One good thing about the 6 May results: it looks as if George Galloway is finally out of British politics.
In 2004 Galloway, expelled from the Labour Party, was offered a troop of activists to sustain him as a political figure by the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), who founded the Respect movement with Galloway as figurehead.
The SWP hoped that Respect would enable them to win over Muslim youth brought onto the streets by the marches against the Iraq war, and so agreed to overlook Galloway's record of friendship with leading figures in Saddam Hussein's regime; of taking money from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates for his political enterprises; and of never being particularly left-wing even in Labour Party terms.
By 2007 Galloway and the SWP had fallen out. The SWP hived off, leaving Galloway with a rump. However, Galloway had been elected as MP for Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005, and Respect had won 12 seats on Tower Hamlets council in 2006, so the rump Respect still had hopes as an electoral if not as a grass-roots activist force.
On 6 May Galloway's designated successor, Abjol Miah, finished third in Bethnal Green and Bow. Galloway himself, moving to the neighbouring constituency of Poplar and Limehouse, also finished third.
The twelve Tower Hamlets Respect councillors of 2006 had already been whittled down by defections, and after 6 May only one remains.
Respect still has three council seats in Birmingham. Only one of those was up for contest on 6 May, and Salma Yaqoob defended that successfully. She also did relatively well in the parliamentary election, winning 25% and coming second in the Hall Green constituency.
This may be partly because Yaqoob has a more left-wing - and less demagogic! - political profile than Galloway, and, although a religious Muslim herself, is less Muslim-communalist than the Catholic Galloway.
Comments
wow
What a pathetically bitter response to this situation. How can it ever be good news that a genuinely left-wing politician is left out of parliament? Even if you don't like him for your own personal reasons, this pile of bollocks is shameful.
Liberty for workers, but only as long as they're available to the SWP, right? Shite.
Galloway "genuinely left-wing politician"?
Faceless
You ask "How can it ever be good news that a genuinely left-wing politician is left out of parliament?". It is a good thing because Galloway is a populist demagogue who hides all sorts of reactionary ideas behind a thin left wing facade. His profile as Britain's most prominent left wing MP means he helps conflate socialism in peoples minds with support for brutal anti working class regimes.
Just a few things that make him reactionary and not left wing:
- When asked to take an average workers wage he refused saying: "I couldn’t live on three workers’ wages."
- He is against womans reproductive freedom. At a hustings in Bethnal Green and Bow he said "'I have all my life been against abortion and against euthanasia".
- He has worked for Press TV, an arm of the Iranian state. He is an apologist for the brutal regime, and has refused to condemn the execution of protesters and LGBT people by his paymaster.
- He has praised anti working class and anti-Semitic clerical fascists like Hamas and Hezbollah.
- He didn't bother to vote against the digital economy bill, 90 day detention or many other right wing measures.
Plus I think your reading skills need working on: "Liberty for workers, but only as long as they're available to the SWP, right? Shite.". Workers Liberty are not the SWP. Our website is full of articles critical of the SWP. One of their lowest moments in our view was when the SWP broke up the Socialist Alliance to create the Respect lash up with Galloway.
It's not personal
Our opposition to Galloway and our celebration of his defeat (one of the few high-points of this general election) has nothing to do with personal animosity or personal feelings of any kind. Rather, I'd suggest that the slavish devotion some display towards this fake-left apologist for some of the most rotten, anti-democratic and anti-worker regimes and movements on the surface of the planet is something more than a political failing.
So, you know what we think. But I’d be genuinely interested to know how you justify your identification of Galloway as “a genuinely left-wing politician”. What, in particular, is “left-wing” about Mr Galloway? Is it his co-authoring of the infamous combination of the left and right-wing communal and clerical fascist forces in the Stop the War Coalition? Is it his puke-inducing apologetics for the murderous, anti-worker Iranian regime? Does his smearing of LGBT Iranians as child sex offenders make him more or less left-wing? Do his manifold appearances on the Iranian state-funded ‘Press TV’ add or detract from his “left-wing” credentials? What would you call a politician who flies to Bangladesh to make his stump to remote, unelected, unaccountable and really quite reactionary ‘leaders’? All good “left-wing” politics, I suppose?
What in particular is “bollocks” in our characterisation of Galloway and his machinations? Do facts simply have no bearing on your opinions?
As for: “Liberty for workers, but only as long as they're available to the SWP, right?” … I’m genuinely baffled!
Regards,
TomU
So I'm a slave? In that case
So I'm a slave? In that case why don't you liberate me, this worker, instead of attacking me for pointing out the extraneous level of bollocks in this article?
Are you all SWP here? Should I have understood that before daring to mention that you, as a result of your apparent hive-mind, have posted a huge pile of bollocks?
Start thinking, liberate yourself
Faceless,
I’d expect someone so ready to throw around such pithy and intellectually devastating criticism (“shite” and “bollocks”) to be able to answer a question or two. I’m sure that our readers would appreciate you turning your sharp polemical facilities to the actual facts of what we’ve written about Galloway … so why not give it a go? Perhaps I’ve overestimated you or perhaps you think the questions irrelevant? Which is it?
Kind regards,
TomU