How the Workers Party of Britain works hand in glove with right-wingers, racialists, and conspiracy theorists

The Galloway File #2 - An investigation by The Left Lane (TLL) delves into the inner workings of this ego project by political firebrand and four-time MP George Galloway

Feb 25, 2024

David Clews, a collaborator with George Galloway speaking at a conference of neo-nazi group Patriotic Alternative

By Alan Story

This is article #2 in a three-part series. To read Part 1, click here.

It is relatively well-known, at least in some circles, that the policies of George Galloway and the Workers Party of Britain (WPB) often mirror those of the Tories and Nigel Farage. But as we will learn below, they also collaborate far wider with the far right of British politics.

Farage, known for his dismissive stance on measures to address the climate crisis, attributes global warming primarily to natural causes. He advocates for a referendum on the necessity of achieving Net Zero emissions. (We reach net zero when the amount of carbon dioxide we add to the environment is no more than the amount taken away.) The WPB and its leader Galloway echo Farage’s views. The WPB passed a motion to the same effect at its December 2023 conference in Birmingham.

Echoing the views—mind you, the views of a decade ago—of the fossil fuel industry, the WPB motion stated that the contribution of “human activity” to climate change is “relatively minor”, adding that “the workers party believes that climate change is being used politically to frighten people into accepting the globalist power movement…”

ENVIRONMENTALISM IS ANTI-WORKING CLASS?

The WPB believes “environmentalism as a thing is anti-working class”, a former party member told TLL in a recent interview.

A leading WPB member smears Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion activists by dismissing their anti-climate change views with these words: “their message is basically held by the ruling elite of our society” (see 6 mins, 13 secs). This is conspiracy thinking writ large and reminds us that the WPB seems to have never heard of the word “ecosocialist”. Or read about the climate apocalypse?

Both Farage, a right populist, and Galloway, who styles himself as a left populist, a man of the people, and a friend of Palestine, fervently supported the Brexit referendum along with Farage. While the European Union is far from perfect, few can deny that the results of the Brexit referendum have inflicted significant economic hardships on the working class, farmers, young people, and others. Their little Englander “anti-EUism” is a stance shared by the Tory Party.

On his YouTube channel, Galloway lauded “the courage” as a journalist of US far-right commentator Tucker Carlson in interviewing Putin. Galloway regularly praises the Russian president as “neither bad nor mad”. Carlson, formerly on Fox News, is a strong proponent of the racist “great replacement conspiracy theory”. That “theory” holds that US “political elites are purposefully seeking to increase the number of racial minorities in an attempt to displace the white American population.” Carlson makes Farage look like a bleeding-heart liberal.

WORKING WITH TOMMY ROBINSON?

What is far less well-known is that Galloway and the WPB openly collaborate with far-right political operatives, racists, and conspiracy theorists in the UK, a detailed investigation by The Left Lane (TLL) has uncovered. We launched the probe after Galloway, out of the national spotlight for a stretch, announced he will try to reclaim a seat as an MP in the upcoming tumultuous Rochdale by-election on 29 February. Speculation among political analysts suggests that Galloway stands a strong chance of winning in the Manchester-area constituency.

Former leading WPB members alerted us to Galloway’s collaboration with far-rightists. They told TLL they were “disgusted” by it. But challenging George in his own party is simply “not on” as this series is examining.

Of course, socialists need to work with non-socialists in winning reforms. But aren’t there limits? Should we work with the Tommy Robinsons of this world? Should we give more credibility to their far-right media platforms and spokesperson?

Contrary to the WPB, The Left Lane thinks the view that socialists should not cozy up to racists and right-wing conspiracy theorists. They should be denounced, not lauded.

Take the case of far-right conspiracy theorist David Clews from Stirling, Scotland, a big supporter of Galloway. TLL interviewed Clews on 14 February.

The WPB works closely with Clews and vice versa. WPB members have appeared on Clews’ online “channel” called Unity News Network, Clews has appeared as a welcomed guest on Galloway’s Mother of All Talk Shows YouTube channel, and Galloway, WPB deputy leader Chris Williamson, and Clews spoke on the same panel in November 2023. The already-mentioned smear of anti-climate change activists was made by a leading WPB member on Clews’ Unity News Network.

SO WHAT ARE THE OPINIONS OF DAVID CLEWS?

Here are some of the views of Clews, who calls himself “a race realist”:

“If I were running this country, tomorrow I would put an immediate halt to all migration, legal and illegal. Yeah, 100 per cent,” Clews told me in our recent interview. Clews didn’t get the irony in the fact that a sizeable percentage of Rochdale voters for Galloway will be Muslims of South Asian background. Nor, obviously, does Galloway get it. Clews also endorses the already-mentioned racist “great replacement conspiracy theory.” Carlson “does good work”, he said. Clews, once a cherub-faced Conservative and then Labour councillor in Scotland, carried on:

“I am very skeptical about the science around vaccinations. I think a lot of it is actually quackery in many ways.” His anti-vax pro-conspiracy views were one reason Clews was banned from YouTube several years ago. Clews says distributing vaccines is “committing murder.”

Clews continued: “I’ve got a lot of time for Piers Corbyn. (Corbyn, the estranged brother of the former Labour Party leader, is the best-known British anti-vax conspiracy theorist. They share only a surname.) Clews adds: “I’ve also got a lot of time for George (Galloway)”. I have done a few broadcasts with him…. though my politics are different from him and Chris Williamson. I’m not going to lie about that.” Responding to my suggestion that one of the main reasons why people are migrating from Africa to Europe is because of the damage done by climate change to their homeland, Clews said: “I don’t know if I agree with that.” Clews calls the very idea of climate change “a hoax and a shakedown”.

It gets worse.

LARGEST FAR-RIGHT MOVEMENT IN THE UK

The Daily Record of Glasgow reported that Clews was “a keynote speaker” in both the summers of 2022 and 2023 at conferences held by Patriotic Alternative (PA). The group has been called “Britain’s largest far-right white supremacist movement” and “Islamophobic.”

The “Hope not Hate” group concurred with this view. In a 2023 report, it said that “Patriotic Alternative remains the UK’s most active fascist group, and achieved a new degree of publicity in 2022.”

At the 2022 PA conference where Clews spoke, its supporters unfurled a large banner at Stirling Castle reading: WHITE LIVES BUILT BRITAIN.

Asked whether he agreed with the banner’s message, Clews replied: “Well, they did. It is a fact.”

Clews is obviously ignorant of the Windrush Generation and why it is so important to Afro-Caribbeans and British Muslims, among others. Nor did he notice any Filipino nurses at the hospital he visited just before our interview on 14 February where his son was a patient.

Continuing on about the two PA leaders, Clews said, “I think Mark (Collett) and Laura (Melia) do good work, they stand up for the community.” You can read more about the views of “neo-Nazi” Collett, founder of the PA in 2019, in his Wikipedia entry. “George (Galloway) does good work too,” Clews concluded.

Asked for the WPB view of Clews, spokesperson Lauren Wilson called him “an interesting person” in an interview last week with us.

She did not criticize his racist, Islamophobic, and anti-immigrant views and said Clews was our “ally in the struggle [against NATO].” She did add, however, that she did not agree with all of his opinions.

JOINING A REACTIONARY NICHE

What emerges from this evidence is that the Workers Party of Britain and Galloway think that growing their party, achieving electoral success, and building the struggle against capitalism are best achieved by aligning themselves with a reactionary niche within UK politics.

This niche ticks all (or most) of the following boxes: British nationalism, white nationalism, anti-immigrant sentiment, Islamophobia, denial of climate change risks, pro-Putin, and other sentiments.

The list could go on: being “anti-woke” is a current favorite, anti-gay is another one, and there are others.

Notable figures in this niche include individuals such as Donald Trump and Carlson in the US and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, as well as Farage, Suella Braverman, Collett, and now as the Rochdale by-election nears, George Galloway in the UK.

Clews, however, is still an aspiring bit player with his Unity News Network boasting fewer than 1000 regular viewers. He has yet to acquire large financial backers.

Others in this niche include The Conservative Women. It is still low profile, but prolific. Bulletins are pumped out every morning right at 8:00 a.m. Give it a glance, a brief glance, we suggest.

HAS MOVED IN RIGHT-WING CIRCLES FOR YEARS

Collaborating with such types does not trouble Galloway or the WPB. Galloway “has moved in right-wing circles for many years” as one article commented. WPB spokesperson Lauren Wilson defends the strategy. “It allows us to be on these platforms, to talk to their audiences and to share our anti-imperialist, pro-working-class message,” she told us.

It is the view of TLL that fishing for supporters in these polluted waters is totally the wrong approach to building a socialist movement in the UK. We need to connect the ideological dots, not pander to and promote far-right conspiracy theorists. As for how the WPB campaign in Rochdale is going, Wilson said, “we’re in with a really good chance.”

What’s your view? Please comment below.

…and stay tuned for The Galloway File: Part 3 which we will be releasing early next week.

The Left Lane