George Galloway wins Rochdale seat by 12,335 votes after running on pro-Palestine campaign.

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.

  • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    311·
    4 months ago

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

      • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
        45·
        4 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.

          • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
            16·
            4 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)

              • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
                12·
                4 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.