A left-wing United Kingdom politician has registered a landslide win in a parliamentary by-election on a platform promising to advocate for Gaza.

George Galloway won the seat in the northern English town of Rochdale after a fractious campaign, which saw the Labour Party withdraw support from its candidate over his anti-Israel comments.

Galloway won 12,335 votes compared with 6,638 for second-placed David Tully, an independent candidate. The former Labour candidate, Azhar Ali, came fourth after the opposition party pulled its support after he was recorded espousing conspiracy theories about Israel. Turnout was low at 39.7 percent.

“Keir Starmer, this is for Gaza,” Galloway said on Friday, referring to the Labour leader who initially refused to call for a ceasefire in Gaza where more than 30,000 people have been killed in the past five months of Israeli bombardment.

Late on Friday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who supports Israel’s war, said the election of Galloway to a parliamentary seat was “beyond alarming” and accused him of dismissing Hamas’s October 7 attack.

  • zabadoh
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    9 months ago

    The summary doesn’t mention it, but the caption in the article photo says that George Galloway is the head of the Workers Party Of Britain, a socialist party that he founded in 2019.

    Their Wikipedia entry describes them as euroskeptics, anti-NATO, and says their website “defend[s] the achievements of the USSR, China, Cuba etc, not least the debt owed by humanity to the Soviet Union and Red Army in their war of liberation against German fascism”

    Wikipedia also describes the party as “adopting social conservatism, such as its rejection of gender self-identification.”

    So social conservatives who admire Russia, China, etc.

    What a weird world we live in…

        • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          I’ve seen the people who claim to support anti-imperialism supporting Russian and Chinese territorial ambitions.

          It’s like when Americans talk about being for freedom. Do you take them on their word on that or look at what they are actually supporting?

          • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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            9 months ago

            The second of course. So did you take a look at what George Galloway’s positions are on that?

            • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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              9 months ago

              No, I commented based on the above reply, if that wasn’t immediately clear.

              • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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                9 months ago

                My understanding of your comment is that you implied that Galloway is “supporting Russian and Chinese territorial ambitions.” As the above user called it a “tankie party”.

                Did I not understand that correctly?

                • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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                  9 months ago

                  I said it sounds like a tankie party based on the description from the OP of this chain. Then you (as I understand it) said it couldn’t be because it is anti-imperialist and I replied how it sometimes it’s a term tankies use without actually meaning it.

    • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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      9 months ago

      That wikipedia page has some very interesting quotes near the top

      The Jewish Labour Movement called the result a “triumph for hope and decency” over Galloway’s “toxic politics”. Galloway vowed to challenge the result on the basis of an alleged “false statement” made about him by Leadbeater and Starmer, which he said tipped the result of the by-election.

      Totally doesn’t look edited by the IDF for out-of-context cherry picked statements. Move along everyone nothing to see here.

      • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        Seems like this party has had quite a few allegations of antisemitism

        The party has defended Williamson, who was suspended from the Labour Party for his comments about antisemitism allegations in the Labour Party, and Ken Livingstone, who left the party following allegations of antisemitism.

        • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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          9 months ago

          Who made those antisemitism allegations? What anti-semitic things did they say can you quote that?

          • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            It’s from the same Wikipedia article. This seems to be the citation for the quoted part

              • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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                9 months ago

                Does the link not work for you? It loads for a while but opens for me. Here’s the full article in picture form.

                I think this is the part Wikipedia is citing:

                "A vision statement on its website embraces Brexit, denounces the Labour Party for remaining “committed to capitalism” and suggests its former leader Jeremy Corbyn, “Was harangued as an anti-Semite in a disgraceful campaign of Goebbelsian fiction”.

                The party has also gone on record to defend former Labour members Chris Williamson and Ken Livingstone.

                Former Derbyshire MP Mr Williamson was suspended by the party after saying Labour had been “too apologetic” over anti-Semitism, while former London mayor Mr Livingstone resigned his membership after being accused of making anti-Semitic comments.

                Mr Carpenter stood by the Workers Party’s position and insisted both men had done nothing wrong.

                He said: “People aren’t questioning this narrative that’s been put to them from the centre. They all play the same game, whether it’s Labour, the Tories, the Lib Dems or even the Greens.”"

                You think maybe the IDF edited that Wikipedia page?

                Uhh, I have no idea? I mean from the Wakefield Express article and just googling it looks like there’s been some actual antisemitism row about this party, so it’s not made up (the row/allegations I mean), if that’s what you meant.

                • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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                  9 months ago

                  Jeremy Corbyn is a UK hero lauded for not bending the knee to the israeli lobby. Which famously always try to picture him as anti-semitic because he says Free Palestine.

                  Your link contains no anti-Semitic statement. I’m asking you once again, can you quote the anti-Semitic statement? Surely if he said anything anti-Semitic it shouldn’t be hard for you to find.

      • Mr_Blott@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I can confirm that Rochdale is a fucking skeleton shitehole of a town

        If you like betting shops, mobile phone covers, or kebab takeaways, you’ll be masturbating in the street. You won’t be the only one

  • corymbia@reddthat.com
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    9 months ago

    I’m all for condemnation of Israel’s OTT war on Palestine, but TBH George Galloway is a shitcunt.

    • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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      9 months ago

      “I want to condemn israel but actually not really fuck anyone that does that”.

      • gmtom@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I get you’re just a troll or maybe a useful idiot, but no its not an attack on people who support Palestine to call Galloway a shitcunt.

        The man was a fanboy for Saddam Hussein and Bashar al-Assad, he supports Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, supported China’s brutal crackdown on protests in Hong Kong, denies the existence of Uighur concentration camps, started off as pro-EU during brexit then suspiciously flipped halfway through when he started working for RT, also worked for Syrian and Iranian state media. And also excused the rape of sleeping woman as little more than “bad manners”

        I fully support many people that condemn Israel, but galloway is just a terrible terrible person, right down to his core.

        • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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          9 months ago

          Who is George Galloway, the British politician who has won Rochdale?

          How has the man who appeared to defend Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and dressed as a cat on Celebrity Big Brother overturned a Labour Party stronghold?

          Galloway later claimed that he was saluting the people of Iraq, not Saddam Hussein himself. But his comments prompted the politician’s many political detractors to accuse him of supporting an oppressive Iraqi regime. It also heralded the arrival of “indefatigability” – a hitherto rarely used word – into the British public mainstream where, for many Britons of a certain age, it retains a somewhat comical link to Galloway.

          • gmtom@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Galloway later claimed that he was saluting the people of Iraq, not Saddam Hussein himself.

            “Nono, theyre saying boo-urns”

            • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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              9 months ago

              Understanding Galloway means you need to have a basic comprehension about America wanting to invade Iraq to steal their oil. Which America then did after the Galloway speech which very much proves Galloway’s point. Something about WMD’s in Iraq.

              Remind me again, did they find those very dangerous WMD’s in Iraq?

              An understanding of Geopolitics means more than “israel bad” (though israel bad is a great starting point)

              • gmtom@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                These responses have to be some knock-off chat GPT stuff right? Because theres no way an actual person would purposefully conflate the 2 invasions of Iraq, right?

                Because there was the first one in 1991 in response to the invasion of Kuwait, that is generally seen as justified (since Iraq was literally invading another independent nation). The one where Galloway justified the invasion of kuwait saying Kuwait was "clearly a part of the greater Iraqi whole stolen from the motherland by perfidious Albion " and then when he met Saddam himself told him "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability.” (allegedly talking about the Iraqi people, but if you believe that then ive got a bridge to sell you).

                Then there was the second one in 2003, which was the one mostly seen as unjustified, where George Bush lied about WMDs as a pretext to invasion to secure western oil companies interests in the region.

                • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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                  9 months ago

                  Oops my bad you are right I misread that one I thought it was 2003 because of the 2004 date

                  In his 2004 book, I’m Not the Only One, Galloway appeared to defend Iraq

                  I’m going to have to more look into the Kuwait invasion understand Galloway’s statement here. The Kuwait invasion is not one I have looked into deeply so I don’t understand where these statements come from.