Below is a selection of George Galloway’s work in the House of Commons; we have omitted votes and most questions. All contributions available at https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/10218/george_galloway/rochdale
[8/5/24 David Lammy (Urgent Question): To ask the Deputy Foreign Secretary to make a statement on the war in Gaza.]
[…]
George Galloway
The Deputy Foreign Secretary’s answers today are virtually identical to those he gave, including to me, last Tuesday. The situation has escalated, but the Government’s response remains the same. There are 600,000 child hostages in Rafah alone. There is no proof of life from them, but millions of our people are watching on their phones today the proof of death and mutilation of many of them. The Government say they are doing everything they can, but they are not. You could now stop sending weapons to the people who are raining down this death and misery, and the Labour party could ask you to do that, but did not.
9/5/24
Topical Question to the minister in charge of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Steve Barclay)
GG
I am so old that I grew up in a land without plastic; a better Britain wrapped in brown paper and string. Last year, our households on this small island handled 90,000 million tonnes of plastic. It is indestructible—it cannot be burned and we cannot get rid of it. Will the Minister support the global plastics treaty campaigned for by Greenpeace and others?
9/5/24
Business of the House
[Addressing Penny Mordaunt (Leader of the House) on arms sales to Israel]
I have always said that the Conservatives made a mistake in overlooking the right hon. Lady, and she has shown that again today. In that regard, can she help me with what I think is a narrow but important problem? Both Front-Bench teams support the continuation of arms sales to Israel, but the great majority of Back Benchers, even on the Conservative side, would like the opportunity to vote otherwise. That has been stopped—stymied—in the past. I hope that she can find a way for the House to freely express its attitude to this question. The Government, and the Labour Front Benchers, might get a rude awakening and a big surprise.
13 May 2024
I hope it is duly noted that I was the one-vote majority. I dedicate this debate to a two-year-old boy. His name was Awaab Ishak, and he was the boy who died of damp. Awaab died because he lived in a house so affected by dampness and the mould that ineluctably…
Britain is a rich country that can gaily increase its defence budget, that can boast of its wealth on international league tables, yet millions of its citizens are living in inadequate housing and, in Awaab’s case, dying in inadequate accommodation. It is a national disgrace, and I am grateful to the Members who have stayed for this debate, which affects everyone’s constituency, or almost…
As I omitted to mention in response to the previous intervention by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), we have a situation where rents go up and services go down. That is true in Labour authorities all over the country. I call them “so-called housing associations”; I was always opposed to them and I never supported the arm’s length management organisation. Please, I prefer…
Palestinians: Visa Scheme –
13 May 2024
Debate following an e-petition calling for a visa scheme for Gaza Palestinians.
[Most contributors to the debate asked why there was a Visa scheme for Ukrainians but not for Palestinians.]
George Galloway: I am going to leave aside the fact that this is all entirely hypothetical at this point, because Israel has seized the Rafah crossing in absolute breach of the Camp David accords, which have the power of international law, having been adopted by the Security Council. The Philadelphi corridor is completely sealed, and this is the fourth day in a row on which exactly no food or medical aid—none—has entered Gaza. Therefore, even if the British Government move their show to the border, no Palestinian would be able to get biometric tests anyway.
I congratulate Cat Smith on securing the debate and commiserate with the Minister, who will have to try to answer the literally unanswerable to defend the literally indefensible. Sometimes one detests a Government policy but can understand why they are doing it, but it is impossible to fathom why the Government are resisting the entirely inexpensive demand that this debate and petition ask for. Hundreds of the signatories—391 of them—are my constituents in Rochdale, who are always looking for ways to demonstrate their support for the Palestinian cause, as you will know, Mr Vickers. I declare an interest: one of my parliamentary staff is one of those trying to get their family out of Gaza to no avail.
The attendance at this debate is evidence of the massive support that there is in the country for the plight of the Palestinian people to be at least palliated by our Government, and that could be done so inexpensively that I literally cannot fathom why the Minister is going to rise and resist the demands made by the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood. Leaving aside all the historical reasons why they should, there is the fact that it was in this very building that the entire Palestinian tragedy was authored, when on behalf of one people our Government promised to a second people the land that belonged to a third people. You would think that that was a matter of historical guilt for our Government that they might want to mitigate in some way, leaving aside the fact that hundreds of our soldiers, police officers, civil servants and staff of this very House were murdered in the King David hotel. Our soldiers were left hanging by piano wire in the orange groves of Jaffa, booby-trapped. Should the Government not have a scintilla of guilt and responsibility for what has happened to the Palestinian people in the past and in the last seven months?
It is not true that our military aid to Israel is minuscule. If we define it by completed pieces of ordnance, it may be, but our components are in most of Israel’s bombs and rockets that are falling down on the poor people in Gaza, who are defenceless prisoners in what the then Prime Minister, now Foreign Secretary David Cameron described as the largest open-air prison in the world. He went on to say that it must not be allowed to remain so, and that was in 2010. Now that he is the Foreign Secretary in 2024, he turns his face away from the people in that prison camp that he said must not be allowed to remain so.
It is not just ordnance: we have flown 200 missions from our sovereign base in Akrotiri in Cyprus. Who knew that we had a sovereign base in independent Cyprus, a European Union and allied country? We have the right to fly whatever we like out of that sovereign base, and 200 times we have flown spying missions over Gaza for the edification of Netanyahu and his gang in power in Tel Aviv.
Our contribution to this massacre is very significant, both historically and contemporaneously. What are people from all sides asking here, some of them actually capital-F friends of Israel? They are all asking for one small thing: that you at least allow people who are citizens here and contributing here to get their old mother out of Gaza, rather than see her, perhaps on their telephone, being torn to shreds by a bomb that would not have been as effective if it were not for the components being given from British factories and targets being assisted by RAF jets flying out of Akrotiri.
For goodness’ sake, Minister, have some political nous. Millions of people in Britain want you to do something. This you can do with the stroke of a pen, and it would not cost you anything in your popularity stakes with Netanyahu in Tel Aviv.
Written Answers – Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission: Political Parties: Registration
13 May 2024
George Galloway: To ask the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, if she will hold discussions with the Electoral Commission on the reasons for which it rejected the application from (a) Kingston Independent Residents Group and (b) Workers Party Britain on registering a description that included the leaders of those parties.
Written Answers – Ministry of Defence: Yemen: Military Intervention
15 May 2024
George Galloway: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the cost to the public purse has been of the UK’s (a) participation in Operation Prosperity Guardian and (b) military air strikes on Yemen.
Written Answers – Department for Work and Pensions: Child Benefit
16 May 2024
George Galloway: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of removing the two-child limit for benefits.
Written Answers – Department for Education: Schools: Rochdale
17 May 2024
George Galloway: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the reduction in the level of real-terms funding since 2010 on schools in Rochdale constituency; and if she will make it her policy to increase the level of real-term funding for schools in Rochdale constituency to 2010 levels.
Written Answers – Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Plastics: Recycling
20 May 2024
George Galloway: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will publish a circular economy strategy for plastics which sets (a) targets and (b) measures for the (i) elimination and (ii) recycling of single-use plastics.
Written Answers – Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities: Homelessness: Young People
20 May 2024
George Galloway: To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of publishing a strategy to tackle youth homelessness.
Labour Affairs 