George Galloway (born August 16, 1954) is a Scottish politician, who is Member of Parliament for the Glasgow Kelvin constituency. He was elected as a Labour Party candidate, but found himself frequently at odds with the Labour government of Tony Blair. Following his controversial statements about the war in Iraq, George Galloway was expelled from the Labour Party in October 2003. Galloway's strident and often controversial opinions (on Iraq and other subjects) have led him to be both widely admired and condemned.
Born in Dundee, Galloway became a factory worker on leaving school. He later became a Labour Party organiser and General Secretary of the charity War on Want before being elected to the House of Commons at the 1987 general election, defeating the former SDP leader Roy Jenkins in Glasgow Hillhead. George Galloway was married from 1979 to 1999 to Elaine Fyffe, with whom he has a daughter. In 2000 he married Dr Amireh Abu-Zayyad, a Palestinian academic.
Galloway is an unreconstructed left-winger. He is a voluble opponent of privatisation and nuclear weapons at a time when the "New Labour" government and the Labour Party are in favour of both. He has gained most notice outside the UK for his support for Arab causes. He is involved with the politics of Iraq, Libya and Palestine, arguing that the people there are suffering at the hands of what he calls western imperialism. An anti-Zionist, he is a harsh critic of Israel: he frequently ends public speeches by calling for "victory to the intifada!".
He opposed the 1991 Gulf War and was critical of the effect the subsequent sanctions had on the people of Iraq, visiting Iraq several times and meeting senior government figures including Saddam Hussein. He was subsequently dubbed the "member for Baghdad Central", and was called "not just an apologist but a mouthpiece for the Iraq regime over many years" by Labour minister Ben Bradshaw, a comment the minister later retracted after being called a liar by Galloway. He said that he (Galloway) had been demonstrating against Saddam Hussein outside the Iraqi embassy in London, at a time when British cabinet ministers were inside the building arranging an export of British-manufactured arms to Iraq.
In 1998 Galloway founded the 'Mariam Appeal', a charity intended "to campaign against sanctions on Iraq which are having disastrous effects on the ordinary people of Iraq" [1]. 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 tens of thousands of other Iraqi children due to lack of suitable medicines and facilities, and to campaign for the lifting of the western sanctions that Galloway maintained were responsible for that situation. The campaign won Galloway press, first positive then increasingly negative, as allegations arose that funds were misappropriated and used to pay his wife and driver. The fund was at the centre of a further scrutiny during the 2003 Gulf war, with allegations of lavish spending on Galloway's regular trips to the Middle East. It has been suggested by the Telegraph as the destination of the Iraqi funds. Galloway, however, argued that it was not unreasonable for money from a campaign fund to be used to pay for the travel expenses of campaigners. Opponents point to Galloway's first class travel, luxury hotel accommodation, his consumption of expensive champagne and caviar and other very large expense claims as an inappropriate use of the funds of a charitable organisation.
Galloway's private life too has been dogged with controversy. His rakish reputation and taste for expensive clothing have earned him the moniker Gorgeous George. In a 2002 interview [1] with The Guardian newspaper, he explained how he wore designer Kenzo suits (that retail for thousands of pounds):
- "Well if that means do I take care to look my best before I leave the house in the morning, if that's vanity, then I'm guilty of it."
- "I am on the anti-imperialist left." The Stalinist left? "I wouldn't define it that way because of the pejoratives loaded around it; that would be making a rod for your own back. 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."
During the 2003 Iraq war Galloway was interviewed by Abu Dhabi TV. In the interview, broadcast on March 28, he called Tony Blair and George W. Bush "wolves" and said:
- "Even if it is not realistic to ask a non-Iraqi army to come to defend Iraq, we see Arab regimes pumping oil for the countries who are attacking it. We wonder when the Arab leaders will wake up. When are they going to stand by the Iraqi people?"
On April 22, 2003, the Daily Telegraph published documents found in Iraqi government offices after the fall of Baghdad which it claimed showed that Galloway had met Iraqi intelligence agents and had received £375,000 from the Iraqi government. Three days later, the Christian Science Monitor published a story [1] stating that they had documentary evidence that he had received more than ten million dollars from the Iraqi regime. Galloway vehemently denied the claims, asserting that the documents were all forgeries, and announced that he would sue both newspapers for libel. On June 20, 2003, the Monitor admitted that the documents it held were forgeries ("We are convinced the documents are bogus. We apologise to Mr Galloway and to our readers"). [1] Galloway roundly rejected the newspaper's apology:
- "I don't accept its apology. This newspaper published on its front page in every country in the world that I had taken $10m from Saddam Hussein. That was a grave and serious libel. A newspaper of that importance should have made the effort, both morally and legally, to establish the authenticity of those documents before publishing. They did not even speak to me before publishing these allegations. My legal action against them continues."
- "I want to know who forged these documents. I am calling on the Prime Minister, as head of the co-occupying power in Iraq, to investigate how this conspiracy came about."
Decrying the proceedings, Galloway called the Committee's meeting "a show trial" and "a kangaroo court". He later affirmed his intention to sue the Labour Party.
Although no longer a member of the Labour Party, he remains an MP, and describes his party affiliation as "independent labour". His Glasgow Kelvin constituency will disappear (due to redistricting) and be merged with neighbouring Glasgow Govan at the next general election (sometime in 2004 or 2005). After his expulsion, he 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."
