On Friday, George Galloway was elected by the voters of Rochdale to return to the House of Commons. What does this mean for our democracy, our politics, and the safety of our community?
George Galloway has been in and out of Parliament since 1987, representing constituencies in Glasgow, London, and Bradford. Now he has popped up in Rochdale, but one need not search his entire parliamentary career to understand what he stands for, and the types of issues that rally his supporters.
In 2014, Mr Galloway infamously declared that Bradford, where he was then an MP, would be an “Israel-free zone”. Despite having no power to issue any such ban, he declared: “We don’t want any Israeli academics coming to the university or the college, we don’t even want any Israeli tourists to come to Bradford even if any of them had thought of doing so.” When he lost his seat, he lamented that “the venal, the vile, the racists and the Zionists will all be celebrating.”
Some, including Mr Galloway himself, seek to portray him as merely a fierce — even fanatical — opponent of Israel, but it is his own words that betray deeper extremism. He claimed that the institutional antisemitism within the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn was really “a disgraceful campaign of Goebbelsian fiction”, in reference to Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propagandist. He described David Baddiel, a Jewish comic who has spoken out on antisemitism but has also gone to considerable lengths to make clear his apathy towards Israel, as a “vile Israel-fanatic”.
Following an incident that saw Tottenham Hotspur accuse him of “blatant antisemitism”, he was sacked by TalkRadio, despite his denials. Recently, he described the atrocity carried out by Hamas on 7th October as a “concentration camp breakout” and referred to Hamas terrorists as “fighters”.
In 2024, our House of Commons once again counts this man amongst those making our laws.
Perhaps remarkably, Mr Galloway is not only able to excite Islamists and the far-left, but also the far-right. His electoral success has been hailed as a “huge victory” by none other than Nick Griffin, the former BNP Leader, who has a history of Holocaust-denial. And why would he not crow about this “huge victory”? After all, Mr Galloway recently ranted about the “hold” Israel has over British politics, in words redolent of Mr Griffin’s own obsessive rhetoric.
Nevertheless, among Mr Galloway’s most ardent supporters we still find Islamist extremists. Before Hamas and Hezbollah were fully proscribed as terrorist organisations under UK law, thanks to the efforts of Campaign Against Antisemitism and others, Mr Galloway was not shy in his support of them.
He has visited Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and been photographed with him on several occasions. He has even been filmed doling out wads of cash at a press conference in Gaza.
Mr Galloway had words of high praise for Hezbollah too, saying in 2006: “I glorify the Hizballah national resistance movement, and I glorify the leader of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.” That is the same “Hizballah national resistance movement” which is believed to have been involved in bombing Jewish targets around the world over the course of decades, from Burgas to Buenas Aires, costing many innocent lives. It is the same Hezbollah that remains a key pawn in a game of genocidal chess that the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies wage against Jews.
This is a dark day for Britain, but it presents an opportunity in one respect: the House of Commons, known for its raucous rhetorical jousting, is the perfect setting for someone like Mr Galloway and his inflammatory politics to be probed and exposed for what they are.
