Workers Party Victory in Rochdale—Thursday 29 February 2024

Labour Affairs congratulates George Galloway on his victory.

George Galloway has won a landslide victory in the Rochdale by-election, saying his victory showed Keir Starmer has paid a “high price” for his stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict as Labour’s suspended candidate slumped to fourth in its former seat.

George Galloway, standing for the Workers Party, got 12,335 votes after a campaign dominated by Gaza, winning a majority of almost 6,000.

An independent candidate, David Tully, finished second on 6,638 votes. The Conservative candidate Paul Ellison finished third on 3,731 votes.

Labour’s former candidate Azhar Ali, who the party withdrew backing for during the campaign but too late to take him off the ballot, finished fourth behind the Tories with 2,402 votes – just 7.7% of the vote.

Former Labour Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk, standing for the Reform Party, got 1,968 votes. He represented the Rochdale constituency between 2010 and 2017.

Galloway said in his victory speech: “Keir Starmer, this is for Gaza. You have paid and you will pay for the role you have played in enabling, encouraging and covering for the catastrophe presently going on in occupied Palestine in the Gaza strip.

“The plates have shifted tonight…Keir Starmer’s problems just got 100 times more serious than they were before today.

“This is going to spark a movement, a landslide, a shifting of the tectonic plates in scores of parliamentary constituencies, beginning here in the North West, in the West Midlands, in London, from Ilford to Bethnal Green and Bow, labour is on notice that they have lost the confidence of millions of voters.”

Galloway vowed to ‘make Rochdale great again’

Highlighting the upcoming local elections, he added: “Rochdale town councillors, I put you on notice that I plan to put together a grand alliance…the councillors have to go.”

Galloway put his victory down to both international and local issues, and called Starmer a “betrayer”.

He said the “heart has been piece by piece removed” from Rochdale, including the 2011 closure of its A&E and threats to its football club’s future.

One campaign letter to voters pledged to “make Rochdale great again” by bringing back “big names” to the high street and campaigning for health services and Rochdale AFC. It said he believed in “law and order”,  family and Brexit, had “no difficulty defining what a woman is” and would ensure there were “no grooming gangs on my watch”.

Some comments

From an anti left point of view, the LGBT creed is invaluable in keeping the Left divided. It plays a crucial role in keeping the Left in a state of impotence.

I am puzzled by the intense dislike of Galloway amongst some of the left.

A senior officer of a Constituency Labour Party during the Corbyn years and a complete supporter of Corbyn had this to say about Galloway’s victory:

“He’s a misogynist, anti-trans and has dodgy politics. There is nothing to recommend him.”

to which I replied:

“There is nothing to recommend him?  I think there is a lot to recommend a politician who consistently criticised Israel’s policy of conquest and colonization of the Palestinian territories and, more generally, the US and UK’s role in the world.”

We need a Sahra Wagenknecht in UK!

They should at least look around them and see who and what it is that shares their antipathy to Galloway and if that’s not enough to cause a rethink then they’ve no right to claim that they represent an alternative to who and what that is. 

The problem is that he isn’t a trendy leftie who uncritically espouses all the identity stuff. To deny that his election is not a positive thing is simply ridiculous. No matter how strongly one might adhere to other issues, on the main issues of the day – the ones on which the future actually pivots – he undoubtedly has the right instincts. The fact that these lefties accuse him of being out of sync with what they envisage as a perfect politician means they have elevated their preferred topics above the main issues. They are seeking a political saviour where they should be seeking ways that might weaken the political establishment even if the weakening is done by what they perceive as an imperfect politician.

You might also mention that he wins.

It does seem that a lot of the left would far sooner keep on losing than associate with someone who made them feel impure.