Latest news with #GeorgeGalloway
Spectator
17 hours ago
- Politics
- Spectator
George Galloway to stand in Holyrood election
What comes around goes around. After a short stint in Westminster after he won the Rochdale by-election in February 2024, George Galloway is now eying up a political comeback north of the border. The leader of the Workers Party of Britain has revealed that he will be the party's second option on the regional list in Glasgow next year, with new joiner Yvonne Ridley – formerly of Alex Salmond's Alba party – the party's lead candidate. How very interesting… The Workers Party has its eye on some rather high profile central belt seats, held by two former SNP first ministers. Ridley will also contest the Glasgow Pollok constituency seat – currently held by the outgoing Humza Yousaf – while Galloway told the Herald that his group also intends to target Glasgow Southside, which is the seat of one Nicola Sturgeon. 'Gorgeous George' claimed his movement was picking up support in Glasgow – 'We're hopeful that we can win in it,' he told the Scottish paper, 'We're going to put everything into trying to do so.' – with Edinburgh and Inverness also in his sights. Galloway has had quite the political journey, starting out in Labour until the early 2000s before going on to lead the Respect party and, in 2019, founding the Workers Party of Britain. His group will also focus heavily on the war in Gaza – a feature of his 2024 campaign that won him the Rochdale seat. Curiously, despite the name of the group he leads and his well-documented opposition to secession, Galloway will stand on a platform in favour of, er, a second Scottish independence referendum. The lengths people will go for power, eh?
Telegraph
24-07-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
If you're a hard-Left cultist, this is indeed Your Party
Oh, the relief! Yes, the long wait is over. Three weeks after former Labour MP Zarah Sultana announced that she would be launching a new party – and not only that but would also be leading it alongside Jeremy Corbyn (although, oops, it soon emerged she hadn't actually asked him) – here it is. Your Party is born. I guess it depends on how you define 'Your'. If you mean a party for rancid hate-mongers, hard-Left ideologues, economic basket cases and other cultists then yes, it is indeed your party. Or, more accurately, one of your parties, because there has never been a shortage to choose from. Take your pick from, among myriad others, the Workers' Party, the Socialist Labour Party, the Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers' Party, which sometimes make me wonder if they were the ones satirising Monty Python's Judean People's Party and People's Party of Judea, rather than the other way round. Your Party is barely an hour old and, deliciously, it's already the subject of a split. Or rather, it was before it had even been formally born. On the day Ms Sultana first revealed the new party three weeks ago, George Galloway leapt into denouncing mode: 'There has been no contact with us about this,' he spat out on his social media feed. 'We can't join it due to significant differences on the issues of'… oh, let's not lose the will to live quite yet. No one except Galloway, Sultana, Corbyn and the rest of the bunch of not so merry men and women gives a damn about their specifics of their internecine squabbles. Suffice to say that they're busy doing what they always do. But whoopee, we now have a bright shiny new party for the not so bright Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana to lead. Presumably Ms Sultana – who likes to portray herself as some sort of principled warrior, rather than just another failed politician afraid that after being kicked out of her former party, her career will be over before she reaches her mid-30s – will now insist on a recall petition by her constituents in Coventry South, given that in 2020 she voted for MPs who voluntarily change their party affiliation being subject to such a petition. Meanwhile, I have just spotted a pig flying outside my window. But let's not quibble. Who wouldn't want to join this exciting new venture and join the man who led Labour to its worst election performance since 1935 and whose Labour Party was found to have breached the Equality Act by committing unlawful harassment against Jews? Who wouldn't want to go along for the ride with Ms Sultana, whose desperate need for attention led her to scream 'We are all Palestine Action' in the Commons chamber in support of the proscribed terror group? Who wouldn't want to be a member of a party that seems purpose built to attract the more voluble and incendiary of the so-called Free Palestine hate marchers? And who wouldn't want to be part of a group that is, as its website reveals, 'managed by Peace and Justice Project Ltd'? That's the same Peace and Justice Project set up when Corbyn had the Labour whip removed, whose patrons include Noam Chomsky, rapper Lowkey, Ken Loach and Jeremy's old mucker Len McCluskey who was, it was revealed yesterday, accused by an investigation commissioned by his old union of overruling staff and lawyers to sign a contract for a building project which cost the Unite union £125m, despite being valued at just £38m (an allegation he denies)? What a starry, storied cast that is. And what a thrill the next few years promise.
Spectator
25-06-2025
- Politics
- Spectator
Nigel Farage and George Galloway share a common problem
A more gracious person would refrain from saying, 'I told you so', but I'm not a gracious person. So, as George Galloway announces his backing for another Scottish independence referendum, allow me to say – nay, crow – I told you so. Galloway, leader of the Workers party, says he and his party 'support the right of the Scots to self-determination' and that 'the time for another referendum is close'. He adds: 'Speaking personally, I can no longer support the British state as presently constituted.' If you're familiar with politics north of the border, you might be wondering if this is the same George Galloway who travelled Scotland in 2014 on his Just Say Naw tour, urging an anti-independence vote in that year's referendum. It is indeed the man who said: 'It sickens me that the country of my birth is threatened by such obsolescent dogma. Flags and borders do not matter a jot.' Galloway hasn't stopped being a Unionist; he never was one It is also the man who was the face (though not the leader) of All for Unity, which rocked up on the scene ahead of the 2021 Holyrood elections and declared itself the anti-independence alliance that would unite the pro-Union parties. This was news to the pro-Union parties and they responded with the political equivalent of 'new fone, who dis?' All for Unity more than earned the disregard it received. It was essentially a Twitter account doing a bad impersonation of a political party, but what it lacked in electoral strategy it made up for in digital noisemaking. Its social media outriders took a particular dislike to me, which is shocking because I'm lovely. All I'd done was repeatedly point out in The Spectator that they were a hopeless shower of political halfwits. Some people can be very sensitive. I didn't just argue that All for Unity risked splitting the anti-independence vote, I pointed out that it wasn't all that anti-independence. For one, its tactical voting guide endorsed a Labour MSP who had called on Boris Johnson to hand powers over referendums to Holyrood. For another, its lead candidate on the South of Scotland list was George Galloway. Just a few years earlier, he had said it would be a 'democratic monstrosity' if Westminster refused Holyrood another referendum. A few years before that, he had explained why he wasn't joining the official No campaign in the Scottish referendum: 'because it's a Unionist campaign, because it flies the Union Jack. I hate the Union Jack.' Galloway hasn't stopped being a Unionist; he never was one. Galloway has gone from opposing independence in 2014, to asserting Scotland's right to indyref2 in 2017, to campaigning against indyref2 in 2021, to reverting to support for indyref2 in 2025. He's pivoted more times than Mikhail Baryshnikov. And here's where I get to gloat. Total vindication: unlocked. This is one of the paradoxes of populism. Voters will often say, 'At least you know where you stand with him', when the him in question routinely adopts stances and ditches them again without any intervening search of the soul. 'Every politician does that,' you might protest. 'My point exactly,' I would reply. Populists claim politicians are all the same, then set about proving it. This unreliability is a hallmark not only of leftist populism but of its right-wing counterpart. Reform is an obvious example. Is Nigel Farage's party left or right, authoritarian or libertarian, interventionist or market-driven? Is it pro- or anti-economic migration, for or against multiculturalism, all-in or sceptical on devolution? The answer is that it holds all of these positions, switching out one for another as expediency (or the leader's whims) demands. Populism is very useful if you aim to disrupt the status quo but its lack of ideological or intellectual moorings leaves it vulnerable to mainstream capture. When voters become anxious about political turmoil, they can turn to the reassuring and the familiar, and populists have no option but to follow them. If disruption is all you aim for, populism is all you require, but if you want to replace the established order with a new one, you also need a philosophy that is held sincerely, fiercely and with constancy. Reform has no such philosophy and is too fragile a coalition of conflicting interests and incoherent instincts to acquire one between now and the next election. As such, the party can only be reactive, loudly opposing everything Labour does and reminding the Tories of everything they failed to do. Farage need only point to the parlous state of Britain to dramatise the ill effects of Labour and Tory governance. That might be enough to win a general election but it is not a strategy for implementing the kind of transformation (political, cultural, institutional) that national revival demands. Reform gives voters an opportunity to chuck a spanner in the gears but offers no prospect of new machinery. Nigel Farage, like George Galloway, is a populist and populism is all you'll ever get from him. Trust me: I told you so before.
Telegraph
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Pro-Gaza mayoral candidate charged with money laundering
A lawyer who ran in the 2024 general election as a pro-Palestinian independent candidate has been charged with money laundering. Akhmed Yakoob was arrested following an investigation by the National Crime Agency. The 37-year-old stood as an independent candidate at both the West Midlands mayoral election and the general election last year. He will appear at Westminster magistrates' court on June 17 alongside accountant Nabeel Afzal, 38, with each facing three criminal charges. Mr Yakoob, of Perry Barr, and Mr Azfal, of Edgbaston, both in Birmingham, are accused of money laundering, encouraging money laundering and contravening a requirement to apply customer due diligence measures when establishing a business relationship. The offences are alleged to have been committed between Feb 18 2020 and Jan 8 2021. Mr Yakoob unsuccessfully stood in Shabana Mahmood's Birmingham Ladywood constituency in the last general election on a pro-Gaza, anti-Labour platform, where he was endorsed by George Galloway. He came in second to the Justice Secretary, winning 12,137 votes to her 15,558, and came third in the West Midlands mayoral election with 69,621 votes. He also represented two brothers who were involved in an incident involving police officers at Manchester airport in July last year. Mr Yakoob, who has been described as 'the TikTok lawyer', has thousands of followers on the social media platform.
Russia Today
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Zelensky should ‘grasp' opportunity offered by Putin – George Galloway (VIDEO)
Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky should seize the opportunity to restart direct negotiations offered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, as Kiev has 'a losing hand' in all areas, the leader of the Workers Party of Britain, George Galloway, has said. In a televised address early on Sunday, Putin offered Kiev the chance to 'resume the negotiations they interrupted in 2022… without any preconditions,' suggesting that talks could be held on Thursday in Istanbul. Speaking to RT on Monday, Galloway said 'it's a pity that his European friends haven't told President Zelensky, as [US President] Donald Trump has told him, that this is an opportunity that simply must be grasped.' According to the former British MP, 'the alternatives are really quite ghastly… for everyone concerned.' Galloway added that Zelensky would be better off ignoring the 'train wreck crew that retreated from Kiev in that now famous train journey at the weekend,' referring to the visit to the Ukrainian capital by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. 'He should not listen to the likes of Starmer and Macron' as 'they don't represent anything practical,' Galloway insisted. He argued that none of the European NATO member states making up the so-called 'coalition of the willing' have the military and economic might to be of any significance. Galloway added that to Russia, the fundamental question in any potential peace talks would be whether an 'enduring agreement… can be reached' with the current 'illegitimate' Ukrainian leader. Zelensky's presidential term expired last May, although he has refused to hold elections, citing martial law. WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW
