Second Labour candidate caught in Israel row as Starmer breaks silence – live

Lord Cameron said the Government is “looking closely” at the possibility of bringing children injured in Gaza to the UK for medical care.

He said: “This is Project Pure Hope, we are looking very closely at this – is it possible to take the people in greatest need and take them to British hospitals, as we have done in the past?

“The early work we’ve done is to say that there’s much we can do in the region and we should probably do that first, so helping in the field hospitals that have been established, helping to send medical teams to referral hospitals that are being used in the region supporting organisations like medical aid for Palestinians

“Now if that leads to the identification of specific cases where actually they would be better off taking that long journey back to Britain and going to Great Ormond Street Hospital, then we certainly don’t rule that out and continue to look at it.”

Keir Starmer is at the centre of a second antisemitism storm after Labour was forced to suspend a would-be MP just 24 hours after it ditched its candidate in the Rochdale by-election.

The party acted on Tuesday after Graham Jones, the prospective Labour MP for Hyndburn, said Britons who volunteer to fight for the Israeli Defence Force “should be locked up”.

His taped comments, in which he also referred to “f**king Israel”, were reportedly made in a rant to Azhar Ali at a now infamous meeting in which Mr Ali claimed Israel “allowed” the Hamas terror attack as an excuse to attack Gaza.

Jewish Labour Movement, one of the oldest societies affiliated to the party, demanded an investigation and said the party should stand Jones down as a candidate.

My colleagues Kate Devlin and Archie Mitchell have more in this report:

A Labour MP has said the scandal surrounding former Rochdale by-election candidate Azhar Ali is “embarrassing” for the party.

But Steve McCabe insisted Sir Keir Starmer had not blundered his handling of Mr Ali’s anti-Israel comments.

Mr McCabe told GB News: “It’s obviously difficult and embarrassing for the Labour Party. But I mean I think when you are confronted with a situation like this, you don’t have a choice and you have to do what you believe to be right.

“I’ve been involved in times where allegations have been made about candidates.

Sometimes you have to weigh up. You know, you have to ask how important it is, what else is influencing it? I think the issue is that conditionally people were prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt that he said his apology in good faith.

“But I think with the further revelations it was too late and that was just the end of it in the end.”

The UK will continue to challenge Israel over its actions in Gaza, as it judges “whether they are compliant with international humanitarian law”, Lord Cameron has said.

] Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle, the Green Party peer, had asked the foreign secretary about the UK’s actions to protect children in Gaza, and suggested it was “time to stop all arms shipments to Israel” as well as “implement targeted sanctions against members of the Israeli leadership, particularly those calling for new settlements in Gaza and on the West Bank”.

Lord Cameron replied: “We want to see an end to the suffering, an end to this killing. Let me just make this point that the pause we are calling for, we want to turn into a ceasefire by making sure the conditions are right for getting a stop in the fighting to mean a permanent ceasefire.

“The way you do that is by fulfilling a number of conditions. You have got to get in our view the Hamas leaders out of Gaza, otherwise any ceasefire won’t last because the problem will still be there.

“You have got to dismantle the operation of terrorist attacks, you have got to have a new Palestinian Authority government in place, you have got to give the Palestinian people a political horizon to a better future and a two-state solution, and crucially you have got to release all of the hostages and do that very quickly.

“She asked if we challenge the Israel government over individual episodes, yes we absolutely do. I have done that personally with them over for instance a building that was bombed that had UK medics and other charities in, and we will continue to do that as part of the very important process that we go through to judge whether they are compliant with international humanitarian law.”

Labour’s former Rochdale by-election candidate Azhar Ali said Benjamin Netenyahu allowed the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel because he was “in political trouble”.

In the first audio recording of his controversial comments to be made public, the local councillor said the Israeli prime minister “deliberately took the security off” and “allowed the massacre”.

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Keir Starmer has insisted he took “decisive” action after Labour was accused of a “shambolic” delay in withdrawing support for a candidate who claimed Israel had “allowed” the Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people.

In his first public comments since the row erupted on Sunday, the Labour leader also denied he would have dumped the would-be MP sooner if he had been on the left of his party.

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According to Electoral Commission rules, a candidate can only withdraw from a UK parliament constituency election 19 days before voting takes place.

The Rochdale byelection Azhar Ali is standing in will take place on 29 February, meaning it was too late for him to be removed.

Therefore, he will appear as a Labour candidate on the ballot paper when voters head to the polls to choose their next MP.

However, Labour has withdrawn all support for Mr Ali and suspended him and the party will not campaign for the leader of Lancashire County Council over the next two weeks.

If Mr Ali wins the byelection then he will sit in the House of Commons as an independent MP. Labour will likely choose a different candidate to fight the next general election.

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