Keir Starmer has defended his handling of the controversy surrounding Labour’s candidate in Rochdale, who was suspended by the party on Monday night after days of revelations about remarks he made about Israel soon after the Hamas attacks. The Labour leader said on Tuesday he had taken tough and decisive action against Azhar Ali, who will now campaign for the Rochdale seat with no official support from the party. Starmer had come under fire from many inside and outside the party for his handling of the issue, after initially giving Ali his backing over the weekend, only to reverse that decision 36 hours later. Speaking while he campaigned in Wellingborough before Thursday’s byelection, Starmer insisted he had done the right thing. “Certain information came to light over the weekend in relation to the candidate [and] there was a fulsome apology,” he said. “Further information came to light yesterday calling for decisive action, so I took decisive action.” He added: “It is a huge thing to withdraw support for a Labour candidate during the course of a byelection. It’s a tough decision, a necessary decision, but when I say the Labour party has changed under my leadership I mean it.” Starmer was addressing the controversy in person for the first time since allegations broke over the weekend that Ali had suggested during a private meeting in October that he thought the Israelis had deliberately allowed the 7 October attack to happen. According to a recording of Ali’s comments reported by the Mail on Sunday, he told those at the meeting: “[Israel] deliberately took the security off, they allowed … that massacre that gives them the green light to do whatever they bloody want.” Ali apologised once those comments came to light, and was given the backing of the Labour leadership, with senior ministers insisting they would continue to campaign alongside him. However, the Mail revealed on Monday night that Ali’s comments at the meeting went beyond those originally reported. According to a recording obtained by the paper, Ali also defended the MP Andy McDonald, who Labour suspended after he used the phrase “from the river to the sea” about Palestinian independence. Ali said at the meeting: “The media – and some of the people in the media from certain Jewish quarters – were giving crap about what [McDonald] said.” Starmer decided to withdraw support from Ali after his office was approached about the more recent comments, though he will still appear on ballot papers as the official Labour candidate. The Labour leader has been criticised, however, for not taking tougher action sooner, and for appearing to give favourable treatment to figures such as Ali who are from the right of the party, compared with those on the left such as McDonald who have been suspended much more quickly. Martin Forde, the lawyer whom Starmer previously commissioned to investigate allegations of bullying, racism and sexism in the party, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday: “One does have to question how such individuals are selected in the first place – and also the disparity in treatment.” He added: “One of the things that concerned us when we talked about weaponisation was certainly the perception that antisemitism was along factional lines.”