The shockwaves of Labour’s loss to ‘Gaza’ Galloway will follow Starmer to No 10

George Galloway’s victory in the Rochdale by-election will worry Labour MPs whose constituencies have large Muslim populations.

There are 19 seats in England where the number of Muslim voters is more than double Labour’s majority – including Ilford North, where Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, had a 5,218 majority at the last election, and faces a challenge from a pro-Palestinian activist.

Might Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain now become a left-wing version of Reform UK, which poses a threat to the Conservatives on their right flank, and deny Labour victory in some marginal seats? Nigel Farage, with seven parliamentary defeats to his name, shows that you don’t need to win seats to make an impact.

Luckily for Keir Starmer, there is only one Galloway, so it might be hard to replicate Farage. The opinion polls point to a huge Labour majority – as I was writing this, one analysis predicted a 260 majority – so Starmer has a cushion. Despite the horrors in Gaza, most people will vote on domestic rather than foreign policy.

The Rochdale by-election will not mark a “shifting of the tectonic plates” in scores of seats as Galloway predicted today. The contest will be remembered as a messy one-off that didn’t halt Starmer’s march to power. Normal service will resume when Labour wins the by-election expected in Blackpool South.

In the short term, Galloway’s return to the Commons benches will stoke Labour’s divisions on Gaza and put pressure on Starmer to take a tougher stance against Israel.

But I think the real lesson for Starmer is about what might happen once he becomes prime minister. The Labour turmoil over Gaza which created its problems in Rochdale tells us that foreign affairs could prove Starmer’s biggest headache in office, because he might struggle to carry his party’s MPs and grassroots members with him.

Azhar Ali, the Labour candidate the party disowned in Rochdale, was not noted as a pro-Palestinian figure and was respected by Jewish Labour members. But the crisis in Gaza led to his indefensible antisemitic remarks.

Many Labour MPs, while recoiling from such language, don’t think Starmer has got the balance right. Some believe he views the Israel-Hamas war through the lens of his battle with Jeremy Corbyn. However, it is more complicated than that. Crucially, many of Starmer’s natural allies on the soft left feel so strongly about Gaza that they have joined forces with an impotent hard left now marginalised along with Corbyn.

Despite the rotten economic inheritance Labour would have, most Labour MPs, relieved at the party winning its first election since 2005, would give an incoming Starmer government the benefit of the doubt on domestic issues. But the Gaza episode provides a warning that foreign affairs could be dangerous for PM Starmer. He and his shadow cabinet are untested and inexperienced on foreign policy, and are now running to catch up.

His hesitation over supporting a ceasefire in Gaza and Israel stemmed from his desire to stick with mainstream opinion among US and EU leaders – and to show them he could be trusted. But when he finally came out for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” last week, he gave the impression of being pushed around by the Scottish National Party.

If he wins the election, Starmer would take office at an uncertain, dangerous time for the world. The Middle East would still be at or near the top of the agenda. The threat from Vladimir Putin’s Russia is getting stronger. A return to the White House by Donald Trump could easily inflame Labour’s internal tensions. Starmer would try to work with him, but many Labour figures would struggle to stomach that.

Remarkably, Starmer could soon be catapulted from the wilderness of opposition to a pivotal role on the world stage. Ed Owen, a former Foreign Office political adviser during the Blair government now in Washington, was asked by a Democrat strategist: “Do you think Keir understands that he may well be the leader of the free world by the end of the year?”

Normally, prime ministers embroil themselves in foreign affairs towards the end of their time in Downing Street. But Starmer could face a baptism of fire. In his defence, one ally told me: “He has a good sense of right and wrong. He makes the right judgement about the long term. He works with allies. He doesn’t wobble.”

Starmer will need to prove this ally right. The untested leader will definitely be tested. To be an effective PM and win the decade in power he wants, Starmer would need to show voters he is strong on security and in control of his party. After running as “not Corbyn,” he could not allow the public to think a left-wing tail was wagging the government dog in the way the European Research Group of hardline Brexiteers pushed the May government around.

Unexpected events in foreign fields, way beyond Starmer’s control, could make such a dangerous impression hard to avoid. Despite the many pressures on the domestic front, foreign policy could yet prove his biggest challenge.