Withdrawing support for Rochdale candidate ‘tough and necessary’ decision, says Starmer

Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, has said he made a ‘tough’ and ‘necessary’ decision to remove party support for Azhar Ali, the Labour candidate for the Rochdale byelection, after he said that Israel had allowed the 7 October attacks by Hamas to take place as a pretext for its war in Gaza. Starmer said: ‘It is virtually unprecedented to withdraw support for a candidate in the way that I withdrew support for this candidate yesterday. That’s what a changed Labour party is all about and of course any allegation will be fully investigated by the party’.

Starmer says he took ‘tough’ action to pull support from Rochdale candidate
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