George Galloway: constituency-hopping campaigner who is rarely far from controversy

Back in 1994, George Galloway had the chance to meet Saddam Hussein. During that meeting, he expressed his admiration for the Iraqi dictator by saying, “I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability.” Despite any criticism he may receive, it cannot be denied that Galloway has shown remarkable indefatigability over the past thirty years. This has once again been proven as the 69-year-old, who is a father of six, gains an additional seat in parliament.

With his outstanding triumph in Rochdale, he has achieved his seventh parliamentary win throughout his four-decade-long political career. He has served as a representative in four different cities and for three separate political parties. This achievement is comparable to Winston Churchill, who also had an extensive record of relocating to various constituencies.

He appeared on Celebrity Big Brother in 2006 in a less Churchill-like appearance. He was working as the Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow at the time but took a break to participate in the show. He wore a red unitard and acted like a cat.

Galloway's recent victory in Rochdale signifies a comeback in the political arena, especially since his core audience, composed of Muslims based in Britain, may have lost trust in him because of the religious conflict arising from the Syrian civil war. Despite denying the use of chemical weapons by the government and working with a broadcasting network associated with Bashar al-Assad, the leader managed to regain popularity.

Despite not having any strong ties to the town of Greater Manchester, Galloway saw an opportunity to regain support by expressing his anger towards Israel's attack on Gaza. In February, he arrived in Rochdale and did not try to portray himself as having prior affiliations with the community.

He pledged several commitments specific to the area - to revive a facility for childbirth and introduce a retail store called Primark. However, his main focus centered around Palestine and was specifically geared towards the Muslim community that accounts for 30% of Rochdale's inhabitants.

He used religious symbols several times to gain what he referred to as the "most important protest vote". Standing outside a mosque after Friday prayers, he questioned the faithful if they would be able to justify their decision of not opposing Keir Starmer's stance on Gaza on the day of judgment to their descendants.

The scene was reminiscent of Galloway's previous win in the byelection at Bradford West back in 2012. On that momentous occasion, he was lifted up in the air as he exited the leisure center where the votes were counted. He expressed his gratitude by shouting "All praise to Allah", while a group of young Muslim men in Hummer cars chanted "Viva Palestina!" in support.

Throughout the unfavorable campaign, Galloway demolished the support for Labour by portraying himself as a protector of the mistreated Muslims in Kashmir.

It's uncommon for him to behave in a pleasant manner. Back in the 2015 national election, he lost his position in Bradford due to a heavy victory for the Labour party. He received widespread backlash after instructing an individual in Pakistan to search for the Islamic marriage certificate of his opponent from the same party, Naz Shah. This was done with the intention of proving that she was 16 years old and not 15, as she had claimed, when she was coerced into a violent and sexually abusive marriage.

He was fired from TalkRadio in 2019 due to his "antisemitic views". After the incident, he sent a tweet to his former bosses saying "See you in court guys...Long live Palestine." His dismissal from the station came soon after the media regulator Ofcom punished them for violating broadcasting impartiality rules. This occurred when Galloway expressed skepticism about Russian involvement in the Skripal poisoning case in Salisbury.

A lot of people who are warned about a possible libel lawsuit don't actually end up going to court. However, there was one instance where the Telegraph newspaper was an exception. They had to pay George Galloway £150,000 in compensation in 2004. This was because they had published an article that had falsely suggested that documents discovered in Baghdad during the Iraq war proved Galloway had received about £375,000 annually from his prior acquaintance, Saddam.

What can the people of Rochdale anticipate from their newly elected Member of Parliament? Based on Galloway’s past performance, it seems unlikely that he will be very active within the confines of the parliament. During his three-year tenure as the MP for Bradford West, he only spoke sixteen times in the House of Commons. On occasion, he went without contributing to discussions inside the chambers for up to six months at a time.

Whenever he spoke in parliament, he mainly discussed matters related to foreign relations, or he would engage in insulting other MPs. On one occasion, he even retaliated to a Tory MP's remark by stating that he would rather yield to the "respected gentleman" than have him "laugh and jiggle his overweight body in a seated position."

He managed to allocate some spare hours for creating content for Russia Today and al-Mayadeen TV, which enabled him to earn an additional £12,400 alongside his monthly MP's salary. He traveled extensively, attending various international gatherings and events while balancing his responsibilities in Bradford and Westminster. He even campaigned for Hugo Chávez in Venezuela at one point.

There was always drama surrounding Galloway. Not long after he became the elected representative for Bradford, he made anti-rape campaigners in Bradford livid by referring to allegations of sexual assault against Julian Assange from WikiLeaks as nothing more than inappropriate behavior. The investigation into Assange eventually came to an end.

Galloway was brought into this world in Dundee, Scotland during 1954. He made history when he became the Scottish Labour party's youngest chairperson in 1981. He then went on to secure his initial parliamentary seat in Glasgow Hillhead (which later became Glasgow Kelvin) in 1987.

He was constantly situated towards the leftist end of the political party. However, in 2003, his strong stance against the Iraq war caused the Labour Party to remove him from their membership due to the negative impact it had on the party's reputation.

After joining the Respect political party, he managed to secure the London seat of Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005, defeating Labour's Oona King. However, his time in parliament was halted in 2007 when he received an 18-day suspension due to the House of Commons select committee on standards and privileges discovering "convincing circumstantial evidence" that the Iraqi government had utilized the UN's oil for food program to provide financial support to his charity, the Mariam Appeal, with his cooperation.

The Charity Commission discovered in 2019 that Viva Palestina, a charity created by Galloway to provide help to Gaza, potentially didn't carry out any charitable actions or provide any humanitarian aid even though they said they collected £1m in donations from the public.

Respect disintegrated due to conflicts between various groups, including Socialist Workers party supporters, while Galloway established a fresh political entity called the Workers Party of Britain in 2019.

The goal was to attract disenchanted former supporters of Jeremy Corbyn who had left the Labour Party after its 2019 failure. However, it ended up being mainly run by George Galloway, and his supporters were provided by the CPGB-ML, which is a small far-left group with Stalinist beliefs and connections to China.

Galloway effectively utilized his new position by speaking at the second International Forum on Democracy in Beijing, where he praised Xi Jinping and denounced "western-style democracy."

Following the divisive splits within Respect, the CPGB-ML has pulled back. However, Galloway's party has recently brought on board notable individuals such as Chris Williamson. Previously a Labour MP, Williamson was suspended from the party due to his critiques of how they handled allegations of antisemitism. Additionally, Peter Ford, the former UK ambassador to Syria, is also a newly recruited member of the party.

Before cozying up to Beijing, Galloway had already shown support for Russia. He repeated pro-Kremlin beliefs about Ukraine, and even threatened to take legal action against Twitter when they identified his account as being affiliated with Russian state media. Around that same time, his radio program, The Mother of All Talk Shows, was being aired on Sputnik, a radio service owned by the Russian government.

After being away from parliament for 12 years, Galloway is now back and has suggested that he doesn't want to sit as an outsider in the opposition benches during his 70s. Throughout the Rochdale campaign, he informed voters multiple times that he may only serve as their MP for a short time, possibly just "100 days," until the next general election is announced by Rishi Sunak.

In the past, he has told people that he plans to only serve one more term in parliament. He recently spoke with his former opponents at the Telegraph and informed them that he is thinking about retiring. He mentioned that he is 69 years old and has a young child of three, so he believes he has responsibilities to others. Despite this, he admitted that his children are currently with him during the election campaign, but he won't continue serving after five years.