A RE-POST:

 

By Joe Lauria
   in Rochdale, England
   Special to Consortium News

 

Hours afters after British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said it was “beyond alarming” that George Galloway had been elected to Parliament in a by-election at Rochdale, mainstream media reporters descended on the newly elected MP’s headquarters to confront him. 

“I despise the prime minister,” Galloway told them Friday night. “I don’t respect him at all. You keep referring to the prime minister as if that’s supposed to impress me,” Galloway told one reporter. 

Earlier in the day Sunak said in a speech at No. 10: 

“In recent weeks and months, we have seen a shocking increase in extremist disruption and criminality. What started as protests on our streets have descended into intimidation, threats and planned acts of violence. …  Now, our democracy itself is a target. Council meetings and local events have been stormed. MPs do not feel safe in their homes. Longstanding parliamentary conventions have been upended because of safety concerns. …

And it’s beyond alarming that last night, the Rochdale by-election returned a candidate that dismisses the horror of what happened on 7 October, who glorifies Hezbollah and is endorsed by Nick Griffin, the racist former leader of the BNP.

Yes, you can march and protest with passion. You can demand the protection of civilian life. But no, you cannot call for violent jihad. There is no context in which it can be acceptable to beam antisemitic tropes on to Big Ben in the middle of a vote on Israel, Gaza. And there can be no cause that you can use to justify the support of a prescribed terrorist group like Hamas.”

At what was supposed to be a victory celebration, Galloway told a reporter: “The prime minister is a rather diminutive, diminished and degraded politician. He made a party political statement. I don’t care about Rishi Sunak’s attitude.”  He said:

“What I care about is that the returning officer, a man of unimpeachable integrity … declared it a free and fair election, and me as the winner, and Rishi Sunak as one of the crushed, big two parties in the state. That’s all that matters to me.”

Galloway’s supporters, working people and their families, had flooded his headquarters at a Suzuki car dealership to celebrate his victory, in which he outpolled major party candidates by a wide margin. But the food remained in containers as teams of mainstream reporters went after Galloway surrounded by increasingly angry supporters. 

This fed into the prefixed narrative of an “intimidating” largely Muslim crowd of Galloway voters who pose a “threat” to proper, white Britain. 

“There are allegations of intimidation by your supporters,” a reporter persisted. 

“That’s five times that you’ve said that,” Galloway responded. “The returning office last night declared it — you were there — declared it a free and fair election and me the winner. You are just going to have to suck it up. I won the election.”

Another reporter tried to tell Galloway that the result somehow wasn’t legitimate because Labour had no official candidate after it booted Anzar Ali off the ticket because he said Israel was complicit in the Oct. 7 attacks.  

“Are you a Labour press officer?” Galloway sarcastically asked him.

“I’m not sure of the wisdom” of doing another interview, Galloway told a BBC reporter, before accusing her of “gate-crashing” his victory party. “We were welcomed here,” she said. 

“But you weren’t welcomed to come and invalidate the election,” Galloway responded.

He refuted her statement that Gaza was the main part of his campaign, agreeing only that it was a “strong” part of his message.

“Genocide usually is something that occupies people’s interests, or ought to at least,” he said. The BBC reporter then incredibly asked if he made promises to Rochdale that he can’t keep. 

“I don’t know what I’m doing here. This is my victory party. What do you mean promises I can’t keep? Why don’t you judge whether I kept them at the end of my term?” he said.

Galloway and the crowd erupted in laughter when she said: “This wasn’t really a huge victory for you when you consider that Labour wasn’t a part of it.”  

“You are shilling for Keir Starmer,” he told her. “Is this the BBC? Am I paying for this?” 

“You may think this wasn’t a normal by-election,” he said, “but I won it and I’m going to Parliament on Monday.”

 

READ MORE:

https://consortiumnews.com/2024/03/02/msm-target-galloway-at-victory-party/

 

 

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcULsv2v8wo

George Galloway speaks after being sworn in as Rochdale's MP.

 

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