EXCLUSIVE: Suspended Labour candidate ‘boasts association’ with ‘controversial’ George Galloway

GB News Political Correspondent, Olivia Utley, explains Starmer’s decision to suspend Labour’s Rochdale by-election candidate Azhar Ali.

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I have you a television exclusive with regards to that Rochdale byelection something that frankly the labor party should have spotted and failed to do so the labor party’s now disowned candidate had posted a photograph on his social media in 2015 shaking hands with the then respect party MP George Galloway

George Galloway at the time was a very controversial figure he had defeated labor in a by-election only a couple of years before this point and he had defeated the Labor candidates and other candidates accusing them of lacking Islamic values it was said at the time that George Galloway ran on a platform

Of being more Islamic than his Muslim opponents and here we see this labor counselor at the time now then became the labor candidate for this byelection now disowned by labor boasting of his association with George Galloway at a seminar he says was on say no to terrorism there we have it the former

Labor candidate shaking hands with George Galloway something that had the labor party known about you’d surely think they would have thought this was not a man who was uh suitable to be a candidate especially in a by elction absolutely great spot there Tom um red flag much for the labor party when they

Were looking at picking candidates George Galloway all all happy to see you it’s extraordinary especially given George Galloway’s standing in this seat any association with George Galloway would throw up a red flag there are Labor candidates who have been removed from the Labor candidates list from liking tweets from Caroline Lucas now

Caroline Lucas of course stands against the labor party uh is opposed the labor party but I think people would say is perhaps uh less toxic in our political culture than George Galloway and if candidates have been stood down for liking tweets from Caroline Lucas but not stood down after shaking hands and

Boasting of associations with the then respect party MP George Galloway it raises huge questions yes and we’ll have to look into what exactly that event was there say no to terrorism find out a little bit of more about what exactly that event was all about let’s speak to GB news political correspondent Olivia

Atley Olivia thank you very much for joining us Tom just showed us this tweet from 2015 pictured ASA Ali of course the labor candidate for Rochdale smiling and shaking the hands of George Galloway well absolutely I think that tweet that Tom’s unearth make things makes things even more embarrassing for

K Sama this has really been an extraordinary 48 hours in politics just two days ago Kama was defending Mr saying that he had the support of the labor party even when labor members uh labor Jewish groups were saying that they would not campaign in Rochdale for Miss Ali following his comments

Suggesting that Israel uh essentially uh put a green light on the hamus attacks of October the 7th in order to do whatever they wanted to in Gaza those are abominable comments and finally finally last night K St withdrew his backing now why did it take him so long

Well one reason of course is that it is now too late for labor to put someone else on the candidates list nominations have already closed which leaves us in the very strange position where Mr Ali despite labor having formally withdrawn their support from him will have the

Labor logo next to his name when Rochdale voters go to The Ballot Box on Thursday but if he does get a elected he won’t have the labor whip now the other reason that perhaps Kier starma stood behind Mr Ally is because and there are those on the left of the labor party who

Are pretty Furious about this previously Mr Ally had been seen as someone of the sort of Centrist tradition someone more in Kira’s uh own image and actually Louise Elman uh the Jewish conservative MP who left the party when Mr Corbin was leader but came back under k starm

Backed Mr Ali because she said that he had a long history of being anti-islamic extremism so that could be perhaps why K dama took so long to withdraw his support but this image that Tom shows well that puts a very different light on things what’s so difficult for labor

About this situation and also of course for the people of rochell let’s not forget them in all of this is that because of this mess the chances are that George Galloway will be handed that seat in Rochdale labor have handed over a 9,000 seat majority to someone who is

A sectarian a a race beter and doesn’t really have much of an interest in actually being an MP he said before that he likes the experience of standing for an MP far more than he likes being an MP it will ultimately be the people of Rochdale who suffer from all of this but

K St too will have his reputation tarnished it raises enormous questions about the labor party’s vet of their own candidates especially given that George Galloway in 2015 it was only a couple of years after he defeated labor in Bradford West at the time the independent wrote about how uh Mr

Galloway shamelessly courted Muslim Prejudice in that by-election campaign and huge questions for anyone who would be shaking his hand let alone anyone who wanted to be a labor MP who would be boasting about such an association well exactly and as I say I mean it is

It is very strange that he did choose to shake George Galla’s hand because actually historically Mr Ali does have a a history of speaking out against Islamic extremism there are those who are suggesting that actually politics in Rochdale has got so toxic that the sort of anti-Semitic uh comments which Mr Ali

Made are no longer seen as as sort of Fringe that scen as mainstream and it is possible that he was uh Del trying to cour some votes in Rochdale with those comments as you say Tom it does throw some light on the labor vetting process and we have seen this time and time

Again in British politics and I should say it’s not just the labor party who’ve suffered with this especially during the 2019 general election there were quite a lot of conservative MPS who won their seats unexpectedly and then caused the party some embarrassment but in those situations you can sort of understand

How it happened in this case there was a byelection labor had a long time to choose who they wanted to stand as their candidate and they chose Mr Ali having to backtrack at the last minute to Great personal embarrassment and of course a lot of difficulty for the people of

Rochdale thanks Olivia Olivia R GB news political correspondent