George Galloway, leader and founder of ‘Workers Party Of Britain’, has stated his intention to vote for Douglas Ross’ Scottish Conservatives in May’s Holyrood elections.
Galloway, who is heading up the ‘electoral alliance‘ named Alliance for Unity to maintain the union and “kick out the SNP“, took to Twitter to claim he would vote for the incumbent Tory MSP in his constituency and use his secondary vote on the South Scotland list to vote for himself.
Galloway justified the decision by referring to Scotland under SNP rule as a “failed state” and retweeted one man referring to a “corrupt banana republic”
After first being elected as MP for Glasgow Kelvin in 1987, the Dundee born Galloway became known as a media firebrand for his opposition to the Iraq war and Tony Blair’s wider imperial projects. Since his expulsion from Labour in 2003, Galloway was twice elected for Respect in Bradford and then Bethnal Green. Despite leaving parliament in 2015 Galloway remained a regular on TalkRadio and Russia Today, as well as receiving 1.4% of the vote in London’s Mayoral election.
Galloway is perhaps most famous for his 2005 appearance before the United States Senate, in which he made several arguments against the US invasion of Iraq. He has also been a vocal supporter of socialist governments in Latin America, defending Hugo Chavez before the Oxford University Union.
This makes it all the more shocking that Galloway has thrown his support behind the party of foodbanks, of homelessness and of a hostile environment to migrants. This may seem out of character for George Galloway the political character of the past 20 years, but it seems very in sync with George Galloway the man, desperate for self preservation, clinging desperately onto relevancy at every opportunity.
May’s election of course is not a dual choice. There is not merely the option Sturgeon’s neoliberal nationalism, or the same old Tories only with an offside flag. Matthew Waddell, the Communist Party candidate for the Lothians List told Challenge “George Galloway’s’ resolve to vote conservative in order to preserve the union, shows us his determination to put nation before the class interests of the Scottish people and the working people in Britain and internationally“.
Tom Flanagan
