What does George Galloway stand for?

George Galloway won the Rochdale constituency for the Workers Party of Britain in the early hours of Friday morning, following a disastrous by-election campaign from Labour which saw them withdraw support for their own candidate Azhar Ali over comments he made about Israel.

Galloway, who made Celebrity Big Brother viewers cringe in 2006 when he pretended to be a cat, overturned a Labour majority of more than 9,600 and bagged close to 40 per cent of the vote in a by-election sparked by the passing of former MP Tony Lloyd in January.

Once a Labour MP before he was expelled from the party in 2003 for opposing the Iraq war, Galloway went on to win the seat of Bethnal Green and Bow for the Respect Party in 2005.

The far-left, anti-war politician lost his seat (then Bradford West) in the Commons in 2015, following an election which saw him accused of a “sexist smear campaign” by winning Labour MP Naz Shah after he alleged she had lied about being coerced into a forced marriage as a teenager.

Other controversies during his political career include appearing to state having sex with an unconscious woman was not rape but “bad sexual etiquette”, and being referred to police over expenses claims which he denied, branding it a “vendetta” by a former employee.

After the Respect Party was deregistered in 2016, Galloway went on to found and lead the Workers Party of Britain in 2019.

One of its deputy leaders is Chris Williamson, the former Labour MP who was suspended in 2019 for saying the party had been “too apologetic” over antisemitism.

In that same year, he was sacked from his TalkRadio show for a tweet congratulating Liverpool for their Champions League win over Tottenham which said “no Israel flags on the Cup” – comments both Tottenham and TalkRadio criticised as being “antisemitic”.

So what does Galloway and his Workers Party of Britain stand for?

Well, the party’s website details a 10-point programme for “building a new working class politics in Britain”, which includes leaving Nato, “decent, cheap, secure housing for all” and “free and comprehensive healthcare”.

They also call for “the redistribution of wealth and power in favour of working people” and a referendum on net zero targets, oppose imperialism, and brand the Labour Party as “corrupt” and “a wolf in sheep’s clothing”.

Despite Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the party also says it deplores “the whipping up of hysterical Sino- [anti-Chinese views] and Russophobia”.

On the Israel-Palestine conflict, the Workers Party of Britain advocates for a “single state in which all those born in Palestine-Israël [sic] can live in peace with equal rights”.

"The Workers Party believes that the future is now One State: Israël–Palestine or Palestine-Israël or the Holy Land, the details cannot be worked out by us, but the picture is becoming clearer by the day," it says.

One of the ways in which America’s Anti-Defamation League sees “anti-Israel activity” becoming antisemitism is when “Israel is denied the right to exist as a Jewish state and equal member of the global community”.

The Workers Party’s “single state” proposal differs from that of Labour and the Conservatives, who support a “two-state solution” where both Israel and Palestine co-exist.

In his victory speech, Galloway said: “Keir Starmer, this is for Gaza. And you will pay a high price in enabling, encouraging and covering for the catastrophe presently going on in occupied Palestine in the Gaza Strip.

“Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak are two cheeks of the same backside and they both got well and truly spanked tonight!

“God bless you. God bless Rochdale. God bless Gaza.”

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