Azhar Ali will 'absolutely' take seat if elected in Rochdale after antisemitism row

Azhar Ali told ITV News he has "some really good friends in the Jewish community"

Azhar Ali, the former Labour candidate in the Rochdale by-election has told ITV News he would "absolutely" take his seat if elected.

"The people of Rochdale would've voted for me," he added, saying he was hoping for "a positive result".

Polls in Rochdale closed at 10pm in the tightly-fought by-election triggered by the death of Labour MP Sir Tony Lloyd.

Labour withdrew their support for Mr Ali after remarks he made about Israel and the war in Gaza.

Mr Ali said that he was still sorry for his comments, adding that he has "some really good friends in the Jewish community" who he is working with.

Azhar Ali was still listed as the Labour candidate on the ballot in the by-election, because it was past the point at which Labour could change their candidate when they withdrew their support.

Mr Ali had previously apologised after he was recorded suggesting Israel had allowed the October 7 Hamas assault to happen as a pretext to invade Gaza.

Despite a backlash against the remarks, which were reported from the meeting of the Lancashire Labour Party by the Mail on Sunday, the party remained supportive of Mr Ali.

However the party withdrew its support after the paper published a longer recording in which Mr Ali blames "people in the media from certain Jewish quarters" for the suspension of Andy McDonald from the Labour Party."

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The polls closed on Thursday evening in the by-election, with three of the main candidates all formerly from the Labour party.

George Galloway was forced out of the Labour party in 2003 over his criticism of the Iraq war, and is standing for the Workers Party of Britain with a fiercely anti-Labour and pro-Gaza ceasefire stance.

Former MP for Rochdale Simon Danczuk was also on the ballot, standing for Reform UK.

Mr Danczuk was suspended from Labour in 2015 after sending inappropriate messages to a teenager.

After the decision by Labour on Azhar Ali, Rishi Sunak Labour's actions showed Keir Starmer "has no principles at all".

"Keir Starmer has been running around for the last year trying to tell everybody the Labour Party’s changed", the prime minister said in a live, televised "People's Forum" programme on GB News.

"Well, look what just happened in Rochdale, a candidate saying the most vile conspiracy theories, anti-semitic, and what happened? He’s stood by and sent cabinet ministers to support him, until literally five minutes before I walked on tonight, under enormous media pressure, has decided to change his mind on principle", Sunak added.

At Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, Mr Sunak said "we expel antisemites [Starmer} makes them Labour candidates".

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