Nigel Smith
The Worker’s Party of Britain (WPB), led by George Galloway, is a newish party on the Left in Britain. The WPB was founded in 2019. However, Galloway has a long history on the Left that preceded the setting up of the WPB, in which he was instrumental.
Galloway’s record
Galloway, born in 1954, was, from an early age, a member of the Labour Party in Scotland and its youngest ever general secretary. He was also the general secretary of the charity War on Want from 1983 until his election as MP for Glasgow Hillhead in 1987. Galloway was re-elected three times, but was expelled from the Labour Party in 2003, due to his vocal opposition to the Iraq war. Galloway then joined the Respect Party in 2004. Respect was a party representing a coalition of anti-war, left groups, with the Socialist Workers Party playing a key role. Galloway led Respect from 2013 to 2016. He was elected for Bethnal Green and Bow in the 2005 general election. He lost his seat in the 2010 general election but gained a parliamentary seat in the Bradford West by-election in 2012, only to lose it at the 2015 general election. He unsuccessfully stood as an independent in the 2017 and 2019 general elections. More recently Galloway stood unsuccessfully for WPB at the Batley and Spen by-election in 2021, but won the Rochdale seat in the 2024 by-election, only to lose in the general election this year.
Galloway also had a media career, hosting The Mother of All Talk. He was also a presenter on Russian state media from 2013 – 2022 and the Iranian state media outlet Press TV. Galloway also gained familiarity with the British TV viewing public by his appearance on the Big Brother reality TV show.
Galloway has been a consistent opponent of UK aggression in the Middle East and is a stern critic of Zionism and Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people. He has been accused of receiving money illegally from Iraqi sources, but none of the charges have been shown to have any validity.
Galloway was also involved in the 2009 Viva Palestina convoys to the Gaza Strip and set up the Mariam Appeal in 1998 to campaign against sanctions on Iraq.
Galloway supported Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign for the leadership of the Labour Party but also supported Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party at the 2019 European Parliamentary election. He also campaigned for Scotland to remain part of the UK – opposing Scottish independence. He blamed the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the West.
Socialist and socially conservative?
Galloway has what might be described as a no-nonsense style of politics. He is abrasive and dominates the political discourse in the organisations he has been part of. He is often portrayed as egocentric and loses interest in projects that do not further his own political ambitions. Many on the Left have a deep-seated resentment of Galloway for walking away from or undermining projects in which he has been involved. This was felt particularly in the Respect Party, which he left because it is claimed he was unable to dominate its narrative. Setting up the WPB came through a series of circumstances where leading Labour activists and MPs, most notable Chris Williams, were being witch-hunted out of the Labour Party on often dubious charges of antisemitism. It was also in response to an absence of a Left alternative to Labour. Galloway was well known and could mobilise a body of supporters for his ideas as well as receive media attention via a populist style.
There is no question therefore that, unlike his previous projects, WPB is a party he can heavily influence. A quick glance at the website reveals a battery of images of Galloway. During the recent general election, he appeared alongside candidates on publicity posters. He is the almost constant voice of the WPB and it is his ideas that are brought to the public’s attention. Galloway describes himself as both a socialist and socially conservative. A look at the WPB manifesto will show that many of the ideas it promotes are indeed progressive. Some of the ten pledges that they commit to are ones that many on the Left would agree with. These include ideas around: redistribution of wealth, increased workers’ control, improved pensions, increasing the tax threshold, re-nationalisation of the NHS and free travel for children. It is in some of the detail within the policies and also what is omitted from the manifesto where we see worrying aspects of what are in fact reactionary ideas. There is no clear commitment to full re-nationalisation of public utilities for example and the detail around worker’s rights seem to reflect approaches towards trade unionism reflective of the corporatist approach in Germany. The policy on climate change emphasises the problems of multi-nationals benefitting from net zero but at the same time attacks radical climate activism:
“We will not be seduced by the more apocalyptic Green hysteria that floods our media but we will seek rational debate centred on democratically aligned outcomes beneficial to workers.”
The manifesto also omits to mention the LGBTQ issue. Galloway’s retrograde views on LGBTQ and trans issues are well known. He describes gay relationships as “not normal” and clearly states that people should not be able to choose their preferred gender. In the Rochdale by-election, one of WPB letters to constituents stated,
“I believe in men and women. God created everything in pairs. Unlike the mainstream parties, I have no difficulty in defining what a woman is. A man cannot become a woman just by declaring as such.”
Galloway freely attacks, using heightened rhetorical language, those who don’t share his paradoxical political views and uses aggressive terminology against promoters of identity politics,
“There will be no support for identity politics or non-jobs for middle class graduates to support the NGO-industrial complex.”
Breaking agreements
The attempts of Left forces to build a new party of the working class have been unsuccessful for some years. There have been various attempts. In recent years, TUSC (Trades Unionist and Socialist Coalition) has probably been the most credible. However, the emergence of WPB has been on a bigger base and far quicker than the emergence of TUSC. Having a catalyst like Galloway to mobilise around provides WPB with a platform across the media that TUSC and other Left formations could only dream of. TUSC did call a convention of Left groups in February this year and WPB attended alongside 10 other small Left parties and organisations. There was an agreement to avoid, in principle, standing against one another in local and general elections. This agreement was broken by the WPB, who stood wherever they wanted and did not consult with TUSC. Moreover, they stood widely against independents who were fighting on a socialist platform. In Halifax for example, they opportunistically stood against a female Muslim socialist candidate with a male Muslim candidate who had previously stood as a Conservative. This reflect a general opportunistic approach to elections where the politics of the candidate are relegated because of their support for a single issue. In the current situation this is expressed support for the Palestinian struggle.
On Migration
There are many other areas that could be identified as worrying about WPB policies, including a confused approach to immigration. They are correct to point to anxieties of working people around migration created by the capitalist media and successive immigration policies. However, Care4Calaise (a volunteer-run refugee charity) and the PCS (civil service union) have developed a more progressive policy around immigration but, rather than looking towards this, it fundamentally apes the policies of the mainstream parties. It does point to mass immigration being the product of aggressive Western policies in the Midde East and elsewhere but at the same time, in an interview he said
“We have governments, in Washington and London, more concerned about the borders of Ukraine… than they are about their own borders”
and then went on to replicate all the far-right propaganda about hundreds of thousands fighting age men living in luxurious hotel, being paid “forever”.
In another interview, he calls on royal warships to be used to stop migrant boats crossing the English Chanel!
Vacuum on the Left
There is a desperate need for a new party of the working class. With the recent suspension of seven Labour MPs for voting against the two-child benefit cap; a cap that excludes parents with more than two children from additional child benefits, Jeremy Corbyn is asking to work together with those MPs to press for change inside parliament. This is a pathetic and forlorn hope. What Corbyn should be doing is, appealing to those MPs and possibly independent MPs and other Left forces to attempt to build a new party. This call though would be futile unless the unions affiliated to Labour, disaffiliate and join the struggle for a new worker’s party. It is now demonstrably the case that the Labour Party is a fully realised capitalist party. Labour will no longer succumb to pressure from the unions or the wider working class. Its loyalty is to the capitalist class and it is now the chief puppet of their will, rather than the Conservatives, who are facing an existential crisis. There is however a current mood of pessimism on the Left of British politics. This pessimism needs to be replaced by action. It is of no use to continually moan about Labour and the desperate austerity they are about to accelerate against the people. It is time to work together. The WPB is not a vehicle for unity. WPB under Galloway will seek to dominate Left formations where they can, but have policies, so far removed from genuine socialism that most socialists find unpalatable. They could, because of their relative lack of success at the last election where they failed to gain an MP and garnered a small percentage of the vote, lose their way and disappear. It is for newer forces to combine with existing ones to launch something from the wreckage of Enough is Enough and other Left initiatives.
The political reality is stark. We now have a government with a huge majority but small popular mandate. The British people are disillusioned with the current political caste, with fewer than 60% actually voting in the last election. Lefts from out of the Green movement as well as from more traditional parties and organisations need to see through the mist of dogma and operate together to develop a new approach. This would include people from the WPB and the Green Party, many of whom are desperate for a better way and will opt for WPB or Green, seeing no alternative. Whatever emerges needs to be based on a clear democratic basis and not modelled on Stalinist or Neo-Liberal structures. Building around a charismatic individual is not an option, as these parties that public figures solely determine their policies and members have no say dissolve leaving ruins behind. We need to change this model.
