(CN) — Left-wing firebrand and pro-Palestinian campaigner George Galloway is set to reenter the British Parliament after pulling off a stunning special election upset in the English town of Rochdale on Friday.
Galloway, a former Labour member of Parliament, ran a campaign largely focused on support for Gaza and opposition to Labour Party leader Keir Starmer’s support for Israel — a position that has divided his party and sparked anger among British Muslims.
Following the implosion of the Labour campaign two weeks ago, which saw the party withdraw support from their candidate over remarks about the Israel-Hamas war, Galloway had become an unlikely favorite to win, and spent time heavily courting the Muslim vote.
But the scale of his victory — picking up 40% of the vote in an 11-way contest — has come as a surprise to many. In his victory speech, Galloway, who ran as the Workers Party candidate, directed his fury at Starmer and his pro-Israeli stance.
“Starmer, this is for Gaza. You have paid, and you will pay, a high price for the role you have played in enabling, encouraging and covering for the catastrophe currently going on in occupied Palestine,” he said. “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.”
Starmer dismissed the suggestion that Galloway’s conclusive victory is indicative of the scale of discontent with his leadership.
“Galloway only won because Labour didn’t stand a candidate," Starmer said. "I regret that we had to withdraw our candidate and apologize to voters in Rochdale. Obviously we will put a first-class candidate, a unifier, before the voters in Rochdale for the general election.”
For the Labour Party, the inquest begins over how their campaign unraveled so spectacularly. The special election was triggered by the death of the incumbent Labour MP, and Rochdale was seen as a safe seat for the party. The selected Labour candidate, Azhar Ali, was a former council leader and judged as a steady pair of hands by party insiders.
However, conversations leaked from an internal party meeting to the Mail newspaper on Sunday caught Ali expressing doubt that the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks were a surprise to the Israeli state.
"The Egyptians are saying that they warned Israel 10 days earlier. … Americans warned them a day before. … They deliberately took the security off ... that massacre gives them the green light to do whatever they bloody want," Ali was recorded as saying in the meeting.
Starmer initially backed Ali despite the comments — in contrast to a “zero-tolerance” policy he has adopted towards his own members of Parliament over suggestions of anti-Semitic comments. However, he later backtracked . As the deadline for nominations in the special election had already passed, Labour couldn't field a replacement candidate, essentially leaving the party unrepresented.
The exit of a Labour-endorsed candidate left a free run for Galloway, a veteran of the British left who was first elected as a Labour legislator in Glasgow in 1987. Galloway rose to national prominence in 2003, when he was kicked out of the party by Prime Minister Tony Blair for his opposition to the upcoming war in Iraq.
He has pulled off a number of electoral upsets since, in similar fashion to his latest triumph. At the 2005 general election, Galloway rode a wave of discontent over British involvement in the Iraq War to unseat a sitting Labour MP in east London. And in 2012 he pulled off a stunning special election victory in the city of Bradford, declaring his victory the “Bradford Spring,” in reference to the Arab Spring revolutions that had begun the previous year.
Galloway is a staunch critic of Starmer, accusing him imposing right-wing policies on his party, and purging left-wing figures associated with the previous leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. His attempt to split the Labour vote in a 2021 special election in Yorkshire came close to toppling Starmer, whose leadership was on the rocks at the time.
Critics of Galloway accuse of him of being a divisive candidate who has developed a routine of stirring ethnic and racial tensions by using inflammatory language for his own electoral advantage.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak condemned Galloway for running “one of the most divisive campaigns we’ve seen.” Accusations of anti-Semitism have also dogged Galloway throughout his career, with the Board of Deputies of British Jews describing his latest elevation to Parliament as a “dark day for the Jewish community in this country.”
Beyond the specificities of Galloway the candidate, the result also indicates the extent to which the war in Gaza continues to inflame British politics, just a week after Parliament descended into chaos over a debate on whether to back a cease-fire in the ongoing conflict.
And it also spells danger for Starmer, whose party is losing support among key demographics in an election year. The British Muslim community, which traditionally votes Labour, is largely horrified by developments in the occupied Palestinian territories and disillusioned by Labour’s response.
Research by polling company Survation suggests that only 43% of British Muslims remain supportive of Labour — down from 86% in the last election. Campaigners have expressed concern that Labour is losing the ability to communicate with voters in some Muslim communities, given the level of anger people are expressing.
Party insiders are increasingly alarmed by fundraising campaigns for independent candidates set up by disaffected Labour voters. A range of anti-war independents standing at the general election might not emulate Galloway’s success but could easily split the Labour vote, providing a headache for the party as they attempt to reenter government for the first time in 14 years.
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