Guido has obtained the recording of the meeting in Lancashire where Azhar Ali repeats his belief in the conspiracy theory that the Israeli government knew of the planned Hamas massacre in advance and allowed the slaughter, raping, mutilating torture and beheading of its citizens to provide a pretext for an attack on Gaza. This is a commonly held view in some circles, it was tweeted a lot yesterday. At the Labour Party meeting Azhar explained the theory at length to those listening, and not one dissenting voice can be heard in the recording.

It went entirely unchallenged because in this part of the Labour Party such sentiments are commonplace. Being pro-Palestine and anti-Israel is a vote winner. Azhar Ali took the most extreme position on the Gaza-Israel conflict and he was selected not despite but because he did so. Yesterday it was claimed that the selectorate that chose him did not know that he held such views. In this recording – made before he was selected – you can hear him say of his conspiracy theory “I’ll say it publicly and I have said it publicly”. Why did no one in the Labour Party challenge him?

For the same reason Starmer was so reluctant to drop him as a candidate when the facts became known on Saturday. Because cynically Labour thinks there are votes in it and they are beholden to extremists in many constituencies. That is why time and time again we see candidates selected who hold antisemitic views. Surely everyone in that room in Lancashire who claims to be an anti-racist needs to explain themselves. Why did they say nothing? Why did they not even report his views to party officers? The Labour Party claims it doesn’t tolerate racism, why are they not investigating the other people at that meeting? Who knew?