Labour’s Rochdale by-election candidate appeared on Russia Today
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The Labour Party’s candidate in the Rochdale by-election has appeared on Russia Today twice, the Telegraph can reveal.
Cllr Azhar Ali, who will contest the seat for Labour on Feb 29 following the death of Sir Tony Lloyd, spoke on the Russian propaganda channel to criticise the Government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Russia Today was not banned in the UK until 2022 but the channel was fined £200,000 by Ofcom in 2019 for “serious failures” to comply with impartiality rules in its coverage of the Syrian conflict and the Salisbury poisonings.
Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in the Wiltshire city in 2018 with a novichok nerve agent, which the British Government later concluded was an assassination attempt by two agents of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service.
On June 1 2020, Cllr Ali used his public Facebook account to share a link to Russia Today’s Twitter account – which has now been withheld in the UK – that included a video clip of his appearance.
“I was on RT news live this afternoon talking about how the Labour campaign in Lancashire to keep our kids safe working with unions, teachers and parents forced a welcome U-turn by the Tory leadership on Lancashire County Council.”
After pressure from local Labour politicians, Lancashire County Council defied government advice and advised the county’s schools not to re-open to more pupils on June 1 as the first set of lockdown restrictions began to ease.
Ministers had urged primary schools to open their doors to all reception, Year 1 and Year 6 children from the start of the month.
Cllr Ali shared another link to a Russia Today tweet to his Facebook page on Oct 7, which said: “My interview yesterday about the governments (sic) handling of Covid.”
A preview of the post quotes Cllr Ali as saying: “The privatised test-and-trace the Government have put in place has failed miserably.”
At the time of the Salisbury poisonings, John McDonnell, Labour’s then shadow chancellor, said his party’s MPs should no longer appear on Russia Today in the wake of the poisonings.
Bob Seely, a Tory MP who sits on the Commons foreign affairs committee, said: “No credible British politician or commentator should be appearing on Russia Today.
“The channel is a mouthpiece for Putin’s neo-fascist regime and is a peddler of lies on a global scale.
“The fact that Labour’s candidate was on that channel shows either incredibly poor judgement or extreme politics. Both should preclude him from becoming an MP. This shows that Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has not changed.”
Cllr Ali has not appeared on the channel since Oct 7 2020, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and has not appeared on the channel since it was banned by the Government following the start of the war.
The Labour Party and Mr Ali were contacted for comment.
