When Keir Starmer’s political project comes crashing down, as one day it will, George Galloway’s Rochdale triumph should be remembered as a portent. For hardcore Starmerites, this assertion is easily dismissed. Courtesy of the Tories’ comprehensive self-immolation, Labour is heading for a crushing landslide victory. With an average 19-point lead – an undeniably stunning turnaround from the party’s 2019 rout – there is no sign of the usual polling swingback a government enjoys in election year. Rishi Sunak is an inept prime minister leading an intellectually exhausted government, devoid of any ideas except doubling down on the same policies that left Britain with an unprecedented squeeze in living standards, stagnant growth and a shrivelled public realm. When Starmer becomes prime minister in November, as he almost certainly will, he is unlikely to be worrying much about Rochdale, which may well return to the Labour fold in a general election anyway.
Well, such complacency may prove a mistake. The Labour candidate was, of course, belatedly disowned by the national leadership after claiming that Israel deliberately allowed the 7 October atrocities to happen, and deploying a crude antisemitic trope about the influence of “certain Jewish quarters” in the media. Labour – which has today apologised to the people of Rochdale for failing to offer a viable Labour candidate – will easily dismiss the candidate’s derisory vote, and yet overall turnout – nearly 40% – was actually higher for than the last three byelections. This means that, despite some demoralised voters staying at home in a farcical election, Galloway won far more votes than the Labour, Tory and Liberal Democrat candidates combined: that is, he clearly enjoyed an enthused turnout, many rallied by the message summed up at his victory speech: “Keir Starmer, this is for Gaza.” Labour says Galloway won because there was no Labour candidate. That is highly debatable.
This is all despite the fact that Galloway – despite being a compelling orator and a formidable campaigner – is, to say the least, a controversial figure, bitterly rejected by most of the left (myself included) on account of, say, voting Conservative in Scotland, appalling comments about rape, sidling up to Nigel Farage in the Brexit referendum campaign, and issuing statements such as: “As a father of six children, I’m socially conservative. I don’t want my children taught the kind of things Labour wants to teach them in schools.”
Undoubtedly, many who plumped for him are Muslim – understandably more aggrieved than the average Briton about Israel’s slaughter of mostly Muslim Palestinians. But Rochdale has a significantly smaller Muslim population than other seats Galloway has successfully contested, and he won wider support, too. That he specifically sought support from Muslim voters has been portrayed as somehow tawdry: this itself is testament to how mainstream Islamophobia is in Britain, as though seeking to address specific concerns of Muslim voters were not legitimate.
The truth is that Muslim voters are an important and growing plank of Labour’s electoral coalition, but the party treats them with contempt – as voting fodder who are otherwise an embarrassment to it. Consider the case of the former Labour minister Phil Woolas, who in 2010 had his victory in Oldham – 6 miles from Rochdale – overturned by a court when he was found to have stoked religious tensions to win by distributing a deeply Islamophobic leaflet. Some parliamentary colleagues leapt to his defence. In the brutal Batley and Spen byelection in 2021 – in which Labour defeated Galloway – party sources reportedly briefed that antisemitism among Muslim voters was losing Labour support, and boasted that they’d won Tory voters at the expense of the “conservative Muslim vote over gay rights and Palestine”. According to a survey of Muslim Labour members in 2022, 46% felt Starmer had handled Islamophobia “very badly”, with a further 18% opting for “quite badly”. When predominantly Muslim councillors resigned in disgust at Gaza, a party source reportedly bragged they were “shaking off the fleas”.
But it’s not just about Muslim voters, important though that is. It was Iraq that toxified Tony Blair among swathes of Labour’s natural electoral coalition. That was after he had been prime minister for many years. For Starmer, this has happened in opposition: 52% of voters think Starmer is doing badly as Labour leader, with just 33% saying he is doing well: remarkable for a man almost inevitably destined for No 10. Why? Because Starmer deceitfully abandoned his solemn promises – “pledges”, he called them – in his leadership campaign, such as taxing the rich, public ownership of utilities, scrapping tuition fees and much else. He failed to then develop an alternative vision, even going so far as to trash his more recent flagship £28bn green investment fund. He has promised to keep Tory policies that drive children into poverty, while refusing to reintroduce the bankers’ bonus cap, and has locked the party into keeping arbitrary fiscal rules that spell continuing austerity. In comments on Gaza, Starmer said that Israel had a right to cut off water and energy; he later said that he did not believe that. He has presided over mass resignations and sackings of opponents, and he sabotaged an SNP motion condemning Israel for collective punishment.
Labour’s support is soft and superficial, driven almost entirely by revulsion at the Tories’ calamitous spell in office. We can see in Germany and the US how similar political projects came to power with the promise of offering stability, but both countries face acute political crises. And so the left – hounded by the Labour leadership as it is – needs to make tough decisions. Does it wait for either the likes of Galloway or the far right to fill the vacuum when mass disillusionment with Starmer’s government inevitably kicks in? Better to start asking some tough questions about what to do next.
Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist
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• This article was amended on 2 March 2024. Oldham and Rochdale are 6 miles apart, not 16 as an earlier version said.
