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George Galloway has won a contentious by-election in Rochdale with the firebrand politician threatening to inflame tensions in the British parliament over Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
Galloway won 12,335 votes on a turnout of 37.6% in the northern English city and said his victory, by nearly 6,000 votes, would “spark a movement” among voters.
“Keir Starmer, this is for Gaza,” Galloway said. “You have paid and will pay a very high price for the role you have played. . . coverage of the catastrophe currently underway in occupied Palestine”.
The by-election, triggered by the death of Labor MP Sir Tony Lloyd, gave the veteran Galloway his fourth term in parliament and a platform to agitate against Labor after a difficult campaign for the party.
Labor picked Azhar Ali, a local councillor, to contest the seat but withdrew support for him after it was revealed he had made a series of incendiary remarks about Israel and Palestine.
Ali, who apologized for the comments, remained on the ballot as a Labor candidate because nominations were closed. He came fourth in the by-election with 2,402 votes.
DeltaPoll’s Joe Twyman told the BBC the results represented a “bad day for Keir Starmer”. “A Labor candidate was not sufficiently vetted and was found to be making remarks considered anti-Semitic. . . It’s not a good topic,” he said.
Labor MP Stephen Kinnock told the BBC that the party had taken “swift action” to withdraw support for Ali and that its “number one priority” was to select a strong candidate for the general election due this year .
Simon Danczuk, who came sixth in the Reform UK by-election, had previously been a Labor MP for the seat but was sacked for sending sexually explicit photos.
A prominent anti-war politician and former Labor MP, Galloway was expelled from the party in 2003 for comments relating to the Iraq war. He represented Rochdale as a British Workers’ Party candidate.
Critics said the “macho” and divisive rhetoric of an all-male candidate list fueled the febrile atmosphere surrounding the Rochdale contest.
Richard Tice, leader of Reform, said the contest was not “free and fair” and that candidates had been subjected to abuse.
Galloway has already ousted a Labor MP twice while running for a third party. On both occasions, in Bethnal Green in London and in Bradford in the north of England, he ran campaigns centered on his opposition to the war in Iraq.
He came third behind Labor in the 2021 Batley and Spen by-election, gaining 8,264 votes, targeting Muslim voters in a seat where they make up around 20% of the electorate.
Galloway’s campaign in Rochdale sent letters to “Muslim voters” attacking Starmer and threatening to topple the Labor leader over his support for Israel.
According to 2021 census data, around 30% of Rochdale voters are Muslim.
It was Rochdale’s 22nd by-election since the 2019 general election, while the suspension of former Conservative MP for Blackpool South, Scott Benton, is expected to trigger another poll in the coming months.
Labor won Rochdale at the last general election with a majority of 9,668 votes on a turnout of 60%. The party had held the seat since 2010.
Galloway’s victory came in a week in which Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said there was a “growing consensus that mob rule is replacing democratic government” after months of pro-Palestinian marches outside parliament.
Last week the Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle defended his handling of a chaotic vote on the Gaza ceasefire as an effort to protect MPs.
“This will trigger a movement, a landslide, a shifting of tectonic plates, in dozens of parliamentary constituencies,” Galloway said on Friday. “Yes, it is true that every Muslim is bitterly angry. . . but you would be very foolish [to think] that millions of other citizens are not.”
Rob Ford, a professor of political science at the University of Manchester, said the circumstances surrounding the byelection were unusual and it was difficult to imagine a scenario in which they could mobilize voters for other pro-Palestinian candidates.
He added that while Galloway was an effective campaigner, he did little to please voters when previously elected. “He was not re-elected in Bethnal Green or Bradford. He is a lightning rod for discontent, not a representative,” he said.