburn councillor and Labour group leader, Munsif Dad, was also at the meeting. It is not known if the remarks by Ali and Jones went unchallenged.
The shadow defence secretary, John Healey, when asked on Sky News whether the party would suspend Dad, said: “I don’t know why he was at the meeting.”
He said: “This is not a party of people who are saints. When people do things that may be wrong, say things that may be unacceptable, the important thing is how does the party respond.
Healey later told BBC Radio 4’s Today’s programme: “We will follow the hard evidence that’s presented to us or that comes to light. Anyone at that meeting, if there is evidence that people acted or spoke in a way that doesn’t meet the standards, or is incompatible with the values of our Labour party, they need to report it and the Labour party will it take it seriously and investigate.”
Mike Katz, the chair of JLM, suggested that even attendance at the meeting could be enough to warrant suspension. He said: “To be in that meeting, to have heard that rhetoric, to have been a bystander … whether councillors, whether MPs, they’re there to promote community cohesion.”
Asked whether any other councillors or parliamentary candidates who were at the meeting should be suspended, Katz said: “If they’re identifiable, absolutely, we’d say, we’d say that.”
Healey paid tribute to the Mail newspapers, which exposed the remarks at the meeting after being passed a recording. He told Sky: “Hats off to the Daily Mail, that’s part of the important public role that journalists have. This was information that we weren’t aware of. We didn’t know about beforehand, when that evidence was presented to the party, and Keir Starmer took a view on this within hours.
“He acted very swiftly to do something no Labour leader or no party leader has done before, which was to suspend the campaigning support for our own candidate in the middle of a byelection.”
Pressed on whether there were flaws in candidate vetting, Healey told Today: “Azhar Ali was widely respected, widely supported across communities, including the Jewish community in the north-west, and there certainly are strong checks, the due diligence process as part of selecting Labour candidates.
“But you can’t see everything everywhere. What’s important is that if new information comes to light, as in this case, we will act to investigate, we will act to block those who are not fit to serve as MPs.”
