Galloway is back: the Rochdale by-election
Following the sad passing of veteran Labour MP Tony Lloyd in January, a by-election was held in the Rochdale constituency just north of Manchester. Unfortunately the campaign had devolved very quickly into a very messy by-election with campaign suspensions, controversial figures, and a real problem for Labour.
If we look back at the results of the 2019 election in the constituency, Labour held the seat by a considerable 20 point margin over the second place Conservatives, with 52% of the vote to the Tories’ 31%. Smaller parties did decently with both the Liberal Democrats and Brexit parties returning their deposits with results of 7% and 8% respectively. But this is not too surprising for a safe seat and one held by a veteran Labour MP for a very long period of time.
For all intents and purposes, this constituency during the last election was extremely normal and standard, and doesn’t necessarily warrant a messy by-election, but nonetheless the campaign would become ruthless compared to last fortnight’s double by-election night which saw two historic election results take place to little fanfare.
As nominations closed 2 February 2024, it soon became clear that many of the major parties had made mistakes in their campaigns- possibly because it was such a short turnaround for the parties whereas other by-elections such as Wellingborough were expected much earlier because of the suspension and petitions going on.
The Labour party candidate was Azhar Ali, the one to replace Lloyd. On paper a seemingly good choice, being the councillor who led the local Labour party in the Lancashire council, but he didn’t hold up for long. Despite being in the public eye for quite some time, the Daily Mail chose until just after the nominations closed to publish a damning article alleging Ali’s controversial opinions surrounding the war in Gaza. For these remarks, in which he claimed that Israel allowed the massacre of over 1,000 civilians on 7 October to green light an invasion of Gaza, he was suspended as the Labour party’s candidate in the by-election.
Initially, Labour hadn’t suspended him - perhaps because he was an ally of the Labour right - and Ali apologised and retracted his comments. Although as more information emerged and pressure from within the party and outside of it grew, Labour withdrew all support. However, as nominations had closed, Labour could not submit a new candidate. In the event of Ali’s election, he would sit immediately as an independent and Labour officially had no candidate for their own safe seat: what a disaster.
Azhar Ali is not the only former Labour party candidate on the ballot though! Simon Danczuk was the MP for Rochdale between 2010 and 2017 but was suspended from Labour in 2015 after allegations of exchanging sexual messages with an underage girl. He would run for ReformUK after failing to get re-elected as an independent and campaigned bizarrely on a Labour-like anti-woke and local-led ticket. I imagine he was hoping his time as an independent MP would get him far and prior to the election some believed that he could’ve gotten 3rd or even 2nd place with no official Labour candidate.
A third former Labour candidate, George Galloway, was also on the ticket. Galloway is very controversial and has a very very very long history in politics so we won’t get into it here, but essentially he ran on his brand new party formed in 2019: the Workers Party of Britain. Previously, Galloway had won the Bradford West by-election in 2012 by an incredible margin winning over 50% of a seat he had never ran in before. As a masterful campaigner, he usually runs in constituencies with a high Muslim population hoping to win over that base.
During this campaign, he focused heavily on his support for Palestine and his criticism of Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer. Although many on the left of Labour who might be critical of Starmer’s leadership and handling of the war in Gaza might be inclined to support Galloway, note that members of the BNP (British National Party) endorsed Galloway, and he has been described as anti-Semitic and supportive of Nigel Farage’s Brexit party in the past.
Other candidates include: the Liberal Democrats, who put forward Iain Donaldson, campaigning on putting the government to account over the NHS, cost of living, and water pollution; The Conservatives put forward the 2019 ‘Man of Rochdale’ Paul Ellison who previously had been involved in improving the town centre and reducing antisocial behaviour in the town; the Greens put forward Guy Otten, a retired solicitor, who was similarly to Ali suspended in February after remarks on Gaza that the party did not agree with - he would not campaign; and several independent candidates.
The BBC reported that the Greens campaigned for the independent Mark Coleman, a climate change activist who was arrested during a Just Stop Oil protest in 2023, because of Guy Otten’s suspension. Michael Howarth, a local business owner, and William Howarth, founder of an anti-grooming organisation, were two other independents (who are unrelated) campaigning on local issues.
The final independent candidate was David Tully. A local businessman, he campaigned on local issues with no allegiance to any of the major parties. He wasn’t expected to do well initially, having never ran for election before.
Pollsters predicted George Galloway to win, with Labour coming second purely due to the name on the ballot paper over anything else, but in the end pollsters were quite wrong.
The results saw George Galloway win and become the new member of parliament for Rochdale, the first Workers Party MP. He won with 39.7% of the vote, 12,335, and a majority of 19.6 percentage points over second place (5,697 votes, nearly double). This was a truly impressive result, in fact it was the largest swing (41.8) to a party (that wasn’t an incumbent MP defecting to another party) since Bermondsey in a 1983 by-election where the Labour party swung 44.2 to the Liberals. It was also higher than the swing to him during the Bradford West by-election in 2012 (36.6) which at the time was already very impressive.
Second place went to the aforementioned independent David Tully, the non-political local choice, who received 21% of the vote. This means that 65% of votes in this by-election went to a fringe or independent candidate rather than a major political party. Tully received 6,638 votes, and for somebody who had never ran before a truly impressive result.
In third place with the Conservative Party with 12% of the vote, that’s down 19.2 from the previous election. This sticks with similar stories we hear where they also lost around 20 points in the Kingswood by-election, although that was a Conservative seat to begin with.
Three other candidates kept their deposits by receiving over five percent: The former Labour candidate Azhar Ali received 2,400 and 7.7% of the vote - a ridiculous 43.9 percentage points less than in 2019; the Liberal Democrats with 7% of the vote, absolutely no change, and 2,100 votes. And Simon Danczuk for ReformUK received 6.3% of the vote which was down on the Brexit party vote by 2 points in the previous election, disappointing for a former MP for Rochdale.
Mark Coleman who took much of the Green vote after Guy Otten’s suspension from the Greens finished with 1.5% over the Greens’ 1.4% which I am sure he will be happy with, although it is still less than 500 votes. The Howarth’s William and Michael received 523 and 246 votes respectively. The Monster Raving Loony Party, a joke party, rounded out the results coming last with 0.7% of the vote.
Thus ends a very ridiculous by-election campaign and many will be glad of it. A great night for Galloway, who will no doubt return to the House of Commons as a man of many talents, particularly as an orator, and be very loud about the Labour wobbly stance on Israel and Gaza. Perhaps, despite the poor showing, the Conservatives will be happy to have Galloway elected to sow disruption among the opposition benches before an election.
The results are hard to analyse. Two major parties had their candidates suspended and as such we can’t really measure the Labour vote change. Some critics of the Labour leadership might say that Ali’s poor performance was down to a British Muslim rejection of the Labour’s stance over Gaza, although their defence will be solid in saying that they had withdrawn their support from Ali and didn’t campaign on him. In practice, Labour didn’t have a candidate and we can’t judge their performance here as a marker of how they will do in a general election in constituencies with a substantial Muslim population.
Many will say that it’s the fault of Labour for Galloway’s election - they are the ones who nominated Ali in the first place overall. While their electoral performance can’t be targeted as bad, we can certainly attack their selection process. A Labour party spokesperson claimed that Galloway only won because Labour didn’t stand, apologising to the people of Rochdale for not standing a candidate.
It is to be seen what Galloway does with this position. There isn’t much time left though - when he was elected in 2012 there was still nearly 3 years left of the parliamentary term but now there is less than a year, possibly even less if Rishi Sunak decides to pull a snap election. His outspokenness might pressure Labour into a different position but he will need to act quickly to put forward real change.
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