Sir Keir Starmer is facing a fresh Labour row after a senior member accused ‘murdered’ Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny of being a ‘far-Right Nazi sympathiser’.
Mish Rahman, who sits on Labour’s NEC ruling body, criticised Sir Keir for praising the ‘courage’ of Mr Navalny, who died on Friday at the Polar Wolf penal colony in Kharp, about 1,200 miles northeast of Moscow.
Just days after the Putin critic’s mystery death was revealed, Mr Rahman hit out at Mr Navalny over a 2007 video where he compared Muslims in Chechnya to ‘cockroaches’.
He wrote on X: ‘A case of my enemy’s enemy is my friend. Ignoring the fact that Navalny was a far right Nazi sympathiser… Starmer’s ignorance has no bounds.’
Mr Rahman had retweeted the Labour leader’s post which said: ‘Alexei Navalny showed incredible, impossible courage in his fight for Russian democracy.
‘His death is terrible news for the Russian people. My thoughts are with his friends and family, as well as his supporters across the world.’
Tory MP Bob Seely told The Sun on Sunday: ‘This looks like more evidence that the Labour Party hasn’t changed.
‘Directly below Labour’s leadership its senior activists appear to be attacking pro-Western democrats rather than its adversaries.’
It’s understood Mr Rahman’s comments do not pass the threshold to face disciplinary action.
Mr Rahman declined to comment to the newspaper but later tweeted: ‘Navalny’s Islamophobic record is plain to see.’ MailOnline has contacted Mr Rahman independently.
Mr Navalny’s spokesperson confirmed that the Russian opposition leader died at a remote Arctic penal colony and said he was ‘murdered’.
But it remains unclear where his body is.
Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Mr Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that Mr Navalny’s mother had been told by prison officials that her son had perished due to ‘sudden death syndrome’ when she arrived at his former penal colony on Saturday with one of the politician’s lawyers.
When a lawyer and Mr Navalny’s mother visited the mortuary in Salekhard, it was closed, Mr Navalny’s team wrote on its Telegram channel. The lawyer called the mortuary and was told that Mr Navalny’s body is not there, his team said.
Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron has signalled that there could be fresh sanctions against Russia officials, following the death of Mr Navalny.
Mr Rahman’s comments about Mr Navalny comes as Labour currently has two parliamentary candidates suspended over anti-Israel remarks.
One of those is former MP Graham Jones who was found to have ranted about f***ing Israel’ during a Local Labour meeting.
Mr Jones was suspended by Sir Keir after also claiming that Britons who fight for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) should be ‘locked up’.
The 57-year-old who is standing for re-election to his hold Hyndburn seat at the general election, was administratively suspended from Labour pending an investigation.
The bombshell audio recording, revealed by political website Guido Fawkes, is said to have been made at the same meeting in Lancashire where Azhar Ali suggested Israel ‘deliberately allowed’ Hamas’s October 7 attack as a pretext to invade Gaza.
The Mail on Sunday revealed that Mr Ali, who was previously Labour’s candidate for this month’s Rochdale by-election, said Israel allowed the brutal attacks so the country would have a ‘green light to do whatever they bloody want’.
Labour initially tried to hold the line by publishing a statement from Mr Ali in which he apologised ‘unreservedly’ for his words. The party then executed a panicked U-turn after further offensive remarks from the meeting were published by the Daily Mail.
It is too late for Labour to remove Mr Ali from the ballot paper, so he will still stand as its candidate. But if elected, he will be denied the whip and have to sit as an independent MP.
It is a further blow to Sir Keir’s efforts to move Labour on from the frequent anti-Semitism rows that dogged Labour under his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn.
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
