GenZedong

It doesn't surprise me at all. Both the Tories and Labour governments have been fucking over Rochdale for years. The town is a shadow of what it once was.

Galloway's main appeal to people in Rochdale was pointing out that you can't be born in Rochdale unless it's in an ambulance on the way to Oldham, you can't be educated in Rochdale if you have any special educational needs, and you can't die in Rochdale unless it's in an ambulance on the way to Oldham.

In the past couple decades they've had their hospitals, aged care and education all cut to save costs.

He was telling Rochdale folk in a town hall debate that even if they disagree with his beliefs (i.e. Catholic views on gender and sex), he's the only one with a stake in actually doing anything for them, and Rochdale apparently agrees.

Edit: I'd encourage folks who think GG is just grifting with his rhetoric on Gaza to go back and view the archives of his talk show; it's been an issue of contention for him for decades. You can go back even further, as far back as standing in the pickets with Scargill in the miner's strikes. If he's a grifter, he's awfully bad at it considering he somehow always ends up on the right side of history (which has also been the losing side, and the less profitable side) since before most of us were born.

This guy is a British patsoc and he's doing little more than playing electoralism. His constitution is tiny by British standards, and he's a known transphobe. He sent two different letters in the leading to election day, one to his white constituents and one to Muslims. In the second one he only talks about Palestine. In the first one he begins by saying he "has no difficulty defining what a woman is" and does not mention Palestine even once.

He also opposes Scottish independence and is proud of it.

Edit: he received 12000 votes and the UK adult population is 45 million. 0.01% of the country voted for him.

He's not a communist and frankly by his superficial opinions it seems he's not a Marxist either, at least I hope he doesn't call himself one. He's just playing politician.

I have nothing useful to contribute other than to say that the guy dresses as a mid 20th century politician with the hat and all

An actual leftist British political party? Idk man, sounds antisemitic to me.

Who wants to bet on whether Corbyn will join? Idealistic and conciliatory as he was, at least Gaza was one of the good wedge issues he never seemed to back away from. He also got a lot of flak for his "Stop the War Coalition" thing for ending Ukraine's War.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The veteran political agitator George Galloway declared “a shifting of the tectonic plates” away from Labour after claiming a stunning victory in the Rochdale byelection.

Addressing Starmer from the podium, Galloway said: “This is going to spark a movement, a landslide, a shifting of the tectonic plates, a score of parliamentary constituencies, beginning here in the north-west, in the West Midlands, in London, from Ilford to Bethnal Green & Bow.

Another heckler, who gave her name as Jane Twill, was removed by security after interrupting the victory speech by accusing Galloway of failing to address the climate emergency.

So confident was Galloway’s team that they briefed reporters within an hour of the polls closing that he had won “comfortably” and announced plans for a “mass rally” immediately after the declaration at his election headquarters, a former Suzuki showroom.

Labour, defending a near-10,000-vote majority and riding high in the polls, had expected a straightforward contest to replace the sitting MP, Tony Lloyd, who died on 17 January from leukaemia.

His team, backed by an army of volunteers from across the country, managed to capture the vote of a significant number of Muslim people, who make up about 30% of the town’s population, with many angry about Labour’s position on Gaza.

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George Galloway pretended to be a cat on live television and was endorsed by literal fascist nick griffin