The Politician

George Galloway was born into the Labour movement; his father a Union man his mother an Irish republican. He joined the Labour Party at 13 years old and for a long time the youngest-ever everything in the party. At just 26 he was the elected Chairman of the entire Labour Party in Scotland – when the party controlled almost all parliamentary seats, most councils and was THE power in the land.

He was from an early age a friend of Tony Benn, from the 1970s until Mr Benn’s death. Galloway joined the Transport and General Workers’ Union in 1973 – at the age of 19 – and is still a member (now known as UNITE). He represented the Union in parliament.

Galloway was expelled from Labour by Tony Blair over the Iraq War – while it was still raging – back in 2003. He’s still expelled and still demanding his re-instatement!

He represented Glasgow Hillhead and Glasgow Kelvin for Labour in parliament from 1987 (having defeated the post-war giant of centrist politics Roy Jenkins) until 2003 when he was expelled. From 2003-2005 he sat as an independent in parliament. In 2005 he defeated prominent Blairite MP Oona King in Bethnal Green and Bow Constituency which he voluntarily vacated in 2010 (having promised to serve just one-term). In 2012 in one of the biggest political upsets in British history he defeated Labour again in the Bradford West by-election.

In 2004 he led the Respect Party in that years European Parliament elections to the biggest left-of-Labour vote in British history. The Coalition polled more than a quarter of a million votes in England alone. Galloway polled nearly 100,000 of those in London.

In 2016, standing as an independent, he polled 154,000 first and second preference votes in the election of London Mayor.