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George Galloway
Member of Parliament
for Bethnal Green and Bow
Incumbent
Assumed office
5 May 2005
Preceded byOona King
Majority823 (1.9%)
Personal details
Born (1954-08-16) August 16, 1954 (age 70)
Dundee, Scotland
Political partyRESPECT
Websitewww.georgegalloway.com

George Galloway (born 16 August 1954 in Dundee) is a Scottish politician noted for his left wing views, confrontational style, and rhetorical skill. He is currently the Respect Member of Parliament (MP) for Bethnal Green and Bow, and was previously elected as a Labour Party MP for Glasgow Hillhead and Glasgow Kelvin.

Galloway is probably best known for his vigorous campaign to overturn economic sanctions against Iraq, and for his visits to Saddam Hussein in 1994 and 2002. He was expelled from the Labour Party in October 2003 when a party body decided that statements he had made in opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq had brought the party into disrepute.

In January 2004, Galloway became a founding member of Respect, a new political coalition to the left of Labour, in association with the Socialist Workers Party and other left-wing groups, anti-Iraq war activists such as Salma Yaqoob, and other figures on the British left such as film director Ken Loach. He won his seat in the 2005 general election, the only time Respect has won a Parliamentary election. In January 2006 he sparked controversy for taking part in the television series Celebrity Big Brother.


Early and personal life

Galloway was born in Dundee, Scotland and grew up in a Roman Catholic household and was a keen amateur boxer. He attended Charleston Primary and the Harris Academy, a nondenominational school. He was married from 1979 to 1999 to Elaine Fyffe, with whom he has a daughter. He married Amineh Abu-Zayyad in 2000: Zayyad filed for divorce in 2005.

Galloway states that he is a non-drinker from a non-drinking family. "My father didn’t drink alcohol and his father didn’t and my daughter doesn’t... I think it has a very deleterious effect on people".

Labour Party organiser

Galloway joined the Labour Party at 15 years old and within three years was the vice-secretary of the Dundee West constituency party. His enthusiasm led him to become vice-chairman of the Labour Party in the city of Dundee and a member of the Scottish Executive Committee in 1975. On 5 May 1977, he contested his first election campaign in the Scottish district elections but failed to hold the safe Labour seat at Gillburn, Dundee. He was beaten by the Independent candidate Bunty Turley, who was a trade unionist running on the campaign slogan "enough is enough" after allegations were made about Galloway's personal and financial behaviour. Galloway became the secretary organiser of Dundee Labour Party—the youngest ever Scottish chairman—in March 1981 at 26 years old.

His support for the Palestinian cause began in 1974 when he met a Palestinian activist in Dundee; he supported the actions of Dundee City council which flew the Palestinian flag inside the City Chambers. He was involved in the twinning of Dundee with Nablus in 1980, although he did not take part in the visit of Lord Provost Gowans, Ernie Ross MP and three city councillors to Nablus and Kuwait in April 1981.

During 1981, Denis Healey, then deputy leader of the Labour Party, failed in a bid to remove Galloway from the list of Prospective Parliamentary Candidates following an article Galloway had written in Scottish Marxist supporting Communist Party affiliation with the Labour Party. Galloway successfully argued that this was his own personal viewpoint, not that of the Labour Party. Healey lost his motion by 13 votes to 5. He once quipped that, in order to overcome a £1.5 million deficit which had arisen in the city budget, he, Ernie Ross and leading councillors should be placed in the stocks in the city square: "we would allow people to throw buckets of water over us at 20p a time."

War on Want

From November 1983 to 1987, Galloway was General Secretary of War On Want, a British charity that campaigns against poverty worldwide. In this post he was much travelled, especially to areas suffering famine; he wrote eye-witness accounts of the famine in Eritrea in 1985 which were published in the Sunday Times and the Spectator.

The Daily Mirror accused him of living luxuriously at the charity's expense. An independent auditor cleared him of misuse of funds, though he did repay £1,720 in contested expenses. He later reportedly won £155,000 from the Mirror in an unrelated libel lawsuit.

More than two years after Galloway stepped down as General Secretary to serve as a Labour MP, the UK government's Charity Commission investigated War on Want, finding accounting irregularities from 1985 to 1989, but little evidence that money was used for non-charitable purposes. Galloway had been general secretary for the first three of those years. The commission said responsibility lay largely with auditors and did not single out individuals for blame.

Parliamentary career

Member of Parliament, Glasgow

Galloway was selected as Labour candidate for the Glasgow Hillhead seat, then held by Roy Jenkins of the Social Democratic Party. He fought for a place on the Labour Party National Executive Committee in 1986; in a large field of candidates he finished as second from bottom. At the 1986 Labour Party Conference he made a strong attack on the Labour Party's Deputy Leader and Shadow Chancellor Roy Hattersley for not favouring exchange controls.

In the 1987 election, Galloway won Glasgow Hillhead from Jenkins with a majority of 3,251.

Troubles within the Labour Party

Asked about a War on Want conference on Mykonos, Greece during his previous job, the new MP Galloway notoriously replied "I travelled to and spent lots of time with people in Greece, many of whom were women, some of whom were known carnally to me. I actually had sexual intercourse with some of the people in Greece." The statement put Galloway on the front pages of the tabloid press and in February 1988 the Executive Committee of his Constituency Labour Party passed a vote of no confidence in him.

He went on to win reselection over Trish Godman (wife of fellow MP Norman Godman) in June 1989, but failed to get a majority of the electoral college on the first ballot. This was the worst result for any sitting Labour MP who was reselected; 13 out of the 26 members of the Constituency Party's Executive Committee resigned that August, indicating their dissatisfaction with the result.

In 1990, a classified advertisement appeared in the Labour left weekly Tribune headed "Lost: MP who answers to the name of George", "balding and has been nicknamed gorgeous", claiming that the lost MP had been seen in Romania but had not been to a constituency meeting for a year. A telephone number was given which turned out to be for the Groucho Club in London, from which Galloway had recently been excluded (he has since been readmitted). Galloway threatened legal action and pointed out that he had been to five constituency meetings. He eventually settled for an out-of-court payment by Tribune.

The leadership election of the Labour Party in 1992 saw Galloway voting for fellow Scot John Smith for Leader and Margaret Beckett as Deputy Leader. In 1994 after Smith's death, Galloway declined to cast a vote in the leadership election (one of only three MPs to do so). In a debate with the leader of the Scottish National Party Alex Salmond, Galloway responded to one of Salmond's jibes against the Labour Party by declaring "I don't give a fuck what Tony Blair thinks."

Although facing a challenge for the Labour nomination for the seat of Glasgow Kelvin in 1997, Galloway successfully defeated Shiona Waldron. He was unchallenged for the nomination in 2001. Although he had a reputation as a left-winger, Galloway was never a member of the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs.

In the 1997 and 2001 elections Galloway was the Labour candidate for the seat of Glasgow Kelvin, winning with majorities of over 16,000 and 12,000 respectively.

Expulsion from the Labour Party

Galloway made many aggressive and controversial statements in opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. For these, and after 34 years of membership and having held leadership positions, he was expelled from the Labour party. He reportedly said in a 28 March, 2003 interview with Abu Dhabi TV that Tony Blair and George W. Bush had "lied to the British Air Force and Navy, when they said the battle of Iraq would be very quick and easy. They attacked Iraq like wolves...." and added, "... the best thing British troops can do is to refuse to obey illegal orders." He called the Labour government "Tony Blair's lie machine." His most controversial statement from the interview may have been "Iraq is fighting for all the Arabs. Where are the Arab armies?".

The Observer newspaper said in 2003 that the Director for Public Prosecutions was considering a request to pursue Galloway under the Incitement to Disaffection Act, 1934.

On 18 April The Sun published an interview with Tony Blair in which Blair said "His comments were disgraceful and wrong. The National Executive will deal with it." Citing Galloway's comments regarding the Iraq war, the General Secretary of the Labour Party suspended him from holding office in the party on 6 May, 2003, pending a hearing on charges that he had violated the party's constitution by "bringing the Labour Party into disrepute through behaviour that is prejudicial or grossly detrimental to the Party". The National Constitutional Committee held a hearing on 22 October, 2003, to consider the charges, taking evidence from Galloway himself, from other party witnesses, viewing media interviews, and hearing character testimony from (among others) veteran former Labour MP and ex-minister Tony Benn. The following day, the committee found the charge of bringing the party into disrepute proved, and expelled Galloway from the Labour Party forthwith. Galloway called the Committee's hearing "a show trial" and "a kangaroo court".

2005 election

In January 2004 Galloway announced he would be working with members of the English Socialist Alliance and others under the name Respect - The Unity Coalition, generally referred to simply as Respect. Many commentators were surprised by this development since Galloway had a track record of antipathy toward Trotskyists, and the largest component of Respect is the Socialist Workers Party, which broadly identifies itself as part of the Trotskyist political tradition. Some former members of the Socialist Alliance, including the Workers Liberty and Workers Power groups, objected to forming a coalition with Galloway, citing his political record, and his refusal to accept an average worker's wage, with Galloway claiming "I couldn’t live on three workers’ wages".

He stood as the Respect candidate in London in the 2004 European Parliament elections, but failed to win a seat after receiving 91,175 of the 115,000 votes he needed.

After his expulsion, he had initially fuelled speculation that he might call a snap by-election before then, by resigning his parliamentary seat, saying:

If I were to resign this constituency and there was a by-election I can't guarantee that I would win, but I would guarantee that Tony Blair's candidate would surely lose.

Galloway later announced that he would not force a by-election and intended not to contest the next general election in Glasgow. Galloway's Glasgow Kelvin seat was split between three neighbouring constituencies for the May 2005 general election. One of these, the redrawn Glasgow Central constituency might have been his best chance to win, but had his long-time friend Mohammad Sarwar, the first Muslim Labour MP and a strong opponent of the Iraq War in place; Galloway did not wish to challenge him. After the European election results became known, Galloway announced that he would stand in Bethnal Green and Bow, the area where Respect had its strongest election results and where the sitting Labour MP, Oona King, supported the Iraq War. On 2 December, despite speculation that he might stand in Newham, he confirmed that he was to be the candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow.

The ensuing electoral campaign in the seat proved to be a difficult one with heated rhetoric. It was reported by the BBC that Galloway had himself been threatened with death by extreme Islamists from the banned organisation al-Ghuraaba. All the major candidates united in condemning the threats and violence.

On May 5, Galloway won the seat by 823 votes and made a fiery acceptance speech, saying that Tony Blair had the blood of 100,000 people on his hands and denouncing the returning officer over alleged discrepancies in the electoral process. When challenged in a subsequent televised interview by Jeremy Paxman as to whether he was happy to have removed one of the few black women in Parliament, Galloway replied "I don't believe that people get elected because of the colour of their skin. I believe people get elected because of their record and because of their policies. So move on to your next question."

Oona King later told the Today programme that she found Paxman's line of question inappropriate. "He shouldn't be barred from running against me because I'm a black woman ... I was not defined, or did not wish to be defined, by either my ethnicity or religious background."

Constitutional Affairs minister David Lammy later criticised Galloway for the "manner in which he won that seat, whipping up racial tensions, dividing some of the poorest people in this country, I think was obscene."

"It's good to be back", he said on being sworn in as MP for Bethnal Green after the May election. He pledged to represent "the people that New Labour has abandoned" and to "speak for those who have nobody else to speak for them."

Parliamentary participation statistics

Galloway's participation in Parliamentary activity fell to minimal levels after he was suspended and later expelled from the Labour Party. After speaking in a debate on Iraq on 25 March, 2003, Galloway did not intervene in any way in Parliamentary debates or ask any oral questions for the remainder of the Parliament and his participation in House of Commons Divisions was among the lowest of any MP (the website "They Work For You.com" has more details). Since being elected in 2005, his participation rate has remained low. At the end of 2005 he had participated in only 15% of votes in the House of Commons since the general election, placing him 634 out of 645 MPs - of the MPs below him in the rankings, one is the Prime Minister Tony Blair, five are Sinn Féin members who have an abstentionist policy towards taking their seats, three are the speaker and deputy speakers and therefore ineligible to vote, and two have died since the election. Galloway claims a record of unusual activity at a "grass roots" level. His own estimate is that he has made 1,100 public speeches between September 2001 and May 2005.

In November 2005 Galloway's commitment to Parliamentary activity was again called into question when he failed to attend the Report Stage of the Prevention of Terrorism Bill in the House of Commons, despite Respect having urged its members to put pressure on MPs to attend. It was subsequently confirmed that Galloway had been carrying out a speaking engagement in Cork, Ireland on the night (Galloway's spokesman asserted the performance was "uncancellable").

Although that stage of the bill failed by two votes, it initially appeared that the government won by a majority of only one, in which Galloway's attendance would have tied the vote. However, even in the case of a tie the vote would not have resulted in defeat for the government, because the vote was on an amendment (tightening the standard on what constitutes incitement to terrorism) and the amendment would not have passed. It would have taken three more "aye" votes to pass the amendment. All the same, Respect later put out a statement stating that it regretted the vote had been missed. The statement further claimed that Galloway had cleared his diary for all the subsequent votes on the bill. Galloway did attend a subsequent debate on the Bill, and voted against the final reading of the bill, which passed.

Political views and characteristics

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 Galloway has a reputation as a fiery left-winger and advocates redistribution of wealth, greater spending on welfare benefits, and extensive nationalisation of large industries. He opposes Scottish independence and supports the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Raised as a Roman Catholic, he left the church for a time but returned to Christian belief in his mid-20s, and he is opposed to abortion, although he supports Respect's pro-choice stance.

In 1994 he voted to support the equalisation of the age of consent for homosexuality (which was then 21 years) with that for heterosexuality at 16 years, and then voted against a reduction of the homosexual age of consent to 18. He voted in favour of permitting unmarried and gay couples to adopt children. Critics have claimed that his involvement in the leadership of Respect - which made no explicit mention of gay rights in its 2005 election manifesto and accepted donations from certain Islamic, homophobic sources - raise questions about commitment to those issues. However, Respect's 2005 conference which Galloway took part in, resolved that explicit defence of equal rights and calls for the end to all discrimination against lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender people would be made in all of its manifestos and principal election materials.

Galloway voted in support of the government's original draft of the religious hatred bill, which many people had feared would restrict artistic freedom and free speech.

In the 2001 Parliament, he voted against the Whip 27 times. During the 2001-02 session he was the 9th most rebellious Labour MP. He has attracted most attention for his comments on foreign policy, taking a special interest in Libya, Pakistan, Iraq, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Galloway is a prominent critic of Israel, frequently condemning Israel's military actions. In an interview with The Guardian, Galloway stated "I am on the anti-imperialist left... If you are asking did I support the Soviet Union, yes I did. Yes, I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life. If there was a Soviet Union today, we would not be having this conversation about plunging into a new war in the Middle East, and the US would not be rampaging around the globe."

At the time of the 1999 coup in Pakistan, he wrote, "In poor third world countries like Pakistan, politics is too important to be left to petty squabbling politicians. Pakistan is always on the brink of breaking apart into its widely disparate components. Only the armed forces can really be counted on to hold such a country together... Democracy is a means, not an end in itself and it has a bad name on the streets of Karachi and Lahore." .

Nick Cohen has suggested he is a right-winger like Oswald Mosley for lining up with Ba'athist and Islamic fundamentalist regimes hostile to principles of the left.

Galloway expressed support for the Syrian occupation of Lebanon 5 months before it ended, telling the Daily Star of Lebanon "Syrian troops in Lebanon maintain stability and protect the country from Israel." In the same article he expressed his opposition to UN resolution 1559 which urged the Lebanese Government to establish control over all its territory.

Galloway has expressed support for Morocco's occupation of Western Sahara.

He also supports Irish unification. In the Scottish Parliament election, 2007, George Galloway supported Solidarity, despite not supporting all their policies, such as Scottish independence

Galloway opposed the 1991 Gulf War and was critical of the effect the subsequent sanctions had on the people of Iraq. He visited Iraq several times and met senior government figures. His involvement caused certain critics to deride him as the "member for Baghdad North". In 1994, Galloway faced some of his strongest criticism on his return from a Middle-Eastern visit during which he had met Saddam Hussein "to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war." At the meeting, he reported the support given to Saddam by the people of the Gaza Strip and ended his speech with the phrase "Sir: I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability," although Galloway maintains that he was misquoted. Additionally he reportedly said "hatta al-nasr, hatta al-nasr, hatta al-Quds" (Arabic for "until victory, until victory, until Jerusalem").

In a House of Commons debate on 6 March, 2002, Foreign Office Minister Ben Bradshaw said of Galloway that he was "not just an apologist, but a mouthpiece, for the Iraqi regime over many years." Galloway called the Minister a liar and refused to withdraw, resulting in the suspension of the sitting. Bradshaw later withdrew his allegation, and Galloway apologised for using unparliamentary language. In August 2002, Galloway returned to Iraq and met Saddam Hussein for a second time. According to Galloway, the intention of the trip was to try and persuade Hussein to re-admit Hans Blix, and the United Nations weapons inspectors into the country.

Giving evidence in his libel case against the Daily Telegraph newspaper in 2004, Galloway testified that he regarded Saddam as a "bestial dictator" and would have welcomed his removal from power, but not by means of a military attack on Iraq. Galloway also pointed that he was a prominent critic of Saddam Hussein's regime in the 1980s, as well as of the role of Margaret Thatcher's government in supporting arms sales to Iraq during the Iran/Iraq war. Labour MP Tam Dalyell said during the controversy over whether Galloway should be expelled from the Labour Party that "in the mid-1980s there was only one MP that I can recollect making speeches about human rights in Iraq and this was George Galloway." When the issue of Galloway's meetings with Saddam Hussein is raised, including before the U.S. Senate, Galloway has argued that he had met Saddam "exactly the same number of times as U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns."

In 1999, Galloway was criticised for spending Christmas in Iraq with Tariq Aziz, then Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister. In the 17 May, 2005, hearing of the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Galloway stated that he had had many meetings with Aziz, and characterized their relationship as friendly. After the fall of Saddam, he continued to praise Aziz, calling him "an eminent diplomatic and intellectual person." In 2006 a video surfaced showing Galloway enthusiastically greeting Uday Hussein, Saddam's eldest son, with the title of "Excellency" at Uday's palace in 1999. "The two men also made unflattering comments about the United States and joked about losing weight, going bald and how difficult it is to give up smoking cigars," according to The Scotsman.

Galloway signing an asylum seekers petition, sitting on the edge of the StWC stage at the 2005 Make Poverty History rally.

Galloway is Vice-President of the Stop the War Coalition (StWC). He is actively involved, often speaking on StWC platforms at anti-war demonstrations. During a 9 March, 2005, interview at the University of Dhaka campus Galloway called for a global alliance between Muslims and progressives: "Not only do I think it’s possible but I think it is vitally necessary and I think it is happening already. It is possible because the progressive movement around the world and the Muslims have the same enemies. Their enemies are the Zionist occupation, American occupation, British occupation of poor countries mainly Muslim countries."

Views on Blair and Bush

At the national conference of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, on 30 June, 2003, he apologised for describing George Bush as a "wolf", saying that to do so defamed wolves:

"No wolf would commit the sort of crimes against humanity that George Bush committed against the people of Iraq."

On 20 November, 2004, George Galloway gave an interview on Abu-Dhabi TV in which he said:

The people who invaded and destroyed Iraq and have murdered more than a million Iraqi people by sanctions and war will burn in Hell in the hell-fires, and their name in history will be branded as killers and war criminals for all time. Fallujah is a Guernica, Falluaja is a Stalingrad, and Iraq is in flames as a result of the actions of these criminals. Not the resistance, not anybody else but these criminals who invaded and fell like wolves upon the people of Iraq. And by the way, those Arab regimes which helped them to do it will burn in the same hell-fires.

On 20 June, 2005, he appeared on Al Jazeera TV to lambast these two leaders and others.

Bush, and Blair, and the prime minister of Japan, and Silvio Berlusconi, these people are criminals, and they are responsible for mass murder in the world, for the war, and for the occupation, through their support for Israel, and through their support for a globalised capitalist economic system, which is the biggest killer the world has ever known. It has killed far more people than Adolf Hitler. It has killed far more people than George Bush. The economic system which these people support, which leaves most of the people in the world hungry, and without clean water to drink. So we're going to put them on trial, the leaders, when they come. They think they're coming for a holiday in a beautiful country called Scotland; in fact, they're coming to their trial....Ancient freedoms, which we had for hundreds of years, are being taken away from us under the name of the war on terror, when the real big terrorists are the governments of Britain and the United States. They are the real rogue states breaking international law, invading other people's countries, killing their children in the name of anti-terrorism, when in fact, all they're achieving is to make more terrorists in the world, not less, to make the world more dangerous, rather than less.

Galloway has accused Tony Blair of "waging war on Muslims at home and abroad".

On 3 February, 2006, Galloway was refused entry to Egypt at Cairo Airport and was detained "on grounds of national security", where he had been invited to 'give evidence' at a 'mock trial' of Bush and Blair. After being detained overnight, he said Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak "apologised on behalf of the Egyptian people", and he was allowed to enter the country. After initial derogatory comments from Galloway and a spokesman from his Respect party regarding Mubarak's pro-western stance and ties to Bush and Blair, Galloway later commented: "It was a most gracious apology which I accept wholeheartedly. I consider the matter now closed" (see , ).

In an interview with Piers Morgan for GQ Magazine in May 2006, Galloway was asked whether a suicide bomb attack on Tony Blair with "no other casualties" would be morally justifiable "as revenge for the war on Iraq?". He answered "Yes it would be morally justified. I am not calling for it, but if it happened it would be of a wholly different moral order to the events of 7/7. It would be entirely logical and explicable, and morally equivalent to ordering the deaths of thousands of innocent people in Iraq as Blair did." He further stated that if he knew about such a plan that he would inform the relevant authorities, saying: "I would , because such an operation would be counterproductive because it would just generate a new wave of anti-Muslim, anti-Arab sentiment whipped up by the press. It would lead to new draconian anti-terror laws, and would probably strengthen the resolve of the British and American services in Iraq rather than weaken it. So yes, I would inform the authorities.". Some news analysts, notably Christopher Hitchens, took this to be a call for an attack while appearing not to.

July 2005 London bombings

In the House of Commons, on the day of the 7 July 2005 London bombings that killed 56 and injured hundreds, and following a visit to the Royal London Hospital in his constituency where many of the victims had been taken, Galloway condemned the attacks strongly, but argued that they could not be separated from the hatred and bitterness felt among Muslims because of injustices in Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan, including injustices, he said, suffered as a result of British foreign policy:

I condemn the act that was committed this morning. I have no need to speculate about its authorship. It is absolutely clear that Islamist extremists, inspired by the al-Qaeda world outlook, are responsible. I condemn it utterly as a despicable act, committed against working people on their way to work, without warning, on tubes and buses. Let there be no equivocation: the primary responsibility for this morning's bloodshed lies with the perpetrators of those acts... The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones), in an otherwise fine speech, described today's events as "unpredictable". They were not remotely unpredictable. Our own security services predicted them and warned the Government that if we we would be at greater risk from terrorist attacks such as the one that we have suffered this morning... Despicable, yes; but not unpredictable. It was entirely predictable and, I predict, it will not be the last.

Winding up the debate for the government in the last moments allotted, Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram described Galloway's remarks as "disgraceful" and accused Galloway of "dipping his poisonous tongue in a pool of blood." No time remained for Galloway to intervene and he ran afoul of the Deputy Speaker when trying to make a point of order about Ingram's attack. He later went on to describe Ingram as a "thug" who had committed a "foul-mouthed, deliberately timed, last-10-seconds smear." The men had previously clashed over claims in Galloway's autobiography (see below).

Rhetorical skill

Galloway is widely viewed as an adept wordsmith and debater. For example, according to the Boston Globe he is "known, even in the highly articulate world of British politics, for his memorable turns of phrase," whereas the Times finds that he has "the gift of the Glasgow gab, a love of the stage and an inexhaustible fund of self-belief." The Guardian finds him "renowned for his colourful rhetoric and combative debating style" and the Spectator once awarded him Debater of the Year. Sometimes this general acknowledgment of Galloway's rhetorical capacity is accompanied by criticism that he is evasive (Scotsman, "ducked the question"). His remarks can be sampled at Wikiquotes.

Controversies at university debating societies

On 2 November 2006, The Times reported that Galloway was in a fracas at the Oxford Union. He was there to discuss his book (Galloway, George (2006). Fidel Castro Handbook. MQ Publications. ISBN 1-84072-688-1.). His views on democracy in Cuba were barracked by the audience, whom he described as "hunting, shooting and fishing types" and from the "rugby club". Three former state school students who met him afterwards and disputed this description received offensive foul-mouthed abuse from Galloway in return, who claimed: "I don’t represent anyone’s views. I represent me. I don’t give a fuck what anyone else thinks." He also told them: "You are confusing me with someone who gives a fuck." When the students tried to get Galloway to apologise, he asked for them to be removed from the room, but they left of their own accord. His comments have been criticised by several MPs, including Boris Johnson, who said: "there’s no need to swear"; and Steven Pound, who said: "If he wishes to be respected by anyone other than Fidel Castro he should apologise."

On the 6 November 2006 in a debate at the University College Cork, Ireland, Philosophical Society, speaking in proposition of the motion "That this house believes the US foreign policy is the greatest crime since World War II", Galloway controversially stormed out after being accused of collusion with dictators by the opposition speaker; Irish film and television producer Gerry Gregg. Galloway confronted Gregg directly and insisted that he withdraw the allegations. After Gregg, a former member of Sinn Féin and the Workers' Party, refused to withdraw the comments, Galloway left the auditorium and abandoned the debate. Many of the audience of 500 walked out in sympathy with the MP. Galloway threatened legal action and informed Gregg that his solicitor would contact him the following morning. He also remarked that Gregg would probably be able to afford the lawsuit with an abundance of counterfeited money. The debate continued and the motion was defeated by those present by a clear margin, mainly due to the fact that most of Galloway's supporters had already left.

Corruption allegations and other controversies

Mariam Appeal

In 1998 Galloway founded the Mariam Appeal, intended "to campaign against sanctions on Iraq which are having disastrous effects on the ordinary people of Iraq". The campaign was named after Mariam Hamza, a single child flown by the fund from Iraq to Britain to receive treatment for leukaemia. The intention was to raise awareness of the suffering and death of hundreds of thousands of other Iraqi children due to poor health conditions and lack of suitable medicines and facilities, and to campaign for the lifting of the Iraq sanctions that many maintained were responsible for that situation.

The fund received scrutiny during the 2003 Gulf war, after a complaint that Galloway used some of the donation money to pay his travel expenses. Galloway said that the expenses were incurred in his capacity as the Appeal's chairman. Although the Mariam Appeal was never a registered charity and never intended to be such, it was investigated by the Charity Commission. The report of this year-long inquiry, published in June 2004, found that the Mariam Appeal was doing charitable work (and so ought to have registered with them), but did not substantiate allegations that any funds had been misused.

A further Charity Commission Report published on 7 June 2007 found that the Appeal had received funds from Fawaz Zureikat that originated from the Oil For Food programme, and concluded that: "Although Mr Galloway, Mr Halford and Mr Al-Mukhtar have confirmed that they were unaware of the source of Mr Zureikat’s donations, the Commission has concluded that the charity trustees should have made further inquiries when accepting such large single and cumulative donations to satisfy themselves as to their origin and legitimacy. The Commission’s conclusion is that the charity trustees did not properly discharge their duty of care as trustees to the Appeal in respect of these donations. They added: "The Commission is also concerned, having considered the totality of the evidence before it, that Mr Galloway may also have known of the connection between the Appeal and the Programme". Galloway's unrepentant response to the report ("I've always disputed the Commission's retrospective view that a campaign to win a change in national and international policy - a political campaign - was, in fact, a charity.") was posted on the Respect website on June 8, 2007.

Oil for Food

Daily Telegraph

On 22 April, 2003, the Daily Telegraph published an article describing documents found by its reporter David Blair in the ruins of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry. The documents purport to be records of meetings between Galloway and Iraqi intelligence agents, and state that he had received £375,000 per year from the proceeds of the Oil for Food programme. Galloway completely denied the story, insisted that the documents were forgeries, and pointed to the nature of the discovery within an unguarded, bombed-out building as being questionable. He instigated legal action against the newspaper, which was heard in the High Court from 14 November, 2004 (HQ03X0206, George Galloway MP vs. Telegraph Group Ltd.)

On 2 December, Justice David Eady ruled that the story had been "seriously defamatory", and that the Telegraph was "obliged to compensate Mr Galloway... and to make an award for the purposes of restoring his reputation". Galloway was awarded £150,000 damages plus costs estimated to total £1.2 million. The court did not grant leave to appeal; in order to appeal in the absence of leave, the defendants would have to petition the House of Lords.

The libel case was regarded by both sides as an important test of the Reynolds qualified-privilege defence. The Daily Telegraph did not attempt to claim justification (a defence in which the defendant bears the onus of proving that the defamatory reports are true): "It has never been the Telegraph's case to suggest that the allegations contained in these documents are true". Instead, the paper sought to argue that it acted responsibly because the allegations it reported were of sufficient public interest to outweigh the damage caused to Galloway's reputation. However, the court ruled that, "It was the defendants' primary case that their coverage was no more than 'neutral reportage' ... but the nature, content and tone of their coverage cannot be so described."

The issue of whether the documents were genuine was likewise not at issue at the trial. Each side had tried to get some independent confirmation that they were genuine (the Telegraph) or were not (Galloway). The Telegraph hired Ibrahim Marashi, the author of the so-called second "dodgy dossier", to verify the documents. In his opinion they were genuine, although this has never been verified in court.

The Telegraph lost their appeal on 25 January, 2006, the same day as Galloway's Big Brother eviction, and on 15 February, 2006, the newspaper announced it would not be seeking leave to appeal.

Others

The Christian Science Monitor also published a story on 25 April, 2003, stating that they had documentary evidence that he had received "more than ten million dollars" from the Iraqi regime. However, on 20 June, 2003, the Monitor reported that their own investigation had concluded the documents were sophisticated forgeries, and apologised. Galloway rejected the newspaper's apology, asserted that the affair was a conspiracy against him, and continued a libel claim against the paper.

The Christian Science Monitor settled the claim, paying him an undisclosed sum in damages, on 19 March, 2004. It emerged that these documents had first been offered to the Daily Telegraph, but they had rejected them. The documents' origin remains obscure.

In January 2004, a further set of allegations were made in al-Mada, a newspaper in Iraq. The newspaper claimed to have found documents in the Iraqi national oil corporation showing that Galloway received (through an intermediary) some of the profits arising from the sale of 19.5 million barrels (3,100,000 m³) of oil. Galloway acknowledged that money had been paid into the Mariam Appeal by Iraqi businessmen who had profited from the UN-run programme, but denied benefiting personally, and maintained that, in any case, there was nothing illicit about this:

It is hard to see what is dishonourable, let alone "illicit", about Arab nationalist businessmen donating some of the profits they made from legitimate UN-controlled business with Iraq to anti-sanctions campaigns, as opposed to, say, keeping their profits for themselves.

The report of the Iraq Survey Group published in October 2004 claimed that Galloway was one of the recipients of a fund used by Iraq to buy influence among foreign politicians. Galloway denied receiving any money from Saddam Hussein's regime. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards had begun an investigation into George Galloway but suspended it when Galloway launched legal action. On December 14, it was announced that this investigation would resume.

U.S. Senate

Allegations
File:Galloway Evidence.jpg
Evidence presented to the Committee (contract M/9/23); George Galloway's name appears next to Fawaz Zureikat in a different font and at an angle to the rest of the text on that line (number 23 in the list).

In May 2005, a U.S. Senate committee report accused Galloway along with former French minister Charles Pasqua of receiving the right to buy oil under the UN's oil-for-food scheme. The report was issued by the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Senator Norm Coleman, a Republican from Minnesota. The report cited further documents from the Iraqi oil ministry and interviews with Iraqi officials. No comment was made on whether the documents have been investigated for evidence of forgery.

Coleman's committee said Pasqua had received allocations worth 11 million barrels from 1999 to 2000, and Galloway received allocations worth 20 million barrels from 2000 to 2003. The allegations against Pasqua and Galloway, both outspoken opponents of U.N. sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s, have been made before, including in an October report by U.S. arms inspector Charles Duelfer as well as in the various purported documents described earlier in this section. But Coleman's report provided several new details. It also included information from interviews with former high-ranking officials now in U.S. custody, including former Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz and former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan. Among the claims is that there is new evidence to suggest that the Mariam Appeal, a children's leukaemia charity founded by Galloway, was in fact used to conceal oil payments. The report cites Ramadan as saying in an interview that Galloway was allocated oil "because of his opinions about Iraq."

File:M-12-14frag.jpg
Detail of contract M/12/14 (click on image for high-resolution version)

Socialist Worker reported what they say is evidence that the key Iraqi oil ministry documents regarding oil allocations, in which Galloway's name appears six times (contracts M/08/35, M/09/23, M/10/38, M/11/04, M/12/14, M/13/48) have been tampered with. They published a copy of contract M/09/23 and allege that George Galloway's name appears to have been added in a different font and at a different angle to the rest of the text on that line. In these documents (relating to oil allocations 8-13), Galloway is among just a few people whose nationality is never identified, whilst Zureikat is the only one whose nationality is identified in one instance but not in others. Socialist Worker is a publication of the Socialist Workers Party, which is in alliance with Galloway in RESPECT - the Unity Coalition.

Galloway's response

On 17 May 2005, the committee held a hearing concerning specific allegations (of which Galloway was one part) relating to improprieties surrounding the Oil-for-Food programme. Attending Galloway's oral testimony and inquiring of him were two of the thirteen committee members: the chair (Coleman) and the ranking Democrat (Carl Levin).

Upon Galloway's arrival in the US, he told Reuters, "I have no expectation of justice from a group of Christian fundamentalist and Zionist activists under the chairmanship of a neo-con George Bush". Galloway described Coleman as a "pro-war, neo-con hawk and the lickspittle of George W. Bush", who, he said, sought revenge against anyone who did not support the invasion of Iraq.

In his testimony, Galloway made the following statements in response to the allegations against him:

Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader, and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one - and neither has anyone on my behalf. Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.

He questioned the reliability of evidence given by former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, stating that the circumstances of his captivity by American forces calls into question the authenticity of the remarks. Galloway also pointed out an error in the report, where documents by The Daily Telegraph were said to have covered an earlier period from those held by the Senate. In fact the report's documents referred to the same period as those used by the The Daily Telegraph, though Galloway pointed out that the presumed forgeries pertaining to the Christian Science Monitor report did refer to an earlier period.

Galloway also denounced the invasion of Iraq as having been based on "a pack of lies" in his Senate testimony. The U.S. media, in reporting his appearance, emphasized his blunt remarks on the war. The British media gave generally more positive coverage; TV presenter Anne Robinson said Galloway "quite frankly put the pride back in British politics" when introducing him for a prime time talk show.

The transcript of George's evidence to the Senate was added to the Senate Committee's website and then removed approximately 24 hours later. There is now just the comment on the website that "Mr Galloway did not submit a written statement".

Alleged false or misleading testimony

A report by the majority (Republican party) staff of the US Senate Committee on Investigations published in October 2005 asserted that Galloway had given false "or misleading" testimony under oath when appearing before them. The report exhibits bank statements it claims show that £85,000 of proceeds from the Oil-for-Food Programme had been paid to Galloway's then-wife Amineh Abu-Zayyad. Galloway reiterated his denial of the charges and challenged the U.S. Senate committee to charge him with perjury. He claimed Coleman's motive was revenge over the embarrassment of his appearance before the committee in May.

Later he said that his "...wife has denied ever having received any money from Dr al-Chelabi.". Former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz, according to his lawyer, denied claiming that Galloway had received illicit funds, as has been reported by some newspapers.

Criticism of anti-Israel rhetoric

Some of Galloway's specific comments regarding Israel have been criticized. At a July 22, 2006 demonstration (and later in a Socialist Worker op-ed), Galloway stated "Hezbollah has never been a terrorist organisation!"; to which the National Union of Students of the United Kingdom passed a motion condemning Galloway for this. The NUS motion said Galloway is "clearly not ignorant of Hezbollah’s history of violence and the killing of innocents..." Student Respect stated in response that the NUS "not only failed to call for an immediate unconditional ceasefire (in the face of the majority of public opinion and the international community) but also refused to back the Stop the War Coalition's 23 September demonstration, and instead used the opportunity to condemn George Galloway MP, one of the leading figures in the anti-war movement." The NUS wrote two letters to Galloway, explaining their condemnation for his praise of Nasrallah who "has called for the killing of Jews...worldwide" and "Hezbollah is an organisation with a history of terrorism." The NUS also noted they are not "accusing of being antisemitic or being a Holocaust denier. What we do condemn is your open support for a leader and an organisation that is antisemitic, terrorist and denies the holocaust."

In an interview Galloway had with Alex Jones, Galloway blamed Israel for creating "conditions in the Arab countries and in some European countries to stampede Jewish people ... into the Zionist state.” Jones then alleged that the "Zionists" funded Hitler, to which Galloway replied that Zionists used the Jewish people "to create this little settler state on the Mediterranean," whose purpose was "to act as an advance guard guard for their own interests in the Arab world..." Engage included commentary on the interview that included: "Critically, however, this 21st century Protocols claims to be pro-Jewish; and has studiously replaced 'The Jews' with new bogeymen, 'The Zionists'," and that the interview is a "perversion of past and present Jewish Zionist life". Labour Liverpool Riverside MP Louise Ellman, who has been derided by Galloway as “Israel’s MP on Merseyside,” said: “I think this is just another demonstration of George Galloway’s total hostility towards Jewish national identity and self-determination.” Eric Moonman, former Labour MP and president of the Zionist Federation, characterized Galloway's comments as “manipulating many of the facts,” and warned that "we must not underestimate the way in which he can influence groups of people who are somewhat naive about the Middle East and Zionism.” Stan Urman, Director of Justice for Jews from Arab Countries, a group which represents 856,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries, said: “How does one explain pogroms in 1912 and 1932 well before the establishment of the State of Israel?... His comments do not stand the test of historical fact.” Galloway told the Jewish News that he " by all those comments," and that Zionism "has turned the people of Einstein and Epstein into one apparently represented by Sharon and Netanyahu.”

In a series of speeches broadcast on Arab television, Galloway described Jerusalem (and Baghdad) as being "raped" by "foreigners". The Academic Friends of Israel responded that "Jews have been in Jerusalem for three thousand years, so who’s the foreigner?"

Galloway was introduced as “a former member of the British Houses of Parliament” during a live interview with Qatari Al-Jazeera television, to which he responded: “I am still a member of parliament and was re-elected five times. On the last occasion I was re-elected despite all the efforts made by the British government, the Zionist movement and the newspapers and news media which are controlled by Zionism.” Mark Gardner, Director of Communications at the Community Security Trust, said, “This is despicable language for a Member of Parliament to use. Suggestions of Jewish media control can only give encouragement to anti-semites of every type". Ben Novick, Director of Media Relations at BICOM, dismissed Galloway’s allegations about "Zionist control" of the media, adding: “We hope that Al-Jazeera’s premonition of Galloway as a former MP will soon become a reality.”

Publishing/media activities

Asian Voice

Galloway has been involved in several publishing companies. He owned Asian Voice, which published a newspaper called East from 1996. It later transpired that the Pakistan Government was funding Galloway's company Asian Voice to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds."Documents show that the Pakistan government agreed an initial budget for the weekly newspaper of £547,000. According to a memorandum dated January 2 1996, the Pakistan government proposed to "covertly sponsor" the publication, with money allocated to "the Secret Fund of the High Commissioner for Pakistan in the UK as a special grant for the project".

Autobiography

His autobiography, I'm Not The Only One, was published on 29 April 2004. The book's title is a quotation from "Imagine" by John Lennon. Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram applied for an interim interdict to prevent the book's publication. Ingram asserted that Galloway's text, which stated that Ingram "played the flute in a sectarian, anti-Catholic, Protestant-supremacist Orange Order band", was in bad faith and defamatory, although Ingram's lawyers conceded that for a year as a teenager he had been a member of a junior Orange Lodge in Barlanark, Glasgow, and had attended three parades. The Judge, Lord Kingarth, decided that he should refuse to grant an interim interdict, that the balance of the arguments favoured Galloway's publisher and that the phrase "sectarian, anti-Catholic, Protestant-supremacist" was fair comment on that organisation. Although Ingram was not and never had been a flute-player, the defending barrister observed that "playing the flute carries no obvious defamatory imputation ... it is not to the discredit of anyone that he plays the flute." The judge ruled that Ingram should pay the full court costs of the hearing.

Celebrity Big Brother

Main article: George Galloway's appearance on Celebrity Big Brother

In January 2006 Galloway appeared on the reality show for several weeks. He was seen dancing in a leotard and imitating a cat drinking milk. During this event he coined his catchphrase "Would you like me to be the cat?"

talkSPORT

On 11 March 2006, Galloway started broadcasting on Britain's biggest commercial radio station, the UTV-owned talkSPORT.

Billed as "The Mother Of All Talk Shows", Galloway starts every broadcast by playing the theme from the Top Cat cartoon series. UTV said that Galloway was pulling in record call numbers and the highest ever ratings for its weekend slots, even pulling in more than the station's Football First programme.

The Real Deal

On 21 May 2007, Galloway started presenting a television programme known as The Real Deal on Raj TV, a channel aimed at the Asian community in Britain available on Sky channel 187. The show, which will broadcast live four days a week between 6pm and 7pm, contains a mixture of interviews and text messages from the viewers.

Mazher Mahmood

In March 2006 Galloway claimed in a statement that Mazher Mahmood, an undercover reporter for the News of the World who uses a disguise as a sheikh to frame celebrities, targeted him in an alleged sting operation. Galloway claims that Mahmood and an accomplice tried but failed to implicate him in illegal party funding, and to agree with anti-Semitic statements. Galloway wrote to the Metropolitan police commissioner and the Speaker of the House of Commons about the incident. He also released photographs of Mahmood and revealed other aspects of his activities. The News of the World lost a High Court action to prevent publication of photographs of Mahmood.

Fidel Castro Handbook

Galloway also published the Fidel Castro Handbook, a biography of the Cuban leader in 2006 (MQ Publications. ISBN 1-84072-688-1).

Big Brother's Big Mouth

Galloway acted as the guest presenter for the E4 companion programme to the 2007 edition of Big Brother, Big Brother's Big Mouth, from 5 June to 8 June 2007.

TV/Film Apperances

  • Our Story Our Voice (2007) .... Himself
  • "The Friday Night Project" .... Himself (1 episode, 2007)
  • 30 Greatest Political Comedies (2006) (TV) .... Himself
  • "The Wright Stuff" .... Himself - Panelist
  • "The Late Late Show" .... Himself (1 episode, 2006)
  • "Question Time" .... Himself (4 episodes, 2003-2006)
  • "Richard & Judy" .... Himself (2 episodes, 2006)
  • "Tubridy Tonight" .... Himself (1 episode, 2006)
  • "Celebrity Big Brother" .... Himself (23 episodes, 2006)

From 25 June2007 Galloway has a column in the Daily Record giving his view on Scottish politics.

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  100. Yaakov Lappin. "'Jerusalem raped by foreigners'". Ynetnews. {{cite news}}: Text "date:08.03.05" ignored (help)
  101. Alex Sholem (1 December 2005). "Galloway Under Fire After TV Slur". TotallyJewish.com. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  102. "Why the MP went begging to Pakistan" (HTML). The Telegraph. 2003. Retrieved 14 May. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  103. "George Galloway - Minister fails to stop Galloway sectarian claim". The Scotsman. Retrieved 2006-12-14.
  104. http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1742346,00.html
  105. http://www.respectcoalition.org/?ite=1027
  106. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1748749,00.html

External links

General

(Prequel to Galloway vs Hitchens debate held at CUNY, September 14 2005.)

Articles and news reports

US Congressional testimony & related

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Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded byRoy Jenkins Member of Parliament for Glasgow Hillhead
1987-1997 		Succeeded byconstituency abolished
Preceded byconstituency created Member of Parliament for Glasgow Kelvin
1997-2005 		Succeeded byconstituency abolished
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