Sir Keir Starmer must be very, very, nervous after Galloway win | Politics Information

He is again! The left-wing firebrand and Celtic FC fanatic George Galloway has now scored a hat-trick of election victories over Labour, the social gathering he represented in parliament for 16 years.

After ousting Oona King in Bethnal Inexperienced and Bow in 2005 and a profitable spectacular by-election victory in Bradford West in 2012, he has now accomplished the treble with a surprising and controversial triumph in Rochdale.

His majority over an impartial candidate, David Tully, was a snug 5,697, with the Conservatives third, Liberal Democrats fourth and the disowned Labour candidate Azhar Ali fifth.

Politics newest: George Galloway celebrates victory

Electoral Dysfunction

Do not miss evaluation of the Rochdale end result this afternoon from Beth Rigby, Jess Phillips and Ruth Davidson in a brand new weekly podcast from Sky Information

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The polls had been closed for lower than an hour when the Galloway staff claimed victory right here. “We have received – comfortably,” a supply near his marketing campaign advised Sky Information earlier than 11pm. How proper they have been. It was certainly comfy.

In a rousing victory speech, he denounced Labour and the Conservatives as “two cheeks of the identical bottom” and claimed he had put Sir Keir Starmer on discover.

He declared with attribute Galloway ardour: “Starmer, that is for Gaza. You will have paid, and you’ll pay, a excessive value for the function you’ve gotten performed in enabling, encouraging and overlaying for the disaster presently occurring in occupied Palestine within the Gaza Strip.”

He relentlessly focused his former social gathering throughout the marketing campaign. One leaflet, exhibiting a pugilistic Mr Galloway in his trademark fedora with raised fists and a glum-looking Labour chief, mentioned: “It is George Galloway or Keir Starmer’s Labour in Rochdale.

One other was headlined: “For Rochdale, for Gaza.” It went on: “The individuals of Gaza do not have a vote on this election – you do.”

And it concluded: “This election is a straight alternative between George who will battle for Palestine and the individuals of Rochdale – and Keir Starmer, who will battle for Israel.”

However in fact, strictly talking, it wasn’t Sir Keir’s Labour Occasion he was preventing. The Labour candidate, Azhar Ali, was disowned by his social gathering on 13 February after feedback he made in regards to the Hamas assaults on Israel at a gathering in Lancashire.

“The Egyptians are saying that they warned Israel 10 days earlier… Individuals warned them a day earlier than… there’s one thing occurring,” the Mail on Sunday reported him saying.

“They intentionally took the safety off, they allowed… that bloodbath provides them the inexperienced mild to do no matter they bloody need.”

Dismissed by the Labour management as a wild and antisemitic conspiracy principle, Mr Ali apologised and was dumped a number of days later. Nevertheless it was too late for Sir Keir to restore the harm.

Nominations had closed, which meant he was nonetheless the candidate and his title – starting, fortuitously for him, with the letter A – remained on the prime of the poll paper.

Fats lot of fine it did him, as he was pushed into fifth place, behind Mr Galloway, political virgin Mr Tully, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.

Learn extra:
Who’s George Galloway, the brand new MP for Rochdale?
The battle for ‘the forgotten nook of England’
Labour withdraws help for Rochdale by-election candidate

For Reform UK, additionally, it was an evening to neglect, with the previous Labour MP for Rochdale Simon Danczuk coming a humiliating fifth, after current good performances in by-elections that gave Rishi Sunak and the Tories the jitters.

There will likely be aid within the Tory excessive command at Reform UK’s poor exhibiting right here. For as soon as, after a by-election, Mr Sunak will likely be relieved and Sir Keir horrified.

Earlier than the end result was declared, Reform UK’s chief Richard Tice launched a blistering assault reside on Sky Information on Mr Danczuk’s opponents. Although he did not title names, he seemed to be accusing Mr Galloway’s supporters and people of Mr Ali.

He mentioned Mr Danczuk had confronted “vile racist abuse and demise threats”. His social gathering’s workers had been intimidated, and so they’d needed to rent safety guards. Enterprise supporters had been threatened with being firebombed and there had been intimidation at polling stations, he claimed.

However in an interview with Sky Information instantly after his victory speech, Mr Galloway denied any wrongdoing and mentioned it was his supporters who had confronted intimidation throughout the marketing campaign.

Mr Tice additionally challenged the legitimacy of the very excessive variety of postal votes solid, a declare his good friend and predecessor Nigel Farage has been making in by-elections for years.

For Labour, in the meantime, when it holds its inquest into the debacle of this by-election, it is going to mirror on how what ought to have been a routine by-election win in a comparatively protected seat become Sir Keir’s worst nightmare – a win for George Galloway.

If the Labour chief thinks he will get a tough time now from the SNP’s Westminster chief Stephen Flynn and the Corbynite Labour left over the Israel-Hamas ceasefire row, wait till the ferocious Galloway begins tearing into him within the Commons chamber.

Prime of the agenda for the Labour inquest will likely be to establish which fool determined to carry the by-election in such an unseemly rush after the demise of veteran MP and social gathering stalwart Sir Tony Lloyd.

There was once a conference {that a} social gathering waited till after the funeral of an MP who’d died earlier than beginning strikes to pick out a candidate or plan for the by-election.

But right here Labour threw conference out of the window and moved with indecent haste. Sir Tony died on 17 January and Mr Ali was chosen, defeating political journalist Paul Waugh, simply 10 days later, on 27 January.

Sir Tony’s funeral, nevertheless, was not till 16 February, three days after Sir Keir had been pressured to jettison Mr Ali after allegations from opponents that the Labour chief dithered over how to reply to the Mail on Sunday’s preliminary report.

It is not as if Labour hasn’t made this blunder earlier than. In Hartlepool in 2021, Labour MP Mike Hill resigned on 18 March after sexual harassment allegations and Labour raced forward with the by-election on 6 Might, the identical day because the native elections.

Then, Labour’s would-be candidates have been solely given someday to submit their functions and there have been allegations of a stitch-up. The by-election was a catastrophe, with the Tories’ Jill Mortimer profitable in a “crimson wall” triumph for the Conservatives.

Sir Keir responded then by sacking chief whip Nick Brown and making an attempt to sideline his deputy, Angela Rayner, in a careless reshuffle, maybe forgetting that she was elected to her place by the social gathering and could not be sacked.

There’ll, absolutely, be extra recriminations after Rochdale, which for the maverick referred to as “Attractive George”, this morning is certainly a gorgeous new daybreak.

There’s an actual threat now that Mr Galloway will perform his risk to face as much as 50 pro-ceasefire, anti-Israel candidates in opposition to Labour within the normal election.

Chris Williamson, a Corbynite Labour ex-MP who was right here on the Rochdale depend supporting Mr Galloway, has advised Sky Information he hopes to be chosen to battle the retiring grandee Margaret Beckett’s Derby South seat on the normal election.

So it is not simply an election hat-trick that Mr Galloway is celebrating. He hopes to attain extra victories over his former social gathering later this yr, as he additionally declared in his victory speech.

However amid all of the controversy of this marketing campaign, Mr Galloway additionally claims to have made historical past in an much more grand method along with his victory right here in Rochdale.

In his Sky Information interview, he mentioned it was his seventh parliamentary election victory in 4 completely different cities, which equals the file of Winston Churchill.

On stage phrases with Churchill? Modesty has by no means been Mr Galloway’s model, in fact.

However after this hat-trick of election victories for the controversial left-wing firebrand, Sir Keir Starmer must be very, very nervous certainly.