George Galloway Election Triumph Hails New Era For British Left

Now we left-wingers can breathe a sigh of relief. Some respite at last. The Ego Has Landed. Stalinist firebrand and bearded knob, Gorgeous George Galloway trounces the mainstream candidates in a shock by-election win in Bradford West, where his As-SalamuAlaykums, Allahu Akbars and Insha’Allahs went down a treat. As did his usual vitriolic sermons against Zionism and Western crusades in the Middle East. He is now our voice in the Commons – a man of the left! – with his stage swagger and bruiser build, the acerbic wit, maverick style, and the undeniable charisma when he lectures on the murder of millions of innocent muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. In his inimitable style, a progressive pit-bull, always working best under Paxman-esque media scrutiny, on the defence, when he’s accused of running a sectarian campaign, or of political opportunism, or of being a cheerleader for Hamas and Hezbollah.

Gorgeous George, MP is here to save us from the Bullingdon Shakedown. Screaming from the back bench to single-handedly stop Gideon’s austerity budgets. We are saved. Just like when The Greens won Brighton Pavilion and put a stop to illegal logging in the Amazon. Let’s hope this time he actually bothers to show up to work. His participation record for his last term in Bow was amongst the lowest in parliamentary history. He was beaten to the bottom by only eleven MPs, five of whom were Sinn Fein (who never take their seats on principle), three were the speaker and deputy speakers (ineligible to vote), one was Tony Blair, and two were dead. But that can be forgiven, what with all his ‘grass-roots’ activity; the shameless self-promotion, media appearances, Trotskyist conferences, Stop the War conventions and post-march rallies where he really is in his element – preaching to the converted crowd of sycophantic Socialist Worker vendors. And in any case, we’re not under any illusion that his vote would make a difference to anybody anyway.

We were glad to see the ‘big three’ of British politics, with their big business and union donors, defeated and shamed by an underdog who once posed lycra-clad as a cat, licking the hands of Rula Lenska. For this I salute his courage, strength and indefatigability. But this is nothing but comic relief from the tonne of shit rained down on us blithely by the Cameron-Clegg alliance, a hollow victory that exposes the futility of parliamentarism and the sham of representative democracy.

But this electioneering by an impotent old leftist isn’t totally meaningless. It has at least emphasised what we already knew; the Westminster elite can’t afford to be complacent. The Lib-Dems, a party in government, gained less than the 5% threshold needed to keep their deposit. The rest were left with egg on their faces as George declared the ‘Bradford Spring’. We do not respect or trust them as our betters or benevolent managers – they are hated. We are disenfranchised, alienated and excluded. We are under attack. Galloway tapped into an anger that isn’t just localised in Bradford West, but is virtually universal – we know the game is rigged against us. Next time in Bradford, and across the country, people won’t voice their discontent or take out their frustrations in the polling stations, (like the droves of old Labour voters who went Liberal after Iraq, or the students after tuition fees, or the fair trade organic brigade who harp on about their ‘protest votes’ for Caroline Lucas), they will occupy, strike, resist, blockade, barricade, form workers’ councils, neighourhood assemblies, peoples’ militias… they will liberate and federate… Insha’Allah.