Today we learned that Azhar Ali, @UKLabour’s candidate for Parliament in Rochdale, claimed that Israel engineered the murder of over 1,200 of its own people — the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust — in order to justify an incursion into Gaza. It is a blood libel. This man does not belong in a major political party, let alone in Parliament, yet Labour is, incredibly, still backing his candidacy after a quick apology. This is distressingly familiar to days that @Keir_Starmer promised were behind us. This is not tearing antisemitism out “by its roots”. Recently, Sir Keir has admirably acted swiftly against Labour MPs including Diane Abbott and Kate Osamor. This sudden inconsistency is deeply alarming. Labour must urgently re-examine this obscene decision if its leader is to be regarded as a man of his word.