'Respect' and George Galloway

Restore secular politics in Tower Hamlets

I don't like the idea that a privileged, conservative judge ousts Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman for alleged electoral malpractice, rather than a tribunal of the people he is supposed to serve. I also don't know whether all the accusations against Rahman upheld by the judge are true or not. I am not going to take the judge's word for it. I am also not going to take the word of former councillors for George Galloway's Respect group that he is not. The residents of Tower Hamlets, of which I am one, have plenty of reasons to want Rahman and his communalist politics out. Some left-wingers are...

Condemn the attack on George Galloway

Bradford MP George Galloway was hospitalised with a broken jaw and rib after being attacked in Notting Hill on 29 August. The evidence suggests that Galloway was attacked because of his positions on and comments he has made about Israel-Palestine. The man accused of attacking Galloway, Neil Masterson, has said in the press that he was bothered by Galloway's anti-semitism. Galloway's politics on Israel are very bad; Masterson seems to be a right winger, a defender of the Israeli government and its oppression of the Palestinians. Politicians should not be physically attacked for expressing their...

The Old Left Continues To Rot (1994)

THE "George-Galloway-loves-Saddam-Hussein" affair gave the Tories a brief respite from their own scandals and sensational revelations last week. It brought no respite to socialists concerned at the continuing decay of the old left. It was the latest putrescent manifestation of that decay. The Tories needed the respite, and though in fact it was the BBC monitoring service which "broke" the story, we got tabloid front pages. Beneath the abuse, they must have loved George Galloway! "Where's your nose been Galloway? ...Presstuck up Saddam's junta, that's where!" grimly chortled the dingy Star. The...

No support for US bombs: but Assad is main enemy

Syria's disgusting, murderous, one-party state is responsible for mass murder, torture on a vast scale, and an enormous humanitarian disaster inside Syria, where whole towns have been raised to rubble. Over four million are internally displaced, nearly two million have fled the country, seven million are in immediate need of humanitarian aid, the economy has collapsed, and over 100,000 are dead. The main responsibility for this utterly avoidable catastrophe belongs to the Syrian government and military. Bashar Assad’s small ruling inner circle has chosen to reinforce and exploit sectarian...

The Galloway-Miliband affair

According to the Daily Mail (21 April), Labour leader Ed Miliband had an hour-long meeting in his office with George Galloway. A Labour spokesman felt the need to insist that there is "no attempt" to readmit Galloway to the Labour Party, and what Miliband was discussing - for an hour... - was just a vote on boundary changes. The report has sparked a many-sided row. The Daily Mail has run a continuing campaign about the meeting, saying that it shows that Miliband is "Red Ed" and too close to supposed leftists like Galloway. "Mr Miliband said he wanted further meetings - but in a secret location...

Left unity must be linked to real action

The crises and splits in the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and Respect have spurred more talk about left unity. The left needs systematic unity in action where we agree, and honest dialogue where we differ, in order to reinstate socialist ideas as an option in the working class. On 26 March the Coalition of Resistance (within which the key force is the SWP splinter Counterfire) held a press conference to promote a “People’s Assembly Against Austerity” for 22 June (previously announced in a letter to the Guardian on 5 February). Workers’ Liberty supports all such gatherings; but, worryingly...

“I don’t debate with Israelis”

When I first entered politics, I used to respect George Galloway, he was one of few prominent politicians with a viewpoint that seemed to resonate with my own. I liked the way he could run rings around ignorant TV presenters; his eloquent and devastating oratory gave comfort to me that my anti-Iraq-war feelings weren’t either as isolated, or as naive as every analyst made them out to be. However, any bone of affection I ever held for Galloway has long since disintegrated, further fuelled by his latest ridiculous outburst at an Oxford University debate. Upon hearing his opponent’s way of...

Learn from this by-election

Labour activists should not be complacent about Labour’s victory in the three by-elections on 29 November. All three were in safe Labour seats. That Labour won when in opposition to a coalition government whose economic strategy is both hurting and not working in its own terms reflects no endorsement on the parachuting-in of candidates or on “one nation” blather. The party with best cause to be pleased was UKIP: second in Rotherham, with 22%, and in Middlesborough, with 12%, and third in Croydon North with 6%. Probably few UKIP voters knew about or specifically voted for such UKIP policies as...

Many Bradford Wests?

Lee Jasper is running as the Respect candidate in Croydon North. Meanwhile, the redoubtable Yvonne Ridley is running on the same ticket in Rotherham, and from what I am hearing, it is squeaky bum time in two places that should be donkey with a red rosette territory. Only the voters, and not the bookmakers, will decide the outcomes of these contests, of course. But the shortening odds on the two Respect parliamentary hopefuls indicates that George Galloway’s party may do better than many commentators, myself included, had been expecting. Last time I checked, William Hill was giving 8-1 on...

Why George Galloway is suing NUS

The debate in the student movement over the Assange affair and rape apology has taken a surreal turn with George Galloway suing the National Union of Students. The controversy has focused around a motion to the 26 September meeting of NUS National Executive, at which 13 women members moved a motion condemning apologies for non-consensual sex and saying NUS should not “offer” or “share” a platform with those who make such apologies — including Tony Benn and George Galloway, because of their comments in the Assange debate. Pretty much the entire right and centre of the committee (and the broader...

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