Seven Lessons – All Negative Except One – from the Workers Party’s Campaign in Rochdale
The Galloway File #3: A Left Lane investigation into the inner workings of this ego project of political firebrand and four-time MP George Galloway
Photo: Asadour Guzellan
By Alan Story
This is Part 3 of a three-part series on George Galloway and his Workers Party of Britain. Part 1 | Part 2.
The voters in the Manchester-area constituency of Rochdale go to the polls on Thursday (29 Feb.) in a by-election. It is far from certain which candidate will triumph. But this topsy-turvy by-election has, without doubt, resurrected the media profile of politician and broadcaster George Galloway, the leader of the minuscule Workers Party of Britain (WPB).
A BBC news story on the past weekend asked: "Rochdale: Is this the most chaotic by-election ever?"1 We will leave it to the mainstream media to unpack the “topsy turvyness” and “chaos” of it all. If you need some basic background, here is a list2 of the 11 candidates and one of many accounts of the by-election from last weekend’s press3.
No matter how it turns out — that is, whether Galloway wins or loses — we try here to examine the wider stakes and lessons of this by-election, ask if it moves ahead the struggle for socialist transformation in the UK, and consider whether progressives should endorse Galloway and his party, the WPB. They say they plan to run up to 50 candidates in the general election.
On the matter of an endorsement, The Left Lane (TLL) issues an unequivocal “NO”. To march to Galloway’s beat would be shameless… except on the question of Palestine.
1. GALLOWAY HAS DONE A GOOD JOB PROFILING THE CENTRALITY OF THE PALESTINIAN ISSUE
We salute George Galloway for the good job he’s done in putting the question of Palestine — and the genocidal war on its people that Israel has been waging — on the agenda of the Rochdale by-election.
Doing so may, in fact, be one reason Galloway might win later this week.
Photo: Christopher Thomond / The Guardian
As far back as late October 2023, 78% of Brits said they wanted an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. Since then, the percentage has continued to rise.
World opinion is also overwhelmingly supportive of an immediate ceasefire. In mid-December, the UN General Assembly voted4 one-sidedly in favor of an immediate ceasefire. The US was one of the few countries to oppose this motion; the UK, true to form, abstained.
More than two months later, both of the two largest UK parties remain in lockstep with Joe Biden on Gaza and refuse to oppose UK arms sales to Israel’s war machine. Last week’s shameful charade in the House of Commons was especially nauseating. Substacker Another Angry Voice captured the shame well in a series of posts such as this one.
The terrific campaign by pro-Palestine demonstrators deserves most of the credit for the widespread revulsion inside the UK for this genocide… and, of course, so does the courage of the Palestinians themselves. Galloway does deserve a wee bit himself.
A heads up, however, about one thing. If Galloway wins on Thursday and if a rumoured ceasefire in Gaza occurs next week, there will be no connection between the two.
This is the end of the plaudits here for Galloway and his Workers Party of Britain.
2. SOCIALISTS NEED TO BE ECOSOCIALISTS
As documented at the start of Part 2, Galloway and his WPB are strongly opposed to measures aimed at combating climate change and to environmental protection initiatives more generally. The WPB considers that “environmentalism as a thing is anti-working class”, a former party member told TLL as part of our detailed investigation into the WPB’s policies and internal operations.
Photo: Kath Benson
An article has just been published about the environmental policies advocated by all 11 candidates on the ballot in the Rochdale by-election. Galloway places last5, along with the Reform Party candidate, in his support for environmental protection measures. What a shameful rank for a supposed socialist to place, neck and neck with a Farageist.
Not only should socialists be in the front ranks of those organizing and campaigning about climate change, but it is also good electoral politics. Young people are especially active in the environmental movement today. A recent survey showed that 80% of the public think climate change is one of the three top challenges we face in Britain and 66% of the public support nonviolent direct action to protect the environment.
An urgent priority for socialists is to reveal the links between capitalism and the climate crisis and to spread the message found in books such as “Can Capitalism Save the Planet?”6
Galloway and his mates are stuck in some kind of 1970s time warp on the issue of climate change justice. They just don’t get it. Working-class people, both in the UK and around the world, are the primary victims of global warming and its consequences such as flooding. In the UK, recent months have been terrible ones for flooding7, though climate change is not the sole explanatory factor.
Yes, compared to working-class people, middle-class people are overrepresented in the environmental movement. But as socialists, we need to work to overcome this, not to glory in it.
Five years ago I put together an editorial package8 on how to broaden the class basis of the environmental movement. It is definitely not the last word on the subject but does give at least a few answers.
3. THE LEFT MUST BUILD ALLIANCES WITH POTENTIAL FRIENDS, NOT ENEMIES
George Galloway has a long record of refusing to collaborate with potential friends. For example, it was proposed 20 years ago that Respect, a party of the left, should form an electoral pact with the Green Party. Galloway, a leading figure in Respect, was strongly opposed. His point of view prevailed, and one of Respect's co-founders, George Monbiot9 (who later became a columnist for The Guardian), quit in disgust at Galloway’s sectarianism.
Photo: Greenpeace
Galloway has been behind numerous splits during his long political career. His WPB, established in late 2019, is a notorious “go-it-alone” party.
As detailed in Part 2, the WPB’s main allies are people such as far-right activist and conspiracy theorist David Clews of Scotland. Clews labels the climate crisis “a hoax and a shakedown”10 and has been a keynote speaker at several conferences of the largest UK neo-Nazi group, Patriotic Alternative11.
4. THE ROAD TO SOCIALISM DOES NOT PASS THROUGH ISOLATED BY-ELECTION TRIUMPHS
George Galloway’s last by-election race occurred in 2021 in the Yorkshire constituency of Batley and Spen. As a WPB candidate, he finished third12.
While Galloway may have a good shot at winning in Rochdale on 29 February, the more pertinent question is: if he does emerge triumphant, what are his prospects of retaining this constituency in the impending general election expected within the next 10 months?
I'd venture to say they are about as promising as my chances of becoming the next goalkeeper for Manchester City FC, situated just a stone's throw away.
A respected organization with expertise in predicting the elections — it is called “Electoral Calculus” — did a study in August 2023 of all 36 by-elections held in the UK between 2010 and 2019. It looked at how often the winner of these 36 by-elections went on to win again in the subsequent general election. “Of the seven by-election gains, five of them reverted to the original party at the next general election,” Electoral Calculus found13.
We need not look here at why such by-election victories tend strongly to be temporary. (One reason is a wretched electoral system; see point 5). In the 2019 general election, Labour won Rochdale14 by a margin of almost 10,000 votes, and in the next general election, winning back Rochdale is certain to be a priority for Keir Starmer. It will likely be at the very top of Labour’s “we must win again” target seats.
Galloway unexpectedly beat Labour in the 2012 Bradford West15 by-election but fell far short in the 2015 general election. Galloway and Respect held the London seat of Bethnal Green and Bow16 for only one term after a surprise win in 2005.
So what will be the upshot if, on the day after election day in 2024, Galloway becomes “ex-Rochdale MP”? Galloway will have won himself some headlines. But what else? What will Rochdale votes have won? What base of resistance will have been built? How will the socialist movement have been strengthened?
While elections can serve as a potential instrument for nurturing that movement in the long run, they are not effective when utilized to parachute in transient victors who primarily seek to promote themselves. The Rochdale election will have been classic short-termism and, win or lose, will reveal the foolishness of WPB tactics.
5. WE NEED TO CAMPAIGN AND WIN PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION (PR)
There are two similarities, among others, about the political system in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and Canada. All three use the backward and undemocratic first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting system for their elections. And all three countries have no socialist party.
There is a connection between the two. As a voting system, FPTP maintains a duopoly of two parties. In the United States, no party other than the Democrats or the Republicans has won election to government since the 1850s. In Canada, only two parties have been elected to government since the country was founded in 1867. Here in the UK, Labour and the Tories have been the only parties to triumph since the 1920s.
Not surprisingly, the Conservative Party and the leadership of the Labour Party are two of the main bastions of opposition to the only democratic alternative, proportional representation (PR).
One of the cardinal principles of PR is that seats won in Parliament should match votes cast. It is fair to surmise that a well-organized and serious socialist party — one sadly does not exist now — could win at least 5 percent of the overall vote even during its first general election test. Winning 5 percent of the votes would result in winning about 5 percent of the seats in the 650-seat House of Commons. You do the maths.
Photo: Matt Phypers / Get PR Done!
You can find a lot more about what an unfair system PR is on the website of the cross-party/no-party campaign group Get PR Done! See, for example, the various blogs here17 or the “campaigning” section here18. (A declaration: in January 2020, I was the co-founder of this group.)
George Galloway says he opposes our current voting system and wants PR. So do some number of other groups, as do the overwhelming majority of Labour Party members. But until there is a serious campaign to win PR, the left will have no chance of winning more than the occasional seat in Parliament every decade or so.
6. WE NEED A NEW MASS SOCIALIST PARTY. THE WPB ISN’T IT. NOR IS TRANSFORM.
The Labour Party is not a socialist party. Ralph Miliband, the father of ex-Labour leader Ed Miliband, has explained19 in great detail that it never was. Serious socialists who look to the future know that we need to build one.
Established in December 2019, Galloway’s Workers Party is NOT it… as we think this three-part series has demonstrated.
TLL has a great deal more evidence about the internal functioning of the WPB. For example, any disagreements with Galloway are actively suppressed as the Liverpool branch of WPB found out to its dismay in 2022. The branch wanted to openly discuss the lack of transparency inside the WPB and how collective work “has been undermined by internal spats, disagreements, and infighting” as documents we have read reveal.
Such an open debate never occurred. WPB general secretary Paul Cannon demanded the names of all WPB members that the Liverpool branch had “opened a dialogue” with.
Asked about the incident, WPB spokesperson Lauren Wilson dismissed their complaint and told TLL in a recent interview that WPB members from Liverpool “were just miserable people, yes, miserable people.” They are now also ex-WPB members.
From more than eight hours of interviews with former WPB, it is clear that the WPB is not a psychologically safe space for its members to conduct their politics. Team psychological safety “is a shared belief held by members of a team that it’s OK to take risks, to express their ideas and concerns, to speak up with questions, and to admit mistakes — all without fear of negative consequences.”20
Meanwhile, another new party of the left has just been established. These days such parties seem to pop up as regularly as Islamophobia arises within Tory ranks.
The newest party is called Transform. It was created in Nottingham on 25th November 2023 as a supposed merger of the Breakthrough Party21, Left Unity22, and the Liverpool Independents. Transform is already announcing it will be running candidates against Labour in the upcoming general election and party officials say they expect to win some seats under its name23.
A bit of modesty is in order. Transform officials announced back in the autumn of 2023 that more than 6,000 activists supported the call for a new party, but less than 100 activists — to be generous — actually came to Nottingham on 25 November. Left Unity is badly split24 on whether it actually wants to dissolve and become Transform. A councilor for The Liverpool Independents will seek to become an MP in the next general election but has wisely chosen to run under the ”Liverpool Independents” banner rather than that of Transform.
I mean: who has ever heard of Transform? To think that UK voters have just been waiting for Transform to come along is delusional in the extreme.
As for their prospects of electoral success or even making a measurable political impact, I'd venture to say they are about as promising as my chances of becoming the next goalkeeper for Manchester United.
7. THE LEFT SHOULD GIVE PROMINENCE TO OUR BEST ACTIVISTS. GALLOWAY ISN’T ONE OF THEM.
When you have a bit of time, read over the well-documented 53-page Wikipedia entry on George Galloway. Perhaps also check out over the three longish articles in this series; they total more than 6,000 words.
And remember, as well, a few of the “controversial incidents” in Galloway’s political career that has now lasted almost 50 years.
Consider this one (pictured) from January 2006 when Galloway appeared on the reality TV show “Celebrity Big Brother”. The low point of the program was when, to quote from his Wikipedia entry, MP Galloway, “mimed licking imaginary milk, whilst pretending to be a cat, from the cupped hands of another housemate, actress Rula Lenska.”
At the time, Galloway said about the event: “that was my last election…”25
In 2024, why don’t you keep your promise, George?
You’ve had almost five decades of good (and often bad) innings.
If you win in Rochdale on Thursday, why don’t you hang up your boots and give someone else a chance, suggests this 76-year-old.
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