Better late than never no doubt, when the Labour Party finally cast adrift its candidate for the upcoming Rochdale by-election, Azhar Ali, after his outrageous remarks on Israel. But questions linger over its handling of the affair: did no one, for instance, who attended the meeting where Councillor Ali made his comments see any objection to them at the time or think to tip off the party leadership? Shadow ministers were still rallying around their man earlier this week following the release of an apology as his campaign continued, before the revelation of further comments sealed his fate.

Sir Keir Starmer’s promise of “zero tolerance” of antisemitism was better demonstrated the following day when the parliamentary candidate for Hyndburn, Graham Jones, was suspended for reportedly suggesting that British people who fight for the IDF should be locked up.

Political pundits have enjoyed a field day as they pored over the party’s internal machinations and debated whether pragmatism had initially prevailed over principle. But for many Jews the return of antisemitism to the political headlines will be dismaying, particularly as the candidates at the centre of the controversy are not from the ideological left where Israeolophobia has usually nested. Some within our community who might have been planning to come back to Labour at the next election must be having second thoughts after this week’s chaotic events. And what of the party’s supporters in Rochdale, who not only have no officially recognised candidate to vote for in less than a fortnight but three former Labour representatives of one stripe of another among the choices? That the gates to Westminster might be open to George Galloway, archdeacon of anti-Zionism, even for a short spell, does not bear thinking about.