The Gaza tragedy revives the internal war of the British Labor Party

Politics avoids empty spaces, and someone always emerges with an answer—no matter how populist or self-serving—to unresolved crises.

The ambiguity with which the leader of the Labor Party, Keir Starmer, has so far treated the all-out invasion that Israel has launched against Gaza has resurrected the unresolved war within his party.

George Galloway, the former Labor MP, has swept the by-election held this Thursday in the Rochdale constituency, leading the British Workers Party.

The radical and populist leftist, who abandoned Labor decades ago to become its bête noire, obtained 40% of the votes in a town with a 30% Muslim population.

“Keir Starmer, this is for Gaza,” Galloway said when proclaiming his victory.

“You will pay a high price for the role you have played in enabling, encouraging and even covering up the catastrophe occurring today in occupied Gaza,” he denounced.

The Labor candidate, Azhar Ali, has come in fourth position.

He did not campaign, and the party had withdrawn its support for him, after he dedicated himself to propagating the umpteenth anti-Semitic conspiracy theory at a campaign event.

His subsequent apologies were of no use, although, due to a regulatory issue, his name was kept on the ballot until the end because Labor no longer had a deadline to present an alternative candidate.

“I regret withdrawing support for the candidate and I apologize to the voters of Rochdale, but I made that decision and I still believe it was the right one.

When he claimed that he had changed the Labor Party, he meant it,” Starmer said this Friday.

These by-elections responded to the death from cancer of Labor MP Tony Lloyd, who represented that constituency.

Voters have been called back to the polls to fill that gap.

What should have been a triumphant walk for Keir Starmer's party ended up turning into a chaotic defeat.

30% of the left-wing voters in the constituency are Muslim, and there is widespread unrest in that community at the lukewarmness and political calculation that the Labor leader has displayed in his response to Israel's attacks on Gaza.

More than two dozen local Muslim Labor officials in the region have resigned in protest at the leadership's approach to that conflict.

In his obsession with eradicating the anti-Semitism inherited from the era of the previous leader, Jeremy Corbyn, Starmer has displayed a firmness that, for the more left-wing and Corbynist currents of the party, had more traits of intransigence.

The ousted candidate, Azhar Ali, was very popular in the constituency and, above all, he defended with aplomb a position contrary to any manifestation of radical Islam.

“This defeat for Labor was unnecessary and was an own goal,” he took the opportunity to point out the internal current of Labor Momentum, which was key a decade ago to propel Corbyn to the leadership of the party.

“Starmer's mistake of being unable to stand by Gaza in his hour of greatest need has left the doors open for Galloway,” he noted.

“We must now defend an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza,” they demanded of Starmer.

Far-left populism

Galloway is a politician, presenter and journalist who, from a far-left populism that confronted Tony Blair at the time - to whom he dedicated harsh words about the Iraq war - has managed to enter Parliament for up to four different constituencies. over 25 years.

Twice as a Labor Party candidate.

In two others, at the head of the formation that he himself founded, the Respect Party.

At 69 years old, Galloway saw the opportunity and decided to run for Rochdale again.

His pro-Palestinian and anti-elite speech has garnered support among a population that feels abandoned and on his day he supported Brexit.

“[This victory] is going to be the spark of a whole movement, a landslide, a shift in the tectonic plates, a lot of new candidates for Parliament,” Galloway proclaimed.

“The Labor Party has received the message that it has lost the confidence of millions of its voters, who have loyally supported it for generations,” he announced.

The candidate's speech responds more to the desire for revenge and opportunism of a man repudiated by his party than to the emergence of this new “movement” that he proclaims.

But his victory points to Starmer's great weakness, which in his desire to take the party towards the center has distanced him from traditional left-wing causes such as the defense of the Palestinian people.

Starmer initially supported Israel's right to defend itself after the atrocious attack carried out by Hamas on October 7.

As the number of victims in Gaza from the military offensive began to be known, the Labor leader resisted calling for a ceasefire, arguing that it would be useless and would allow Hamas to rearm.

Faced with the clamor of a large part of his party, he ended up presenting last week in the House of Commons a request for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” to both parties to the conflict.

It was of little use, because in the eyes of many voters of the almost four million Muslims living in the United Kingdom, Starmer has not lived up to the task.

Rochdale's defeat, however, is shared.

None of the traditional parties – Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat – has obtained more than 12% of the vote.

Along with Galloway's 40%, independent candidate David Tully, a vehicle repair shop owner who ran at the last minute, has garnered 21% support.

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