The national campaign coordinator for the party, Pat McFadden, claims that Sir Keir Starmer has made a “tough but necessary decision.”
Azhar Ali has reportedly also been suspended from the party while an investigation is conducted.
“The Labour Party has withdrawn its support for Azhar Ali as our candidate in the Rochdale by-election following new information about further comments made by Azhar Ali coming to light today,” a spokeswoman for the party stated.
“Keir Starmer has transformed Labour into a completely different party from the one that existed in 2019.”
“We acknowledge that these are extremely unique circumstances, but it is imperative that any candidate that Labour nominates accurately embodies the organization’s goals and principles.
“Given that nominations have now closed Azhar Ali cannot be replaced as the candidate.”
The Mail On Sunday revealed that Mr. Ali had informed a Lancashire Labour Party gathering that Israel had purposefully permitted the Hamas tragedy to occur in order to give it the “green light” to invade Gaza, thrusting Mr. Ali’s campaign into the public eye.
A “unreserved” apology from Mr. Ali for the “deeply offensive, ignorant, and false” remarks had already been made, but Sir Keir was under pressure to take action because of his pledge to purge antisemitism from his party.
The Daily Mail published the new remarks later on Monday night. According to the statements, Mr. Ali is accused of blaming “people in the media from certain Jewish quarters” for inciting criticism of a Labour MP who supports Palestine in addition to asserting that Israel intended to “grab” certain territory and “get rid of [Palestinians] from Gaza”.
