Ready for him or not, the British House of Commons again has George Galloway as a member. On Friday, Galloway, running as a candidate of the Workers Party for the town of Rochdale, was elected to return to the House of Commons.
Many Americans first learned of Galloway when he presented in testimony before a United States Senate subcommittee on May 17, 2005 a powerful and impassioned critique of the US government’s decades of warmongering first in alliance with and then in opposition to the Iraq government, as well as of the US government’s following occupation of Iraq.
In the time since this testimony, Galloway has remained a prominent voice against other US aggressive foreign policy, including its support of the governments of Ukraine and Israel in ongoing wars. He hasn’t held back criticism of British interventions either.
Galloway, first elected in 1987, remained in the House of Commons through 2010 and then served again there from March of 2012 through May of 2015. He started as a member of the Labour Party and later switched membership to the Respect Party.
Out of office, Galloway continued to participate in political discussion, including through his Mother of All Talk Shows.
In a monologue last week at his show, Galloway, with his typical erudition and passion, spoke in opposition to Britain extraditing Julian Assange of WikiLeaks to America and to the fact that “throughout the western world the establishment political parties and the establishment mass media” have taken the side of Israel in regard to its devastation of Gaza, about which Galloway provides some of the harrowing details.
Galloway also talked in his monologue about his campaign to return to the House of Commons via a special election being held to choose a replacement for the incumbent who died in office. “Heaven knows they need me now” in the House of Commons, said Galloway. He described the importance that his win in the election would carry, stating that his victory would “change history, not just because of its importance in itself — a referendum on Gaza which will have a resounding result, but because it will act with the power of example to encourage people like me to stand up against the so-called mainstream political parties who are now roundly hated by millions, maybe tens of millions, of people in this country.”
Galloway then commented on the situation in American politics relative to the Israel War, stating that presidential candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden are “vying with each other as to who can be meaner to the Palestinians — who’ll kill more of them, who’ll facilitate the killing of more of them.”
Hopefully, Galloway’s election is a sign of a big move toward peace on both the east and west ends of the Atlantic Ocean.
