George Galloway victory in Rochdale by-election a 'dark day for British Jews' - latest

The mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham has given his verdict on the election saying Labour "let the people of Rochdale down" because it didn’t give them a good enough choice at the election.

Burnham said: “It’s right that the leader of the party has apologised to the people of Rochdale but we will now work with him and his team to make sure there is some reflection on what has happened, some honesty, so that we can all come together and work together to regain the trust of the people of Rochdale, and that is exactly what we will do working with the leader of Rochdale Borough Council.

“We pride ourselves on being a city region of diversity, of solidarity. We have a large Muslim community but the biggest Jewish community outside of London, and the leaders of both of those communities work together, and we pride ourselves on the cohesion between the different communities in Greater Manchester.

“We will work with anybody who seeks to promote that cohesion, but we will stand up to anybody who seeks to bring division or hate to our city region.”

George Galloway’s return to Westminster after the seismic Rochdale by-election will no doubt be noisy and disruptive – but it will also be short, and isolated, writes Jack Mendel for City AM.

The left-wing MP [I shudder that I have to say that once again] won in Rochdale due to a peculiar set of circumstances that are not likely to be replicated elsewhere.

After his victory in Rochdale, Galloway delivered a victory speech which echoed his previous win in Bradford a decade ago, another toxic campaign, which he dubbed the “Bradford Spring”. It wasn’t long before he was out of Westminster again.

This time, he claimed “that the plates have shifted”, after his victory in Rochdale.

Read the full story from City AM.

The Conservative MP for Brigg and Goole, Andrew Percy, has responded to the comments by George Galloway's deputy Chris Williamson after he refused to condemn the 7 October Hamas attacks.

Percy, who has previously spoken in Parliament about the intimidation levelled at Jewish people in the UK, told Yahoo News: "It takes a special kind of sick person to refuse to condemn the violence unleashed on children and the sexual violence wrought on young women on October 7th.

"Those who can't bring themselves to do so need help and should be ignored for what they are: crackpots and loons."

Asked on Radio 4 this morning if he would condemn the massacre that killed hundreds of Israelis, Williamson replied that the "two main parties have not condemned or at least called for a ceasefire; they've not condemned the Israeli regimes activities.

He added: "You can't expect to live in a situation where a people have been oppressed for 75 years and not expect a reaction.

"[The] two main parties have not condemned or at least called for a ceasefire, they've not condemned the Israeli regimes activities".

He went on to claim that the majority of people killed in the 7 October attack were killed by Israeli forces.

‘Listen, most of the people who were killed on October 7 were killed by Israeli forces," he said, prompting the host to interject: "We don’t know that."

"I think you do know that," he responded.

Social security data from Israel show 1,139 people were killed in the Hamas attack. Reports from eyewitnesses suggest some Israeli citizens may have been killed in the crossfire as Israeli military responded to the attack.

Israel announced in February that it would investigate allegations of possible breaches of law by Israeli troops responding to the massacre.

The Rochdale byelection was an extraordinary electoral event. Not only did the combined share of the vote for the Conservatives and Labour drop by 63 percentage points – the worst result for the big two since the wartime byelections of 1941-45 – but the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Reform UK all slipped as well.

However, Rochdale’s circumstances were so bizarre that one must be careful when drawing general conclusions about the implications for national electoral politics.

Read the full story from The Guardian.

Rishi Sunak has said the campaign for the Rochdale by-election was “one of the most divisive in recent times”.

He was speaking during a visit to the Baker Hughes facility in Montrose, Angus, which manufactures subsea infrastructure, ahead of appearing at the Scottish Conservative conference later on Friday.

Asked Galloway’s election win would inflame tensions, he said: “It was very concerning to see the reports of intimidation through the by-election, and by all accounts one of the most divisive campaigns that we’ve seen in recent times.

“I’m pleased the Conservative Party was the only party to run a really positive campaign focused on local issues with a great local candidate, Paul Ellison.”

Ellison finished a distant third

George Galloway, the controversial Left-wing firebrand, has won the Rochdale by-election.

The former Labour MP who was standing for the Workers Party of Britain, won a decisive majority after Labour withdrew support from its candidate amid allegations of antisemitic comments in a leaked recording.

Mr Galloway, who ran on a pro-Palestinian pitch, claimed his victory was a win for Gaza.

Read the full story from The Telegraph.

The clock had not yet struck 3am when a grinning George Galloway again took to the centre stage of a by-election result, this time in Rochdale.

Clearly puffed up, Britain’s newest MP gently moved down the two podium microphones before launching a proud victory speech with the words “Keir Starmer”, followed by a rehearsed tirade against Labour’s leader over his stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Not a throw of orange confetti or the heckling from Just Stop Oil protester could stop the four-times married MP from savouring the moment in front of the cameras after trouncing the established political parties.

Yet if this extraordinary turn of events didn’t seem new, it was because it wasn’t.

Read the full report of the moments that made Galloway such a controversial figure on The Independent.

George Galloway overturned a sizable Labour majority for the third time in his parliamentary career in the Rochdale by-election – triumphing with a 5,697 majority of his own.

With previous election victories behind him in Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005, and Bradford West in 2012, it means no single challenger has stolen as many seats from the major parties in England at by-elections since the Second World War.

Ukip may well have enjoyed some success in the middle of the past decade – with Conservative defectors Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless bringing Tory voters with them in 2014 by-elections – but no single insurgent has come close to matching Galloway’s hat trick.

Read the full story from The Telegraph.

A clip has resurfaced showing the moment George Galloway put an end to a live television interview after being challenged by Jeremy Paxman over his election night victory.

The 2005 interview, filmed after Mr Galloway’s victory over Labour’s Oona King, is back in the spotlight following The Workers Party of Britain by-election win in Rochdale on Friday (1 March).

In the BBC clip, Mr Galloway angrily accused Paxman of "insulting" his new constituents by asking about his Labour opponent on the BBC's election night special.

Read the full story from The Independent.

A new poll shows Reform UK has gained its highest share of intended voters so far, despite polling poorly in Rochdale.

Reform UK was founded by former UKIP leader Nigel Farage as the 'Brexit Party' in 2018, with many of UKIP's former members becoming members. The party, which advocated hard-line Euroscepticism and a no-deal Brexit, was re-registered as Reform UK in January 2021.

That same year, Farage stepped down and was replaced by party chairman Richard Tice, who remains leader.

Reform's slogan is 'Let's Make Britain Great'.

The Rochdale by-election was beset by controversy and claims of intimidation and divisive tactics, the leader of Reform UK has said.

Richard Tice had previously claimed his candidate, former Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk, had received a death threat during the campaign and that his party’s campaign team had been subject to “daily intimidation and slurs”.

Recriminations continued after polls closed, with Tice alleging to the PA news agency that “menacing behaviour” had featured throughout the campaign and questioning the validity of the postal ballots returned during the contest.

He said: “This by-election and result should act as a serious wake-up call to those in power and indeed to the entire electorate. We are supposed to be a beacon of democracy, this shameful contest has been more characteristic of a failed state.”

George Galloway has won a resounding victory in the Rochdale by-election following a chaotic campaign that saw Labour's vote collapse amid controversy of the Gaza conflict.

In his victory speech, Galloway began by focusing on Palestine - as he had in his campaign - saying: “Keir Starmer, this is for Gaza. You have paid, and you will pay, a high price for the role that you have played in enabling, encouraging and covering for the catastrophe presently going on in occupied Palestine in the Gaza Strip.”

Starmer has been criticised by many on the left what they perceive as his equivocal stance on the Gaza conflict and his reluctance to call for an immediate ceasefire until recently.

Read the full story from Yahoo News.

Following a statement from the Board of Deputies of British Jews branding George Galloway's victory a "dark day" for the UK's Jewish community, the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, Jake Wallis Simons, has described Galloway as a "deplorable radical".

George Galloway has won the Rochdale by-election following a chaotic campaign dominated by the war in Gaza.

The former Labour politician and Celebrity Big Brother contestant took 12,335 votes and becomes the only MP for the Workers Party of Britain. The party’s number 1 pledge is to “end imperialist wars” and withdraw from Nato.

The campaign for the Greater Manchester constituency was marred by chaos and ugly scenes with candidates receiving death threats and Labour withdrawing support for its candidate in the race over comments he made on the Israel-Hamas war.

Read the full story from The Independent.

Veteran left-wing political maverick George Galloway was elected as the new lawmaker for the English town of Rochdale on Friday, the latest political comeback for the former Labour politician.

Read more from Reuters for notable moments from his colourful and often controversial political career.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews has described George Galloway’s victory in the Rochdale by-election as a “a dark day” for the UK’s Jewish community.

A spokesperson said: “George Galloway is a demagogue and conspiracy theorist who has brought the politics of division and hate to every place he has ever stood for Parliament.

“His election is a dark day for the Jewish community in this country and for British politics in general.

“We believe he should be shunned as a pariah by all Parliamentarians.”

Labour's deputy national campaign coordinator Ellie Reeves has suggested the party will not change its stance on Gaza as George Galloway suggested his election win was based on the conflict in the Middle East.

Reeves told Sky News: “We’ve set out our position on Gaza and that was adopted by the Commons just the other week.

“We’ve said there should be an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, that the loss of life has been intolerable, there must be no ground offensive in Rafah, aid has to be ramped up into the region, and, importantly, that we need to find a two-state solution.”

George Galloway was interrupted by climate change protesters during his victory speech earlier today.

Gaollway had confetti thrown over him by Just Stop Oil and was heckled over climate change as he gave his victory speech in Rochdale.

Watch below:

A former adviser to Tony Blair has said that the Rochdale by-election read like a mid-term election for Starmer's Labour Party.

John McTernan said in an interview with BBC Radio 4 Today: “This feels like the first mid-term by-election of a Starmer government because, in a funny kind of way for the last 18 months the assumption has been that Starmer is going to be the prime minister and all politics is about the Labour Party.

“All of your questions are really how will Labour fund this? How will Labour be change?"

Labour has apologised for the election result after the party distanced itself from the candidate it originally fielded over antisemitic comments.

The deputy leader of George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain has refused to condemn the 7 October attacks by Hamas on Israel and accused the Government and Labour of “effectively facilitating the genocide in Gaza”.

Asked on Radio 4 this morning if he would condemn the massacre that killed hundreds of Israelis, Williamson replied that the "two main parties have not condemned or at least called for a ceasefire; they've not condemned the Israeli regimes activities.

He added: "You can't expect to live in a situation where a people have been oppressed for 75 years and not expect a reaction.

"[The] two main parties have not condemned or at least called for a ceasefire, they've not condemned the Israeli regimes activities".

He went on to claim that the majority of people killed in the 7 October attack were killed by Israeli forces.

‘Listen, most of the people who were killed on October 7 were killed by Israeli forces," former Labour MP Chris Williamson told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme said, prompting the host to interject: "We don’t know that."

"I think you do know that," he responded.

Social security data from Israel show 1,139 people were killed in the Hamas attack. Reports from eyewitnesses suggest some Israeli citizens may have been killed in the crossfire as Israeli military responded to the attack.

Israel announced in February that it would investigate allegations of possible breaches of law by Israeli troops responding to the massacre.

Momentum, a left-wing pressure group, has described Labour’s Rochdale by-election results as “self-inflicted”.

A spokesperson for the group said: “This was a needless and self-inflicted loss for Labour.

“First, (Labour leader Sir Keir) Starmer’s utterly factional selection processes resulted in a candidate who was clearly unfit for office. Then the Labour leadership tried to defend him as one of their own.

“Finally, Keir Starmer’s failure to stand with Gaza in its hour of need left the door open for George Galloway.

“To avoid any more damaging repeats, Starmer should end the factional abuse of Labour’s selection processes and stand up for an immediate, permanent ceasefire in Gaza.”

Labour's deputy national campaign coordinator Ellie Reeves has endured a morning of awkward interviews following George Galloway's sweeping victory in Rochdale.

She told Sky News on Friday: “Labour regrets that we couldn’t stand a candidate in this by-election and we apologise to the people of Rochdale for that.

“George Galloway is someone who stokes up division and fear. This isn’t how we would have wanted this by-election to play out.

Asked whether she would like to congratulate George Galloway on his by-election win, she responded "I think we'll leave it there".

In an interview with Good Morning Britain, Reeves was also asked repeatedly about Azhar Ali, whom the party suspended over controversial comments about the 7 October attacks on Israel but who remains as leader of Lancashire county council.

A polling expert has described how Labour's vote collapsed in Rochdale, handing George Galloway a clear victory.

Speaking to BBC breakfast, Sir John Curtice said: "The truth is Labour’s vote, sure, Labour’s vote was going to go down giving their disowning [of their candidate], but Labour’s vote literally collapsed.

“This is the biggest drop in Labour support in a post-war by-election and it does mean that certainly Labour MPs who are representing constituencies with large Muslim populations who have been told that they may face candidates standing on a pro-Palestinian platform that they will be looking to Sir Keir perhaps to toughen his stance on Israel in order to try to head that off, even if I think it is probably undoubtedly the case it is unlikely that anybody else has the ability to use this issue, to exploit this issue in the way that Mr Galloway is uniquely able to do.”

A statement shared on Twitter showed the Labour Party apologise for not fielding a candidate amid the debacle over the party's selection of Azhar Ali, whom Labour later distanced itself from.

In his Rochdale victory speech, winner George Galloway addressed the criticism and chaos that had surrounded the lead-up to the by-election.

Galloway said: “I’ve heard some of the narrative being spun around this election result this evening. Yes its true, that every Muslim is bitterly angry at Keir Starmer and his listing Labour Party.

“But you would be very foolish, if you did not realise that millions of other citizens of our country are too.

“Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak are two cheeks of the same backside and they both got well and truly spanked tonight!”

Galloway also congratulated the candidate who came second, David Tully, and said he looked forward to working with him for Rochdale, a town that had been badly let down, he said.

To cheers, he ended his speech with: “God bless you. God bless Rochdale. God bless Gaza.”

The Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) has said it is “extremely concerned” about how George Galloway will use his platform after winning the Rochdale by-election.

A spokesperson for the CAA said: “George Galloway has an atrocious record of baiting the Jewish community.

“He has previously and infamously declared Bradford an ‘Israel-free zone’. He said of his previous election loss that ‘the venal, the vile, the racists and the Zionists will all be celebrating’. He described David Baddiel, a Jewish comic who is well-known for not closely associating himself with Israel, as a ‘vile Israel-fanatic’.

“He claimed that the institutional antisemitism within the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn was really ‘a disgraceful campaign of Goebbelsian fiction’, in reference to Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propagandist.

“He was sacked by TalkRadio over his views. Recently he has described the atrocity carried out by Hamas on October 7 as a ‘concentration camp breakout’ and referred to Hamas terrorists as ‘fighters’.

“Mr Galloway has now been chosen by the voters of Rochdale to represent them and is once again an MP. Given his historic inflammatory rhetoric and the current situation faced by the Jewish community in this country, we are extremely concerned by how he may use the platform of the House of Commons in the remaining months of this parliament.”

The moment George Galloway was declared the winner in the Rochdale by-election.

George Galloway has emerged victorious in the Rochdale by-election, which was triggered by the death of Labour MP Sir Tony Lloyd.

Former Labour MP Galloway, currently the leader of the Workers Party of Britain, won with a 5,697-vote majority.

used his victory speech to take aim at Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and prime minister Rishi Sunak over the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

“Keir Starmer, this is for Gaza,” he said. “You will pay a high price for the role that you have played in enabling, encouraging and covering for the catastrophe presently going on in occupied Gaza, in the Gaza Strip.”

“This is going to spark a movement, a landslide, a shifting of the tectonic plates, a score of parliamentary constituencies, beginning here in the north-west, in the West Midlands, in London, from Ilford to Bethnal Green & Bow.

“Labour is on notice that they have lost the confidence of millions of their voters who loyally and traditionally voted for them generation after generation.”