By Nadia Klok
London Secretary of the Workers Party of Great Britain
“It all starts here you see,” states my father, as we walked down Duke Street off Grosvenor square some few years back, “Where do you think Simon Bolivar got his taste for revolution against Spanish Imperialism? Or where Karl Marx got the balls to write ‘Das Kapital?’” I looked on, not really understanding the depths of his point. “Dickens, Nadia. How did Dickens understand Victorian poverty and cruelty so well? How do you think Engels learned to produce vast literature on the English Working Classes? Even Voltaire gifted us with his brief presence.”
“They learned it all here, in London and Britain. It’s from here that they took fire and launched their most audacious revolutions in life, but the question is, why here?” I couldn’t answer and realised how poorly read I was.
Living in the countryside of the Netherlands for 7 years, I had come to an understanding that Britons were indeed suffering from draconian measures placed by the government compared to their European counterparts on the continent. It was quite difficult to find a homeless individual or convict in the Netherlands, not to say that they didn’t exist! Not at all, but it wasn’t so easy as they were to find unfortunately on the streets of London, Birmingham, Brighton, Newcastle and Manchester.
Father made his final point, “But like all good things in Britain, quite a few bad things happened here too. For example, our awful foreign policies, ‘The Picot-Sykes agreement’, the handing over of Hejaz to Ibn Saud by Gertrude bloody Bell (nabbing it from the Hashemites) and lastly the Balfour declaration; a few famous mentions amongst an ocean of sins.”
Our foreign policy was and still is quite dire. The corrupt elite have taken precedence in decision-making over our experts in the field. Like the moment Dr. David Kelly (God rest his soul) had told the world that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or when Lord Chilcot (God rest his soul) retained an ounce of honour for this island given its criminal military campaign in Iraq through the Chilcot Report, or even when good old Robert Fisk (God his rest his soul too) of the Independent debunked the false allegations of chemical weapons in Syria; On the 1st of March 2024, the Right Honourable MP for Rochdale, George Galloway; had given decent Britons and all those who carry compassion within the centre of their hearts a chance to fight back and a shy glimmer of hope for humanity.
When Galloway gave his opening remark in the Oxford Union debate on whether one should fight for King and country (9th February 2023-Ref 2), George questioned the audience, “Tony Blair, anyone? Who caused the deaths of a million people and counting? Who cascaded fanatic Islamist extremism around the world? …the murder cult of ISIS, Al-Qaeda, the head chopping, throat cutting, the million dead Iraqis, and you want to do it all again? by sending a blank cheque to Tobias Elwood? He told you; did you notice the caveat that he slipped in for you? ‘There’s no conscription…yet.’ Did you notice it?” (as he points to Tobias Elwood MP for Bournemouth East) “He was on television less than 2 weeks ago calling for martial law to be introduced in this country!’”
Approximately a year later, it was General Sir Patrick Sanders who spoke of the need to train citizens to fight in future wars (ref 3). Also, our unelected 1922 committee selected Prime minister Rishi Sunak stated that the anti-genocide marches were descending into mob rule and extremism (ref 4), which really meant that Britons will now have their right to protest put under threat of being taken away.
Remembrance Day on the 11th of November has suddenly taken on a whole new meaning; not the war to end all wars as one would have hoped, but a moment of glorification to all sacrifices of the (British & Colonial) working classes who gave up their bodies to the imperialistic values of a few against their own interests.
So, it begs the question, why were these wars created in the first place, which powers in the background forced us to make such military blunders over the last 20 years? And, for what reasons?
The meddling in the Middle East has now backfired, with what could have been a good alliance, now dashed because of the willpower of elites to protect Israel’s interests over Britain’s. All those years of war was to protect the colonial project of Israel to inherit more of the Middle East (or at least increase Israel’s leasehold in the Middle East)
Not only has it backfired in terms of diplomatic relations, it has backfired in terms of what has happened domestically. Which now brings me to Rochdale. Twenty minutes away from the bustling city of Manchester, lies a working class town with old (but quite beautiful) factories which have now been boarded up. Rochdale was a product of the industrial revolution taking an important part in textile production. Its Rochdale Pioneers were the first to introduce a ‘co-operative’ movement, also the first to introduce patronage dividends. However, all this went into decline in the 1950s-70s due to cheaper materials from abroad (another reason why Globalisation hasn’t really done the British domestic working-class population any favours). Its local football club, Rochdale A.F.C was on the brink of collapse and bankruptcy, its Accident and Emergency unit had been demolished as well as its maternity ward.
Quite rightly, George had stated, “You couldn’t be born in Rochdale, nor could you die.” As a result, when canvassing in Healy for George on the streets of Rochdale, I came to notice a few people apathetic about the whole political system. I found they were all in all, a kind people. There were a few who didn’t agree or like George on a personal level, but none the less, they were kind.
After years of useless wars, a badly executed Covid pandemic, inflation which made food, gas and electricity unaffordable, interest rates too high to take out a mortgage, hardly any career prospects, no A&E, no maternity ward, football club on the verge of collapse, possible conscription because of a possible all-out war with Russia and finally the bad publicity given the dismal failures of the authorities in regards to ‘grooming gangs,’ it seems no wonder that the constituents of Rochdale had just had about enough.
But the straw that broke the camel’s back, was Gaza. After 157 days of collective punishment by the Israeli authorities, Gaza is a now shadow of what it was before. An act of resistance (foolish as it may have seemed to most) was the result of desperation and bitterness from occupation and oppression. Their pleas had fallen on to deaf ears with no other option deemed possible in sight, an act of aggression was committed on the 7th of October 2023. A land, once wholly known as Palestine had been given to the highest bidder as a mandate in the cursed Balfour declaration. A declaration that saw a people with a culture, schools, universities, cinemas, a governance utterly destroyed or maimed by the 1948 Nakba. The declaration is a stain on Britain’s history that as in Galloway’s terms, is a spot that, “None of the perfumes of Arabia, could expunge.”
Gaza now has at least 31,000 dead, 72,000 maimed and injured. Of the dead, at least 12,800 were children, approximately 9000 women and 9200 men. 19,000 children have been orphaned. These numbers have been hard to keep up with given the rate of increase on a daily basis. A genocide is taking place, now, today in Gaza.
Given that Rochdale has a numerous Muslim and Asian population, it has been the so-called reason as to why Galloway won the electoral seat in Rochdale. However, closer analysis of the results, suggests that this is not true. The Rochdale electorate is 70,000, there was a 40% turnout, so therefore 28,000 votes in total. Muslims make up 20% of the electorate so if we could assume an equal distribution in demographic and therefore out of the 28,000 votes there were 7000 ‘Muslim’ votes. If 80% voted for George (to balance out the previous assumption), it would have been 5600 votes for the Worker’s Party. Galloway got 12,500 votes, so we could deduce that approximately 7000 were non-Muslim. What does could that say about the population of Rochdale? White working class or Muslim working class, both categories cared about what was happening in Gaza as well as what has happened to Rochdale.
The win in Rochdale has signalled to the world that the ability to fight back still exists. Most importantly, it has given the children of Gaza some glimmer of hope to end their nightmare.
Since our win in Rochdale, 460 candidates have stepped forward to stand as electoral workers party candidates across nearly all boroughs. With no one funding us, no money from Russia, China, the middle east, America or (unlikely) Israel, our struggle seems an all too real British one. It will take physical action on the streets, by canvassing, talking and debating with the public to win them over.
On the 4th of March 2024, I happily witnessed our George being sworn into Parliament. As I sat there in the gallery with my mother (who is also all too fond of George) we quietly prayed and wished for his triumph and victory in future endeavours, and that he would finally bring justice to those oppressed and some honour back to this island, which we had not seen since 1945.
References
Labour Affairs 
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