Rochdale ‘24

A retrospective look

Workers Party - 39.7%, Independent - 21.3%, Conservative - 12%

This will be the first in a series looking into historic elections. By historic, I mean anything that took place before the current parliament at Westminster began in 2024. I will be looking into both the campaign and context of these elections, as well as the legacy they have had on politics. The first one I will be looking into is the Rochdale by-election of 2024.

Despite polling on 29th February 2024, the story of Rochdale can be traced back almost five months earlier, to October 7th 2023. That day, fighters from Hamas crossed over the border into Israel, killing almost 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 251, before returning to Gaza, kicking off the War in Gaza.

This is not a commentary on Israel and the Israeli Palestinian conflict, with roots that spread through the majority of the 20th century. Rather for the purposes of this look into Rochdale, October 7th marked the start of current, and presently ongoing, War in Gaza. Isreal’s response came quickly and refused to let up. A brutal ariel and ground assault that, as of June 2025, would spill out to the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and most recently, Iran.

Not long after the war broke out, people across the world began to protest the brutal reprisals Tel Aviv had and was carrying out. In the UK, protests started within the week. On October 21st, over 100,000 people marched in London during the March for Palestine. On Armistice Day on the 11th November, Met Police figures estimate 300,000 people marched in one protest in London. Across the country, hundreds of thousands marched. Opposingly, on 26th November, at least 50,000 marched against the rise of antisemitic hate crimes, and on the 14th of January at least 25,000 people attended a rally in support of Israel in Trafalgar Square.

Three days later, on the 17th, the MP for Rochdale, Sir Tony Lloyd, passed away. He had been in a yearlong battle with cancer but suspended his treatment after discovering he had untreatable leukaemia. He was 73, and had been the MP for Rochdale since 2017, having previously served as MP for the seats of Stretford and Manchester Central.

Rochdale is a town just outside of Manchester. At one point it had served as the centre of the northern wool industry, making its residents fabulously wealthy. However, urbanisation and de-industrialisation had led to sharp and violent urban decline. By 2019, areas of Rochdale were considered some of the most deprived in England, with part of the town centre, between St Mary’s Gate and Water Street within the Milkstone and Deeplish ward, being labelled by the government as the 31st most deprived neighbourhood in England. 31st out of 32,844. Around 28% of children in the town are believed to grow up in poverty.

Rochdale had, and still has, significant systemic issues that need to be addressed. Alongside the deprivation, it was one of the centres of the grooming gang scandal. According to Sky News, “a major report in January conclude[ed] young girls were left "at the mercy" of paedophiles due to failings by senior police and council bosses”. In fact, the day I began researching this story on the 13th June, stories had hit the papers over several perpetrators being found guilty of offences between 2001 and 2006.

At this time, the Conservative government under Rishi Sunak had supported the Israeli government. On the 14th of October, a week after the attacks, he had promised “unqualified support in the face of evil” to Tel Aviv. His government, and indeed the subsequent Labour government, would remain continuously pressed to ban arms sales to Israel. It was within this environment that the Rochdale by-election would kick off. It would truly bring out some of the ugliest scenes in modern British politics.

 

Labour Campaign: - Initial Candidate: Azhar Ali – Lancashire County Councillor for Nelson East and Labour Leader

Voting intention from YouGov taken on the 10-11th January shows that 45% of people nationally intended to vote Labour, miles ahead of the Tories on 22%, Reform on 10% and Lib Dems on 9%. Starmer was the firm favourite to take power in a General Election that would happen at some point that year. So, just six days later when a by-election is poised to begin in a fairly safe Labour seat, a seat held by Labour since 2010 (aside from 2015-17 but more on that later) and a Labour/Lib Dem (Liberal) marginal since 1958, it should have been a routine campaign for Labour. However, issues began almost immediately.

Lloyd passed away on the 17th January. Labour party convention has, for decades, been to wait until the funeral of a sitting MP before selection and planning begins. However, within days applications were opened, and by the 27th councillor Azhar Ali was selected to run.

Ali based his campaign around reopening maternity facilities, investing in the town centre and introducing free breakfast clubs in schools. Unfortunately for him, he would not get an opportunity to try these ideas in public.

On Monday 12th, just two weeks into his campaign, the Daily Mail leaked an audio recording in which Ali claimed the Israeli government had allowed the October 7th attacks to take place. He was recorded saying, “the Egyptians are saying that they warned Israel 10 days earlier… Americans warned them a day before… there's something happening … they deliberately took the security off, they allowed... that massacre gives them the green light to do whatever they bloody want.”

For years the Labour party had been dogged with accusations of antisemitism under its previous leader Jeremy Corbyn. For Starmer, who himself had married into a Jewish family, this was a redline. By the next evening, Tuesday 13th, Labour cut ties with Ali and suspended his campaign. Unfortunately, by this point it was too late to register a new candidate, so Labour told its activists to stand down. Ali would still appear on the ballot as a Labour candidate, but no one would be actively campaigning for him.

Three days later, February 16th, Lloyd’s funeral would take place. Labour’s insistence on speed had been their undoing, and what should have been a routine defence, they would have to watch from the sideline.

Rochdale Town Centre

Reform Campaign: Candidate: Simon Dancuzk – Former Labour MP for Rochdale between 2010 and 2015, and Independent MP from 2015 to 2017

Where to begin with Simon Dancuzk.

Well, Reform had, by late 2023, begun to really solidify themselves as a protest party. Their name was out there. They still didn’t have the results to back themselves, but the public was aware of who they were by this point. In mid-February 2024, two by-elections took place: in Wellingborough and in Kingswood. Reform came third in both of them, securing 13% and 10.4% of the vote. At this time, there was this feeling of ‘oh when might they finally break through and win’. Just a few months before, in Tamworth in October 2023, they had also come third, this time with just 5.4%. They were on an upward trajectory and genuinely looked like they could make noise in Rochdale, especially with Labour out of the picture.

The UK in a Changing Europe noted: “Rochdale was almost like a natural experiment to see how low the Labour vote would go if voters are given no information, are not mobilised, and are actively discouraged from supporting the party’s candidate. It is difficult to imagine more favourable circumstances for outsiders and insurgents.”

For this insurgency they chose Simon Dancuzk. Dancuzk had previously been an MP, for Rochdale no less, for the Labour party. He was known in the town, particularly for his work in investigating historical allegations of child abuse by politicians. Rochdale had had a long serving Liberal/Lib Dem MP called Cyril Smith from 1972 to 1992. Smith had co-founded hostels for young boys. After his death, some 144 formal complaints would be made about him, and it was revealed that both the police and intelligence services had been instrumental in the cover up of his crimes. Danczuk would investigate these allegations and release a bestselling book about them in 2015.

And yet, he who lives by the sword dies by the sword. In December 2015, Danczuk was reported to have sent sexually explicit messages to a seventeen-year-old girl. He blamed his decision making on the stress caused by his then ongoing divorce and would be kicked from the Labour party. He would sit from 2015 to 2017 as an Independent, before losing his seat to Lloyd.

His campaign would be based around attacking the Conservatives record of governance, particularly on immigration, and blaming the Labour run council for the state of Rochdale. He would place sixth, with just 6.3% of the vote. At the time, a disappointment for the Reform party. His feud with Galloway marred the campaign, in which Reform got more airtime than their eventual position deserved. In one particular attack he claimed Galloway had

“gone from Bradford to Tower Hamlets, now he's showing up in Rochdale. He should take his daft hat, his fat cigars and his extremist policies back to wherever he comes from.”

Deputy Leader of Reform and future MP, Richard Tice, blamed Galloway for creating a toxic and divisive campaign. He alleged that Dancuzk had even received a death threat during the campaign, and that the Reform campaigners had been intimidated and slurred at on a daily basis. It was a rough outing for a party that expected to do more, however in the end the choice of candidate wasn’t the right one.

Protests for both Israel and for Palestine took place in the aftermath of October 7th

Workers Party: Candidate: George Galloway – Former Labour MP for Glasgow Hillhead and Glasgow Kelvin from 1987-2005, former Respect Party MP for Bethnal Green and Bow from 2005-2010 and former Respect Party MP for Bradford West from 2012-2015.

George Galloway is an interesting figure within politics. A long-time Labour member and later MP, Galloway left the party in protest to Blair’s decision to invade Iraq. Over the next eight years he would stage two comebacks, in Bethnal Green and in Bradford, fighting for his new Respect Party, largely in opposition to the Iraq War. However, he would finally lose his Bradford seat in 2015, slinking back from the frontline.

Any report, both made during the campaign and since, will freely mention that around 30% of Rochdale’s electorate was Muslim. Disaffected by Starmer’s lack of a clear stance on Gaza, they had begun to pull away from the Labour party. As mentioned earlier, by this time, many in Britain looked at Israel’s actions in Gaza with disgust, especially the Muslim population.

In stepped George Galloway, at the head of his new party, the Workers Party of Britain. At the time, this was the only openly pro-ceasefire and anti-Israel party operating in the mainstream. His campaign was two-fold. On the one hand, he openly discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. His leaflets were printed in the red, green and black pan-Arabic colours and contained Arabic words on them. A Conservative minister accused this literature of being “full of hate” and “designed to rally fear”. 

On the other hand he appealed to disaffected white voters, speaking on anti-woke issues and talking about the need to tackle the grooming gangs. He quickly found a cult support in the town, uniting both communities in his coalition.

George Galloway ran a uniquely foreign policy focused by-election campaign. A sharp reminder of just how deep the Israeli/Palestine conflict has cut across society in Britain

Outlook

On the 29th February, George Galloway was voted in as MP for Rochdale with 39.7% of the vote. In his victory speech he declared:

“Keir Starmer - this is for Gaza. And you will pay a high price, in enabling, encouraging and covering for, the catastrophe presently going on in occupied Palestine in the Gaza strip. … This is going to spark a movement, a landslide, a shifting of the tectonic plates in scores of parliamentary constituencies. … Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak are two cheeks of the same backside and they both got well and truly spanked tonight.”

Despite his victory, it is worth noting who he beat.

-            A Tory candidate who represented a party seen as out of touch and riddled in scandal, and who’d been on holiday for two weeks of the campaign

-            A Lib Dem candidate who represented a party whose last MP in the area had abused over 140 schoolboys.

-            A Labour candidate who was struck off after he claimed Israel had allowed itself to be attacked

-            A Green candidate who was struck off after it emerged, he been derogatory to Muslims on Facebook, whilst in a heavily Muslim seat

-            And a Reform candidate, who was best known for sexting a teenager

Honestly, quite the cast.

In all eleven people ran in Rochdale, four as independents, two as struck off independents, and one as the Monster Raving Loony Party. In the end, Galloway’s closest opponent would be an independent. Local businessman David Tully would secure 21.3%, promising simply to “sort what’s on my doorstep around me and stop Rochdale’s reputation being tarnished anymore”. Unfortunatley for Tully, the Rochdale by-election could continue to tarnish his town’s reputation.

Rochdale was a unique election, in that international issues occupied so much of the airtime. Parliamentary by-elections do not often touch on such matters. And yet here, they played the decisive role.

Galloway at the count. He would be an MP for Rochdale for 127 days, before losing his seat at the General by 1,440 votes

Legacy

Galloway would be in office for four months before the General Election campaign would kick off. Just weeks after his entry to parliament, Lee Anderson would take a seat next to him. Anderson had just defected from the Conservatives to Reform, becoming Reform’s first ever MP. He claimed; “I don't actually believe that the Islamists have got control of our country, but what I do believe is they've got control of Khan and they've got control of London, and they've got control of Starmer as well.” Clearly these two men occupied very different trains of thought, and yet they both uniquely represented Britain in 2024.

I remember thinking at the time, this parliament is tired. It was splintering. New parties were seemingly popping out of the woodwork every other week. Alba, Reform and now the Worker’s Party. In 2023 there had even been a Reclaim Party MP. Five long years had dragged on, and it was time for a General Election to refresh the decks. Little did I know that the 2024 General would lead to the most splintered parliament in history. By the time of dissolution, the ruling Conservatives had lost a net 21 MPs, and 17 MPs from across the spectrum sat as Independents thanks to a variety of suspensions, withdrawn whips and resignations. Scandal after scandal had rained down on the House of Commons

Galloway had promised a “shifting of the tectonic plates in scores of constituencies”. The Workers Party would put up 152 candidates in the General, the sixth most of any party. They would not win a single seat. Instead, they won over 210,000 votes, good for 0.73% of the vote. Galloway lost his seat to Labour by just 1,440 votes in a close fought race to Labour. The Workers Party would win over twenty percent in four seats; Rochdale, Brimingham Yardley and Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North, coming second in all three. There is real potential there for the party to develop from just the latest election vehicle for Galloway into a legitimate political party.

Whilst the Workers Party appears to be down, the War in Gaza still rages, Israel expanding the scope of operations time and again into more states, breaking more international laws, and committing more war crimes. Whilst that continues, there will still be a platform for a party, or politician, who wants to stand up for the people of Palestine, and who wants to call out Israel.

Moreover, looking at this from a mid-2025 perceptive, the party once unable to win a seat, Reform, looks like the people’s choice at the moment. Nowcast currently, at time of writing, has them as the largest party, leading in 311 seats, Labour in second on 145 seats and Lib Dems in third on 80 seats. The right-wing has its populist leader, it seems only natural that one might emerge from the left-wing. After all, Thatcher had Foot. Trump had Bernie. With Labour looking increasingly not it, will someone emerge from the Lib Dems, the Greens or even the Workers Party?

Rochdale seemed not to have played a massive role, or indeed any role, in changing foreign policy on Gaza. Marchers are still marching, people are still dying, and weapons are still being sold. However, and completely unrelated to Galloway, in early June 2025 the UK, along with several allies, announced sanctions against several members of the Israeli government, including Itmar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. Is this the start of a tidal change in policy, or is it just a cosmetic difference?