A hat trick

The 17th century poet and satirist, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, lampooned King Charles II for never saying a foolish thing nor ever doing a wise one. The same critique might be applied to George Galloway.

The newly-elected MP for Rochdale today took his seat in the House of Commons representing the Workers' Party of Great Britain, a socialist grouping he founded in 2019. Without any fellow WPGB MPs he remains a lone voice in the Chamber but, then, that's precisely the way he likes it. And when it comes to upsetting political applecarts, he has form. A former Labour MP, he stood for Respect against Labour's Oona King MP in Bethnal Green & Bow in 2005 and won. He later pulled off the same stunt in Bradford West in 2012 and has just done it for a third time in the Rochdale byelection.

He is an arch-opportunist who doesn't tend to stick around once elected and is rarely seen in his constituency post-election. However, in a remarkable show of candour for a politician, he admitted in 2013 "I like elections more than I like serving". He astutely uses his victories as a platform to make a point about the West's neo-colonial stance in the Arab world by appealing largely to Muslim voters. 

His momentous victory in Bethnal Green & Bow was achieved by adroitly (some might say shamelessly) mobilising Muslim anger over Tony Blair's support for the 2001 US-led invasion of Iraq, for her support of which sitting Labour MP, Oona King, paid the electoral price. Galloway has also tapped into anger over the Anglo-French invasion of Libya in 2011 and the current Western failure to unequivocally support an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Israel-Palestine conflict in Gaza. 

Once referred to as 'Gorgeous George' for his dandified dress sense he is now known for sporting a trademark fedora. Whether Sir Lindsay Hoyle, Speaker of the House of Commons, will allow him to wear it in the Chamber remains to be seen but any attempt to forbid it will play into Galloway's hands by giving him the pretext to challenge a Speaker whose authority is already on very shaky ground following his disastrously divisive decision over the SNP's recent Oppostion Day Gaza ceasefire motion. Galloway may only remain an MP until the general election but he might still outstay the beleaguered Speaker.

Galloway is a mischief-maker who thrives on exploiting the sort of procedural misjudgment Lindsay Hoyle made. He is also famously litigious over any comments against himself he sees as libellous. His 2005 testimony to the United States Senate over alleged illicit payments from the United Nations' Oil-for-Food Programme against Ba'athist Iraq was widely seen as a tour-de-force of self-advocacy and clearly established his credentials as a pugnacious campaigner, fearless in defence of a cause he espouses (largely himself) and absolutely not a man to be messed with. 

Charles II wittily responded to Wilmot's canard by saying that his words were his own whereas his deeds were his ministers'. 

Just the sort of trenchant riposte the cat in the hat would make.

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