This week in Brexitland, February 15, 2024

How Keir Starmer can turn the whole Azhar Ali-Rochdale debacle into a positive for Labour

Every Westminster hack is loving the whole Labour Rochdale thing. Loving it to death. That’s because everyone has a reason to love it: if you’re on the right and are desperate for the Tories to have any hope of winning or at least, not being totally destroyed at the next general election, then it provides the only shard of promise for some time; if you are on the left, you don’t like Starmer anyway, so you’ll enjoy seeing him suffer for once; if you’re just a run of the mill political hack, it’s the first thing that looks like it has any promise of changing the narrative of “it’s umpteen months to go until the GE with nothing going right for the Tories, kill me now, please” that we’ve seen since, well, since before time began, it feels like.

I don’t think Rochdale is actually going to change the narrative - unless it convinces Sunak to call the election in May, which would be pants-wetting in its hilariousness all on its own. No, Rochdale brings to light what everyone in Westminster knows but only talks about when the problem acutely flairs up, like a dodgy knee you only bother with when it becomes so bad you can’t walk - both Labour and the Conservative parties have massive, structural, outrageously dire issues with candidate selection.

It’s exploded for Labour in Rochdale with Azhar Ali - it will explode again for the Tories soon enough. In fact, we’re seeing a minor version of it in the Wellingborough by-election today, where Peter Bone’s girlfriend, you know, the girlfriend of the guy who had to step down after a scandal, is the actual Tory candidate. The reason for this is simple: while I don’t wish to paint every Tory association or Constituency Labour Party as bastions of lunatics, far removed from the thought-processes of most people in Britain, that description applies to more of these organisations than is comfortable given they largely choose the legislature for the country.

In fact, the hugeness of the Rochdale story can and almost certainly will be turned into a positive for Starmer in the end. This is because it will give him the excuse that many around him I’m sure have been waiting for to take way more central control of the candidate selection process from here on out.

Rochdale can be used as a warning for a ruthless reign of terror. “Look, of course we want the CLPs to have the final choice in their own candidates - of course we do! - but look at Rochdale. The risks are just too great. We can’t have the same thing happen again. Look how close Labour is to its first election win in almost 20 years. You don’t want to be a part of risking that, do you?”

Truth is, and I know a lot of Labour people will be annoyed at me saying this out loud, but there are a lot of members in those CLPs who are much more loyal to Corbyn or the Socialist Workers Party or some abstract idea of socialism than they are to the Labour Party. You know how I know this for sure? The whole Rochdale thing and the way it got out into the public realm completely confirms it.

When all is said and done, this might be looked back on as one of those important positive moments for Labour under Starmer. A big chance to clear out the far left - while really eliminating anti-semitism within the party - using the re-selection experience that will inevitably follow to make the Labour Party what the leadership clearly wants it to be, something akin to what the Democrats once were, a huge tent, centre-left agglomeration. Something that could keep the Tories out of power for most of the 21st century, if they do things right. Well, Rochdale has given them licence to make it happen. Let’s see if Starmer takes the opportunity.

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