Labour pledges to regain Rochdale from ‘division-stoking’ George Galloway

Party says it will field ‘great candidate’ to win back constituency after controversial former member’s victory in by-election

Labour has pledged to win back Rochdale from George Galloway, accusing the new MP of “stoking division” during the contest.
Mr Galloway, a former Labour MP, is returning to Parliament under the banner of the Workers Party of Britain, having won the seat in a campaign marred by allegations of intimidation and death threats.
His path to victory was cleared when Labour was forced to disown its own candidate, Azhar Ali, when he claimed Israel had allowed its own citizens to be murdered in the Oct 7 massacre.
Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, told Sky News’s Trevor Phillips that Labour would field a “great candidate” to take on Mr Galloway in the next general election.
She said she regretted that the party had been forced to withdraw support from its own candidate but said it showed that it was rooting out anti-Semitism.
“I’m very sorry that we ended up in that position but it was necessary and Keir Starmer took the action that was necessary in order to demonstrate that the Labour Party has changed,” she said.
“Come the general election, we will make sure that we’ve got a great candidate in place that can win back the support of people in Rochdale and can deliver an MP for that community that will bring people together rather than stoking division.”
Ms Phillipson defended Labour’s “robust” selection process after claims that it had effectively surrendered the seat to Mr Galloway by fielding an unsuitable candidate.
“The Labour Party has robust processes now in place to make sure that where complaints are received about unacceptable conduct… there will be a full investigation,” she said.
“We do have strong processes in place because that was why we ended up in a position withdrawing our support from the candidate in Rochdale – because of the fact that we will not tolerate unacceptable conduct.”
Mr Galloway, 69, ran a campaign relentlessly focused on the war in Gaza as he aggressively courted Rochdale’s substantial Muslim vote.
Conservatives accused his supporters of hounding and intimidating people, and said they had submitted a complaint about bullying behaviour to the local council.
Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, said the reports of intimidation in Rochdale were “very concerning” and labelled it “one of the most divisive campaigns that we’ve seen in recent times”.
Reform UK said its staff had had to be removed from the constituency for their own safety, while a burger van displaying a party poster was threatened with firebombing. A man was arrested after making an online death threat against Simon Danczuk, the party’s candidate.
Richard Tice, the leader of Reform, claimed “the behaviour of certain candidates and their supporters in this contest fell very far short of our traditional democratic standards”.