Fatima Payman’s husband has quit his job as a top aide to the Labor Party after his wife left the party that helped her get elected to the Senate and ran as an independent.
Jacob Stokes resigned on Monday as a senior policy adviser to Western Australia Emergency Services Minister Stephen Dawson, after Senator Payman dramatically split with her party over the situation in Palestine.
Mr Stokes said it had not been an easy decision to step down from the job he had held for the past year, but it was the ‘right’ decision.
According to Senator Payman, on his last day, Mr Stokes received a hug from Mr Dawson and was thanked for his service.
Mr Stokes told The West Australian the decision to quit had been made ‘after deep personal reflections and conversations with my wife’.
“The past few weeks have been incredibly challenging and as a husband my priority is and remains my wife,” he said.
“Fatima is facing an uncertain and isolating time and I want to be able to give her my unwavering support, something I was unable to provide when I worked for the state government.”
Jacob Stokes, the husband of Senator Fatima Payman, has resigned from his position as a Labor staffer after she left the parliamentary party
After crossing the floor to support a Greens motion to recognise a Palestinian state, Senator Payman was barred from the parliamentary caucus of all Labour MPs just over two weeks ago,
Senator Payman accused some of her Labor colleagues of turning a blind eye to her and decided to leave the party.
During this period, Mr Stokes took one week’s holiday each year to fly to Canberra and be with his wife.
Senator Payman said on Saturday that her husband remained a member of the ALP and that it was “his prerogative if he stayed in the party even if she went to the Senate as an independent.”
She now says she is “so proud” of her husband, who gave up the dream job he had pursued for so long.
Senator Payman (pictured left) said Mr Stokes had shown the loyalty and courage a woman ‘can only dream of’
After crossing the floor to vote against the Albanian government, Senator Payman has left Labor and will now sit as an independent senator.
“Jacob was highly respected within his ranks. Everyone loved him for the work he did,” she said.
She said Mr Stokes’ courage and loyalty is something “every woman can only dream of”.
Senator Payman insisted her husband had made the decision to quit “of his own accord” and that he had not been pressured into leaving his job by anyone within the WA Labor party.
However, she said it was untenable for him to keep the job and stand by her without embarrassing the minister or others in the Western Australian government.
Senator Payman said she had no regrets about leaving the ALP, even though the past month had been a “rollercoaster” and she knew “challenging” times lay ahead.
The dramatic departure of Senator Fatima Payman from the Labor Party raises questions about whether Labor can still count on votes from Muslim communities.
The first-term senator from Western Australia resigned from the party over her stance on Palestine and met with representatives of The Muslim Vote, a grassroots organisation that will field candidates in several Labor strongholds in Western Sydney.
However, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese continues to insist that the country’s political parties must maintain social unity.
Anthony Albanese previously said Senator Payman had ‘placed herself outside the Labor party’ after voting with the Greens
“I don’t think, and I don’t want, Australia to go down the path of religious political parties because that just undermines social cohesion,” he told reporters on Friday.
“My party is made up of… people who are Catholic, people who are Uniting Church, people who are Muslim, people who are Jewish. That’s the way we do politics in Australia, that’s the way you create cohesion.”
Senator Payman’s departure is also a signal that Albanese’s next term could be a minority government. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton called it a “disaster” because the government would include “Greens, Green-Blue … and Muslim candidates from Western Sydney”.
Cricket legend Usman Khawaja called Dutton’s comments “an absolute disgrace” and said he was “stoking Islamophobia”.