George Galloway

George Galloway is a British politician, broadcaster, and writer. Between the general elections in 1987-2015, with a gap between 2010–12, he represented four constituencies as a Member of Parliament, elected as a candidate for the Labour Party and later the Respect Party.

After becoming the youngest ever chairman of the Scottish Labour Party in 1981, he became General Secretary of the London-based charity War on Want in 1983, remaining in the post until he was elected as a Labour MP for Glasgow Hillhead (later Glasgow Kelvin) at the 1987 general election. In October 2003, Galloway was expelled from the Labour Party, having been found guilty by the party's national constitutional committee of four of the five charges of bringing the party into disrepute, including having called on Arabs to fight British troops. He was the only MP to be expelled from the Labour Party for his statements concerning the conflict.

In 2004, he became a member of Respect–The Unity Coalition, later known as the Respect Party (eventually becoming the party leader by late-2013). Having ceased to be a Glasgow MP before the 2005 general election, he now became the MP for the London constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow, and served for one parliamentary term.

He returned to Westminster at the Bradford West by-election in 2012, but lost his seat at the 2015 general election. Galloway stood as a candidate in the 2016 London mayoral election, but lost to the Labour Party candidate, Sadiq Khan, finishing in seventh place with 1.4% of the vote. The Respect Party "voluntarily deregistered" itself at the Electoral Commission in August 2016.

Early in his career, Galloway was an opponent of Saddam Hussein, but he has been accused by David Aaronovitch and Christopher Hitchens of changing his mind about the Iraqi leader when it became Western policy not to support him. Galloway visited Iraq in 1994 and delivered a speech to Saddam Hussein, which ended with the statement: "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability." He has maintained that he was addressing the Iraqi people in the speech. Galloway testified to the United States Senate in 2005 over alleged illicit payments from the United Nations' Oil for Food Program. Galloway supports the Palestinians in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, opposes Zionism, and was involved in the Viva Palestina aid convoys.

A long-standing associate of Jeremy Corbyn, Galloway has supported the Labour leader since Corbyn's election in September 2015. In the 2016 EU membership referendum, he advocated a "Leave" vote.

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