Fact checking claims about the Rochdale by-election

Following the news overnight that Workers Party of Britain candidate George Galloway has won the by-election in Rochdale, we’ve seen some potentially confusing claims on social media about Labour’s defence of the seat.

In a pinned post on X (formerly Twitter) the Daily Telegraph claimed “George Galloway has won the Rochdale by-election, defeating the incumbent Labour MP”.

This isn’t quite right. The by-election in Rochdale was called following the death of the incumbent Labour MP, Sir Tony Lloyd, in January. So while Labour was the most recent incumbent party, there was no incumbent MP to contest the seat.

We’ve also seen some posts comparing Labour’s vote share of 7.7% in yesterday’s by-election to far higher vote shares won by the party in previous elections in the constituency.

Some of these posts have had responses from other users claiming there was no Labour candidate in the by-election. This is a bit complicated.

The Rochdale by-election was contested under a fairly unique set of circumstances after the Labour party’s decision to withdraw support for its chosen candidate, Azhar Ali, following comments he reportedly made about the 7 October attacks on Israel by Hamas.

Because this decision was made too late for the party to replace him as a candidate under electoral law, Mr Ali did remain on the ballot officially as a Labour party candidate, but did not have the support of the party during the rest of the election campaign.

So while the figure of 7.7% for Labour’s vote share is correct, it’s clearly not directly comparable with the party’s previous results in the constituency.