Galloway

Submitted by Vijay (United Kingdom), Sep 5, 2006 at 02:46

Galloway is not just Saddam Hussein's paid dog. He was also paid by successive Pakistani governments of Benazir Bhutto and Sharif to take a violently pro-Pakistani stand on Kashmir . He was also paid money by Pakistan government to start a magazine called East.

He has always been available to the highest bidder from the Islamic world.

http://www.workersliberty.org/node/3195

ESF rogues' gallery - The SWP and George Galloway

* From 1994 to 2003, Galloway's sole claim to left-wing credentials was his activity on Iraq. Otherwise he was a standard not-quite-Blairite Labour MP: he himself has said that he was not left enough to join the not-very-left Campaign Group. He "campaigned" against sanctions on Iraq, and on his own account spent more than £800,000 on it. But not to organise lots of demonstrations and meetings. He visited Iraq (on his account) almost monthly, and acted as a go-between between the Iraqi government and businessmen and journalists. Galloway is happy to admit to running that political operation on money from Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and a Jordanian businessman rich from a percentage on Iraq's oil exports. Galloway has also never refuted the allegation that he once published the newspaper East with money paid out by the Pakistani governments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif in order to promote their politics on the Kashmir question in Britain.

Even if Galloway never took a penny directly from the Iraqi regime, socialists ought to run a mile from a politician with this kind of track record

* On his own account also, Galloway "couldn't live on three workers' wages" and "needs £150,000 a year to function properly as a leading figure in a part of the British political system" (Scotsman, 19 May 2003).

* In the Euro-elections Respect fought a communalist campaign. They appealed to Muslims to vote as Muslims for "George Galloway… a fighter for Muslims… Married to a Palestinian doctor… teetotal… strong religious principles". This is as reactionary as asking Catholics to vote as Catholics for a candidate because he is a "fighter for Catholics".

Respect turned not to Islamic-background workers or Islamic-background radicals and leftists, but to the Islamic communities, of all classes.

* In Yorkshire, the Respect list was headed by Anas Altikriti of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB). MAB is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Arab world's biggest authoritarian-religious organisation. Some on the left like to believe that MAB is not like the Brotherhood elsewhere in the world and has evolved beyond radical Islamism. But how do they reconcile that with, for example, the MAB freesheet Inspire (28 September 2002) — that it should be "punishable by death" or at least "seen as an act of mutiny and treason" for people brought up Muslim to renounce Islam?

* Respect opposes the US/UK occupation of Iraq. So do the Greens. When challenged to prove itself better than the Greens, Respect says that unlike the Greens it wants the US/UK troops out "now". All this means is that Respect, unlike the Greens, solidarises with the Islamist militias which are at war against the Americans — and against Iraq's reviving labour movement. Who would, if they could, impose a religious dictatorship on Iraq. That is a right-wing, not a left-wing, stance.

We have been here before — it is what the Communist Parties did during the notorious right-wing "popular front" period of the 1930s. The entire Respect operation was designed, promoted, and justified on the grounds that it would win lots of votes, and Galloway was the key to that. But winning a lot of votes in elections does not necessarily advance socialism. It depends who wins the votes, and on what basis they get them.

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