GORGEOUS GEORGE

In the early hours of Saint David's Day, March 1st 2024, a pensioner wearing a rakishly angled felt fedora was duly elected the MP for the constituency of Rochdale in the north west of England. He had achieved a decent majority on a turnout of just under 40%, a figure consistent with many recent Westminster bye elections. The reaction of the establishment was however, instantaneous: the winner was denounced as a divisive demagogue and carpetbagger and even the Prime Minister felt strongly enough to give an impromptu press conference in Downing Street in which the new MP was accused of being an enemy of democracy and the purveyor of hate speech. It was all pretty strong stuff and seemed to imply the citizens of Rochdale were subversives and bigots for having the temerity to return him to Parliament. Wags were quick to brand him as the new "Member for Gaza".

A few days later he appeared at the bar of the House of Commons to take his seat. A seeming pariah, only two members could be found to escort him to the Speaker to swear the oath of loyalty. This he duly did, firmly gripping the Bible and sonorously declaring his fealty to the monarch in the eyes of God.  Later and accompanied by his beautiful younger wife, who is of Indonesian heritage and who sported bright fingernails in the colours of the Palestinian flag, the man signalled his pleasure at having sworn the oath as a Roman Catholic. A few days afterwards he delivered a short "maiden" speech to a largely deserted chamber in which he excoriated the main parties ("two cheeks of the same pair of buttocks") for the serial neglect of the poverty which, he said, unquestionably characterised his constituency. Aside from its directness and lack of artifice, the record of his contribution was mostly distinguished by the rude behaviour of the few other MPs present, one of whom (on the Liberal bench) could be seen languidly scrolling through her phone messages. More fool them as folk generally have a greater aversion to bad manners than they do to the extremity of a person's political views.

What is it about George Galloway MP that seems to continually get up some people's noses like a massive dose of stale snuff? Perhaps it is his voice: George is conventionally described as having a Tayside lilt, but those who say so cannot have heard it when he is politically aroused. Then it sounds like a well-oiled chain saw biting into seasoned wood. He is also conventionally described as being no stranger to controversy and a demagogue in the sense that he loudly promotes causes which are a little too gamey for the mainstream. Certainly he has an unerring ability to draw attention to himself in ways which cause many to doubt his motivation if not his sincerity. The faint whiff of corruption over his association with those involved with the (illegal) trafficking of Iraqi oil has never fully dispersed. His seeming championship of tyrants like Saddam Hussein, Bashir al Assad and Vladimir Putin and his apologetics on behalf of groups like Hezbollah (but emphatically not ISIS) have attracted incredulity, anger and fear. 

Notwithstanding, Galloway has achieved an extraordinary political longevity, not least because he has so often been on the cusp of oblivion: in the general election of 2019 he  barely scraped a thousand votes. Yet in his career he has represented constituencies from Glasgow to London and points in between. He has also attracted some extraordinary political bedfellows and supporters given his association with the far left (he is after all leader of the Workers Party of Britain) and lent his weight to the BREXIT campaign as well as being a long standing opponent of the SNP and Scottish independence. Some have dismissed this as the chameleon behaviour of a unprincipled careerist who is only interested in self promotion. Which again, if true, makes his enduring appeal something of a mystery.

Digging a little deeper, the one constant of his political journey in the twenty first century is his determination to expose the growing shallowness and cant of the Labour Party which he represented for many years in Glasgow and which summarily expelled him for his angry opposition to the war against Iraq in 2003. In this at least, George has been proven to be entirely on the money as he has been about western intervention in places like Libya and Syria. In his latest incarnation, Galloway has championed the people of Gaza, in a way in which he perceives the Labour Party to be shamefully and cynically incapable, despite the desperation of the Palestinian civilians caught in the ruthless and bloody fight between Hamas and the IDF. 

In this too, Galloway stands in the great tradition of British political radicalism from the libertine John Wilkes in the 18th century to the atheist MP Charles Bradlaugh in the next. In each case there was an identification and exposition of causes which were inexpedient at the time but which later developed a full flowering in popular consciousness. In the case of Gaza, we are perhaps already there. The seemingly endless demonstrations for the Palestinians cannot simply be dismissed as misguided endorsement of the murderous attacks on Israel by Hamas in October 2023. These huge and resonant rallies embrace far more people than those with merely sectarian interests. They too are in a tradition: the CND marches of the 1970s and 1980s,  Greenham Common and the massive "Stop the War" campaign of 2003.

Rochdale is a constituency in which very nearly a third of the citizens are of south Asian heritage and predominantly Muslim in religious faith. Whatever one thinks of Galloway's alleged opportunism, the denunciation of his victory by the establishment was as ridiculous as it was crass. If anything, his achievement has done them all a favour by giving the so-called voices of extremism a safety valve in the Commons and representation to a community which on the issue of their co-religionists in the Middle East, feels marginalised. In this sense, Galloway is only tearing away a veil which covers conflicting forces of faith, citizenship and social attitudes which mainstream politicians would rather ignore, not least because they have been so complicit in their steady festering. 

It is also worth making a presumption that Galloway's political activities are in fact strongly motivated by his own religious faith. George has always said that his transcendental beliefs are a private matter, but it is not hard to believe the Almighty smiles down upon his antics, not least because he has consistently shown a preference for the causes of the poor and marginalised. He supported the right of members of the Labour Party to campaign for a pro-life agenda even after access to abortion, previously a matter of conscience, became official Labour policy. He continues to support the family long after so-called progressives have deemed it expedient to disdain it, knowing full well how the poor are doubly disadvantaged by the lack of a secure unit at home. However, he drew the line at the Roman Catholic Scottish hierarchy's strictures against homosexuality. In all this Galloway has shown a degree of Christian humanism which seems far more appealing than do the dogmas of the princes of his church and certainly more so than the secular pieties of his former party.

At the Rochdale bye election, Galloway received more votes than all the other mainstream parties combined. The owner of a local garage who stood as an Independent came second. It was the first time in modern political history that the top two places in an election have been taken by anyone who did not represent Labour, the Liberals or the Conservatives. Of course, one bye election does not make a trend, but a more skilled politician than either Sunak or Starmer would have pondered before so foolishly denouncing the new MP.

Folk are not stupid. They know that politicians of all stripes have different views to balance and difficult choices to make. But they are tired of trying to elicit meaning from the evasions, virtue signalling and banalities of machine produced party politicians. They may not know what precisely George Galloway thinks, but they sure as hell know where he stands.

The man from Dundee won his seat fair and square. Let's hope he gets to keep it at the next election.