Splicetoday

Politics & Media
Mar 05, 2024, 06:24AM

George Galloway Is His Own Man

The serial parliamentarian opened his victory speech with the words, “This is for Gaza.”

Screenshot 2024 03 03 at 10 15 33 jx5woud3b5p55mowriuzxrlo44.jpg  jpeg image 5500   3686 pixels    scaled  24  .png?ixlib=rails 2.1

Meet the new MP for Rochdale: George Galloway. Galloway’s a serial Parliamentarian, the MP for Glasgow Hillhead and Glasgow Kelvin from 1987-2005, for Bethnal Green and Bow from 2005-2010, and for Bradford West from 2012-2015. Originally a member of the Labour Party, he was expelled in 2003 because of his opposition to the Iraq War. Later he was a member of, and then leader of, the Respect Party until its dissolution in 2016. He currently heads the Workers Party of Britain.

He’s his own man. Although aligned with the left, he deviates from left establishment views in a number of significant ways. He’s strongly pro-Brexit, anti-Scottish independence, and skeptical about trans people’s right to self-identify. People called him a “rape apologist” after he excused having sex with a woman while she slept as “bad sexual etiquette.” He defended Julian Assange against the accusations of rape that kept him incarcerated in the Ecuadorian Embassy for several years. The allegations were later dropped.

Galloway’s an astute political operator, pugnacious in interviews and one of the best orators in the business. He works without notes, starting slowly, but building up momentum to a powerful climax. He rarely stumbles over his words and is fiery and imaginative in his rhetorical style. It’s hard not to be swept along by his passion. He has a healthy disdain for other, mainstream politicians and for the media, as this interview demonstrates.

The interviewer is referring to a speech made by the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, on the steps of 10 Downing Street on the evening of Galloway’s election. The speech was widely anticipated and space cleared in news schedules to accommodate it. This is something that Prime Ministers rarely do, unless they’re about to announce something particularly significant, such as a General Election or a declaration of war; instead, we heard Sunak commentating on the results of a by-election by someone from a rival party. He said that Galloway’s election was “beyond alarming” and linked it to the rise of political extremism and to divisions within society, referring specifically to the unprecedented number of demonstrations held in London and throughout the UK in opposition to the war in Gaza.

He was wearing his serious face. He was playing the statesman, like Winston Churchill addressing the nation during the dark days of the Blitz. He said: “I need to speak to you this evening because this situation has gone on long enough.” It’s not clear what he’s talking about here. That line follows immediately from his reference to Galloway’s election victory. Is he saying that democracy has gone on long enough? He describes Britain as a “patriotic, liberal, democratic society,” while condemning the most recent result of its democracy. He waxes lyrical about the UK’s multiculturalism. “You can be a practising Hindu and a proud Briton as I am, or a devout Muslim and a patriotic citizen as so many are.” He refers to “our great achievement in building the world’s most successful multi-ethnic, multi-faith democracy,” but expresses fear that “there are those trying to tear us apart.”

Since October 7th, he says, “there have been those trying to take advantage of the very human angst that we all feel about the terrible suffering that war brings to the innocent, to women and children, to advance a divisive, hateful ideological agenda.” This is a clear reference to Galloway, who opened his victory speech, only a few hours before, with the words, “this is for Gaza.”

It’s true that the current cabinet is the most diverse, ethnically and culturally, that Britain has ever known but, despite that, they have one crucial thing in common. They’re all rich. Sunak isn’t only the first Hindu to achieve high office, he’s also our first oligarch PM, as George Monbiot explains here. The government are also, overwhelmingly, either active Zionists, or tolerant of Zionism. So far, no one has called for a ceasefire.

You’ll also notice the passive construction in the way Sunak characterizes the war in Gaza. It’s “war,” in the abstract, that has brought suffering, he says, not the State of Israel, or the army conducting the war, as if war was a natural phenomenon, like the weather. He also fails to acknowledge Britain's part in continuing to supply arms and logistical aid to the Israelis. Those who oppose war are “hateful and divisive,” while those who support it are suffering “intimidation” when voters, outraged and offended at the sight of wounded, starved and dying children on their TV screens, voice their objection, and ask why their elected representatives have failed to call for a ceasefire.

“On too many occasions recently,” says Sunak, “our streets have been hijacked by small groups who are hostile to our values, and have no respect for our democratic traditions.” The “small groups” he’s referring to must be the up to one million people who attended the march on Armistice Day, one of the largest demonstrations ever to take place in Britain. I was there. It wasn’t hateful, welcomed all groups, all nationalities, all persuasions—including the much-celebrated Jewish Bloc—it was, by its very diversity, the living embodiment of our multi-ethnic, multi-faith, multicultural society.

Galloway’s dismissive of Rishi Sunak, referring often to his small stature, but he reserves his strongest words of condemnation for the Leader of the Opposition, Keir Starmer. “You have paid, and will pay, a high price for the role that you have played in enabling, encouraging and covering for the catastrophe currently going on in occupied Palestine, in the Gaza strip,” he said in his victory speech, adding that, “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... Labour is on notice that they have lost the confidence of millions of their voters who loyally and traditionally voted for them generation after generation.”

I’m one of those people. I’m from a Labour family. My parents and grandparents were Labour supporters. I’ve voted Labour all my life. I’ve met a significant number of my friends through my involvement with the Labour Party. Almost all of them, like me, have either been expelled, or have left in disgust since Starmer took office. What few remain do so under straitened circumstances.

There’s a witch hunt going on. Anyone with pro-Palestinian views has found themselves being labelled anti-Semitic, including a significant number of Jews. Jews are disproportionately targeted and more likely to be expelled from the Labour Party for anti-Semitism than any other group. In 2021, the Party hired a former Israeli intelligence officer, Assaf Kaplan, as its social listening and organising manager. After this they started trawling through people’s social media posts to try to find incriminating evidence against known dissenters. Thousands of people have been suspended or put under investigation.

A typical example is my good friend, Anne Belworthy. Anne’s in her 80s and was a member of the Labour Party for 65 years before she was unceremoniously kicked out in December 2021. You can read her testimony here, in a piece I published on my Whitstable Views site. The article’s based upon Anne’s own letters of defense written to the Labour Party. In the end they couldn’t make the accusation of anti-Semitism stick, so they chose another course. She was expelled, finally, because she was a member of a Facebook group, the Labour In Exile Network (LIEN) set up to defend people who’d been expelled. Anne was expelled for showing solidarity with her expelled comrades, a traditional socialist virtue.

Keir Starmer, meanwhile, has been reversing every policy commitment he ever made. From banker’s bonuses to nationalization of the energy companies, from the green investment promise, to wealth taxes, Starmer’s post-2019 pledges have all been cast aside. Labour’s manifesto at the next General Election will hardly be any different from the Tories. Their entire election strategy seems to be based on giving the impression that they’re somehow different from the Tories, while continuing to offer the exact same policies. It’s no wonder that Galloway refers to Sunak and Starmer as “two cheeks of the same backside.”

Follow Chris Stone on X: @ChrisJamesStone

Discussion
  • "It’s 'war,' in the abstract, that has brought suffering, he says, not the State of Israel, or the army conducting the war, as if war was a natural phenomenon, like the weather." Here's a thought: maybe Hamas' atrocities, so horrific that they must be motivated by Jew hatred, have something to do with the current suffering. This is a thought that those who are not Hamas apologists - most of whom are anti-semites - sometimes have.

    Responses to this comment
  • Isn't it ironic those "outraged and offended at the sight of wounded, starved and dying children on their TV screens" have expressed only perfunctory criticism of Hamas, a group similar to the Nazis in several ways? And if you're so outraged at the suffering, why don't you call for Hamas to surrender? They have obviously lost this one. Maybe you don't care as much as you present yourself as.

    Responses to this comment
  • I'm glad you think that me calling on Hamas to surrender would make a difference Beck. You clearly have an inflated view of the power I hold on the world stage. One of the problems we have, as I've said to you before, is that we're in the middle of a propaganda war. Much of what we hear coming out of the Israeli propaganda machine is either exaggerated or fabricated. Many of those claims of "Hamas atrocities, so horrific that they must be motivated by Jew hatred" have been debunked, while a significant number of the Israeli dead were killed by their own side. That's not to say that atrocities didn't occur, just that the Israeli government has a history of lying, so it's hard to make out which of their claims are true and which are not. Meanwhile, of course, whatever horrors may have occured on Oct 7 they pale into insignificance compared to the horrors being inflicted upon the Palestinian people right now. 30,035 people have been killed so far, more than 13,000 of them children and 8,800 women. At least 70,457 have been wounded. Hungry Palestinians have been fired on by IDF troops. Troops have been looting Palestinian homes. Hardly any food or water is getting in. People are literally starving. The ICJ have already ruled that there is a plausible case of Genocide for Israel to answer. If you can imply that I am a Hamas apologist, Beck, then maybe I can respond by calling you a genocide apologist. Aaron Bushnell said, in his final message on Facebook; “Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.” Here's something for you to read: https://theintercept.com/2024/02/07/gaza-israel-netanyahu-propaganda-lies-palestinians/ I debated long and hard with myself whether to engage with you, given that you have consistently refused to read links that I've posted in the past. If you don't read the article, and come back to me with some considered responses, then this conversation is over. I really don't have time to spend debating on the internet with people who are unwilling to listen anyone else's point of view.

    Responses to this comment
  • Thanks for the good laugh. I was calling for you to take a stand, not to flex your big muscles on the geopolitical stage. How hard can that be to figure out?

    Responses to this comment
  • It's also hilarious that you speak of the propaganda war, and don't get that you're a participant in it.

    Responses to this comment
  • The Israeli govt has a long history of lying, as you say, but none of your comments indicate that you believe that Hamas has a similar history. Perhaps you have forgotten that Hamas released a video of its atrocities, and did so with pride. And that's the side you are on.

    Responses to this comment
  • I'm on the side of the Palestinian people, currently subject to a plausible genocide according to the ICJ. Hamas lies too. All governments do, but Hamas' lies aren't being amplified and repeated ad nauseum by the Western propaganda machine and by the vast majority of Western governments. I'm caught up in the propaganda war, yes, as we all are. The trick is in trying to figure out what is true and what is not, which requires reading around the subject, not just absorbing the propaganda tropes of one side. Meanwhile you reveal yourself as a disingenous debater, once again, by refusing to read an alternative point of view. When this is all over, when the history is written and the lies have been exposed, I think you will discover, to your shame, that you have been on the wrong side, cheerleading for a genocide. These are my last words to you unless you engage properly, in the spirit of genuine debate. Read the article above and reply to it. It is full of verifiable facts, many of them taken from Israeli media, showing how Israel killed its own citizens and lied about many of the atrocities on which your argument is based.

    Responses to this comment
  • PS, this is the side I'm on: https://twitter.com/TheProleStar/status/1765049465134588222/photo/1

    Responses to this comment
  • All governments lie, but Hamas also kills and rapes and kidnaps, and then brags about it, something the Nazis never did. I know what side you are on, CJ. I don't need to read one of your links to figure that out.

    Responses to this comment
  • If you think that a debate in the comments section involves reading every link that you give me, then you are delusional. That's not the way this works.

    Responses to this comment
  • You parrot the talking point about genocide, but appear to know very little about the history of genocide, or even the meaning of the word.. Had you done your homework, you'd understand that any group with the power to do it really goes for it when they want to do it. They don't settle for halfway measures when it comes to genocide. For example, check out Rwanda.And the Nazis, of course, who are similar to Hamas in a number of ways, including their extreme ethnic hatred. Israel has complete air superiority over Gaza, meaning they could bomb it to dust. So why are they so bad at genocide? You wrote about how powerful their military is, so why can't they get this job done? If Hamas could bomb Israeli Jews into oblivion, you don't understand that they would do that in a second, because you live in a fantasy world.

    Responses to this comment
  • You have written your last words to me? Thank you.

    Responses to this comment
  • It's ok Beck, I've got your measure. You are not interested in the truth, only in winning an argument on the internet. It's all ego. Have you read the genocide convention? NO, obviously not. The ICJ has already declared Gaza to be a plausible genocide and has issued provisional measures against Israel. Here's the link: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/01/gaza-icj-ruling-offers-hope-protection-civilians-enduring-apocalyptic# Once again, I know you won't read it, but future readers will be able to judge you. You are a case study in how a genocide can take place in full view of the world and yet still have the support of the wilfully ignorant.

    Responses to this comment
  • Wait CJ, this comes after you said you would not say another word to me unless I followed your marching orders and read your links? And you wonder why I doubt your credibility.

    Responses to this comment
  • You are interested in the truth and I am not. You really can't do any better than that? You embarrass yourself in this comments section.

    Responses to this comment

Register or Login to leave a comment