Veteran left-wing political maverick George Galloway won a vote to become the new lawmaker for the English town of Rochdale on Friday, vowing to be a thorn in the side for the opposition Labour Party before a national election it is tipped to win.
After running a pro-Palestinian campaign, Galloway won over many of Rochdale’s Muslim community by attacking both Labour and Britain’s governing Conservatives for supporting Israel in its war against Hamas, making a foreign conflict the major issue - unusual in a by-election when local concerns usually dominate.
Elected to parliament for the seventh time, Galloway will be an irritant to Labour, a party he once belonged to before being ejected for criticising then-prime minister Tony Blair over the Iraq war.
There is very little to read into this. Rochdale is an unusual constituency, Galloway is an unusually high profile candidate, there was no official Labour or Green candidate. Still, he failed to even win 40% of the vote yesterday.
This sort of thing is his speciality. He’s personally won three seats from Labour over the last few decades but never in circumstances that can be repeated by other candidates in other seats. This will be no different.
Also he’s a deeply unpleasant individual. It’s frustrating that the false charge of antisemitism gets thrown round like confetti by supporters of the Netanyahu regime, because when an actual bonafide antisemite like Galloway comes along people don’t realise that this time the shoe does fit. His previous support for Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party is total horseshoe theory stuff.
That’s more than some PMs. 40% among major parties and a total of 11 candidates is impressive.