By Daviemoo
Galloway’s movement might not be cohesive enough to present a threat to Labour taking government in the next election- though some would question that based on this win – but it is an opportunity to stare into a political future just over the horizon, and to reflect accordingly. The question is: is Starmer’s team capable of the sort of deep introspection that will help them learn from this?
The results in Rochdale today don’t please me. Whilst I think Galloway is an incisive talker and a man who sticks with his convictions for better or worse, I don’t like him personally, or- broadly, politically.
When Batley & Spen were holding by-elections I remember Galloway and Laurence Fox all headed to my old constituency to harangue each other. Both of them put out rhetoric that annoyed me. Fox held a “free speech” rally to defend a teacher who showed images of the prophet Muhammad which is widely known to be deeply offensive to Muslim people. Quick lesson: free speech is to show images which are known to be offensive, and free speech is to face criticism and recompense for it.
Galloway, whilst campaigning for the seat, stated that he did not want “children to be taught about anal sex”- this is a widely shared conspiracy theory that the far right use to demonise LGBT+ content in the curriculum. Teaching children factually that some other children may have two mothers or two fathers, as was confirmed by a local Labour representative about the school’s curriculum, is not comparable to speaking about sex acts, and to know Galloway pushed this conspiracism didn’t surprise me. It fits into the wider slant of our political epoch that LGBT+ people cannot escape sexualisation by cishet people just by existence, and to know Galloway pushes this as a fervent belief doesn’t shock me.
He’d also previously undertaken an interview with Benjamin Cohen of Pink News and at the end confirmed that he thinks gay people choose our ‘lifestyle’. Whilst I liked Galloway’s elaboration that it doesn’t matter whether you choose it or not, it’s worthy of respect and self determination, this basic lack of understanding about the biological reality of queer existence throws up flags- the same way people use the words “biological reality” as a dogwhistle against queer people. Trans, gay, bi people’s reality biologically is what we present to you. No candidate should stand in parliament and claim anything otherwise as it’s simply fiction.
It’s not to say I don’t think Galloway is a hundred percent wrong in all of his utterances- I think his stolid defence of Palestine and criticism of the Israeli state has been correct often, if not always: after all, mere days before his election we heard of what is now being called “The Flour Massacre” as we read with horror, reports of well armed IDF soldiers slaughtering over 150 emaciated Palestinians desperate for food because, as the starving people began to swarm towards the scant supplies, the armed, armoured soldiers “felt scared”.
But this is the thing: this isn’t really about George Galloway and his hats and suits and strong Scottish brogue: Galloway is just the shibboleth. This is about a wider political and social dissatisfaction with the UK political stratum. Whether you’re a disaffected center left Muslim person who feels like Labour are too terrified of the ghosts of antisemitism under the previous leader or a queer person leaning socialist, people are unhappy enough with Labour’s current rhetoric that protest electing a candidate like Galloway isn’t a fringe radical idea any more- it’s happening.
Naturally, Labour loyalists will be quick to blame those groups for not conforming to the party line, but it takes almost stupendous, neck breaking positioning to ignore the ongoing rhetoric that has led us here: from Starmer saying he gives “uncritical support” to Israel even as we were reading reports of collective punishment to saying he “hadn’t had time” to watch footage of unarmed Palestinian men being gunned down and even a paucity of comment on the massacre mentioned above, to condoning Streetings plans to kick trans women off the imaginary women’s wards we keep hearing about or writing paywalled articles in The Telegraph exhorting people still hoping for Corbyn-esque policy to “use the door”, Starmer himself along with members of his party have directly pushed lines which have alienated traditional Labour voters. Doing so has, of course, swollen the ranks of the party with non-traditional Labour voters, with the side effects meaning that in order to win and stay popular, Labour have committed themselves to a long term sway towards that brand of politics, permanently disadvantaging those who would have previously stood with the party.
I’m the first to say in a cynical way I think what Starmer has done is clever, if distasteful. He’s dragged enough voters into an intransigent loyalty to win. But the unrelenting short sightedness of those who have stuck with labour through thick and thin is an odd sort of viewpoint to speak to. As I pointed out recently, stating you’ve been a lifelong labour voter when the party has veered from center to left to center again shows what some would call pragmatism, whereas I call it a lack of independent political philosophy. I go where the policy is good or where the harm is least- and despite being told this is student politics, a weak position, “privileged”, I hold it because I must.
It is another forced binary which simply does not need to be: Starmer could offer pragmatic policy based on appealing to a “broad church”, something that a Labour loyalist told my aquaintance Politi_Cal outside a recent labour conference.
Policies based on spend- to- grow would appeal to a huge extant base of voters, policies based on highlighting the truth of schooling & an honest discourse around queer existence would take much heat out of the arguments across the UK- but the upper echelons of the party feel entitled to dictate to those able to stick by labour how they should feel- if you’re trans, hold your nose and stand next to those women with T shirts sloganeering you as a pervert and if you’re muslim, sorry about your Palestinian family members but consider how you might feel if the tories win again. Labour’s recent endorsement of James Cleverly’s plans to even further garrotte protest rights in the UK tell you all you need to know about how labour feel about being spoken back to as they monologue at you over the “will of the people”. When it comes to personal beliefs and religion or personal identity, this idea that one group has the right to exhibit control over another is insane: as a staunch atheist, I don’t want to strip people’s religions away, I want them to keep it to themselves- pray, worship, be spiritually full- but don’t use your religion as an excuse to tell me how I can live my life. If seeing me holding hands in public bothers you, understand how I feel about the preachers both Muslim and Christian who sit on the Main Street of my city every weekend exhorting people to join their religion. If knowing I have gay sex bothers you, think about your lord god and not what I do with my own body. No party is pushing true pragmatism- Labour seems unrelentingly bent towards diffidence of Israel’s actions, the tories too though they have also positively exploded with islamophobia on top of their other keening bigotries. Where are the parties who say you’re as free to pray and worship as queers are to live in peace? Nowhere, because sensible compromise met a gasping death at the hands of populism, and now in the space looms a fedora sporting shadow…
Galloway’s win represents a deep rooted frustration with the political establishment: it’s overreach, it’s corruption and the never ending insistence that we must settle settle settle.
The tories have driven the country into utter chaos, crowing the entire time about the success of a brexit that’s mutilated GDP, the quick response to a pandemic that killed 240,000 people because of Sunak’s desperation to reopen restaurants, the tolerant nation where trans teens are being stabbed as the PM mocks their existence in parliament and in private, the safe nation where police are systemically corrupt, the clever nation with a news channel facing thirteen simultaneous Ofcom investigations.
Labour’s lassitude is resting purely on “the tories are so bad that people will vote for us no matter what”, and this logic fails universally. In the US, 140,000 voters for Democratic primaries chose not Joe Biden, sitting president. They could have united us all under a banner of “the tories going is step one” and presented a brave vision of a Britain united under the idea of cohesive civil liberties, a strong vision of long term plans to take all utilities back to public ownership, plans to cut tax spend on useless projects whilst superfunding the NHS for recruitment and repair, offering the young the chance to study specialist schemes which led them into shortage medical jobs at cut rate to fill the gaps. Instead we’re given the sensible concessions which will fix nothing, but will cover them with the watery gloss of “at least it’s not the tories”.
People are tired of being told their votes are in an iron grasp, simply because of a paucity of options and the dismissive attitude and derision- not just of the party, but of Labour loyalists- only reaffirms to those with qualms that Labour is a party who will squeeze your vote out of you through your own sheer desperation, not coaxing it from you by offering better- and it’s paving the way for Galloway style figures to wreak havoc.
Labour’s insistence that their Rochdale candidate was antisemitic even as a dossier of evidence that Israel is committing horrendous crimes against humanity grows was essentially handing Galloway license to win: will this be a lesson for Starmer and the upper echelons of the party? Or will their stoic line of “it’s us or the tories” still hold even in the face of this proof that people might just be sick of both of them? They’re predicted a landslide majority of something like over 100 seats, so I suspect they’ll make light of the larger threat Galloway’s win presents- and ignoring this threat creates a silo filled with the hissing gas of discontented voices which will- not might- eventually ignite, setting Starmer’s vision ablaze.
Politically Enraged 