So the hard left maverick George Galloway chose the ultra right Westmonster website set up by UKIP donor Arron Banks to tell anyone who would listen that he’s be standing in the Manchester Gorton by-election.
Tim Farron reckons that makes a Lib Dem win more likely.
While George Galloway won’t pick up enough votes to win, he clearly will take a number of votes from Labour. That increases our chances of winning as the only party that can beat Labour in Manchester Gorton.
George Galloway is a divisive, hard left campaigner of the old school and an ardent supporter of Brexit.
There will be little support for his brand of politics in Manchester Gorton, which is a diverse and tolerant place and voted 62% to remain in the EU.
His decision to enter the race is yet another consequence of the chronic splits and weak leadership in the Labour party. People in Manchester want change, they deserve better than a failed politician and a failing Labour party.
Our candidate Jackie Pearcey said on Twitter:
George Galloway's language of dividing communities shows that he really does not understand Manchester at all.
— Jackie Pearcey (@jackiepearcey) March 21, 2017
By choosing an ALT-Right website to declare, Galloway shows his true political colours.
— Jackie Pearcey (@jackiepearcey) March 21, 2017
“George #Galloway to stand in Manchester Gorton byelection”
This photo says all I need to on the subject.https://t.co/ZLnL38mfEP pic.twitter.com/zGsR9PBvmk
— Damon (@damocrat) March 21, 2017
Of course, many women will consider that his comments about the allegations faced by Julian Assange make him unfit for public office. His “clarification” a day later really didn’t make it better.
Personally, I cannot wait to see our wonderful Jackie Pearcey, never one to demur from saying exactly what she thinks, taking on Galloway at the hustings.
UPDATE: And it seems that the bookies have slashed their odds of a Lib Dem victory as odds have fallen from 9/1 at the start of the campaign down to 5/1 on several leading bookmakers, making us by far the favourites to take on Labour in the seat.
A Liberal Democrat campaign spokesperson commented:
This shows that we’re the only challengers to Labour in Manchester Gorton.
While Labour carry on fighting themselves, our campaign is building momentum by the day.
A win for Jackie Pearcey will send a clear message that Labour have got it wrong on Brexit and they must start taking the concerns of local residents seriously.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
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8 Comments
I’m not sure whether it will help the Lib Dems or not. He will certainly attract some voters from Labour, but does that mean less will move to the Lib Dems? A big personality like Galloway could pull this off, I certainly think it changes Gorton from a two horse race to a three horse one.
Very good piece by Caron.
Galloway has a way of popping up every so often to remind people like me just what a preposterously broad and absurd hybrid of two halves that don’t meet half way, the Labour party was and is , minus that wretched man or not !
He could have been a very big player if his decency was the size of his ego, for his talent is not small.
Now, to paraphrase the late , great Noel Coward, his is merely a talent to amuse .
And that, unintentional !
It has been stated on another site that in 2014 52.6% of the population of the Gorton constituency was White, and that of the non-White population only 18.6% was Pakistani, the element in the non-White population the most likely for Galloway to try to elicit support from. Should the selected Labour candidate be Pakistani by ethnic origin, it is likely that a decent chunk of the Pakistani vote will stay Labour, and that further diminishes the potential Galloway vote, since at this stage in his political career his appeal to other classes of voter in this constituency is going to be rather limited. It does not therefore seem likely at all that the contest will be a three-way one between Labour, the Lib Dems and Galloway, and Tim Farron’s comments on the effect of Galloway’s candidacy seem to me entirely correct.
It will also give the contest more publicity, so if we can pull it off everyone will know about it.
He’s nothing more than a misogynistic rt propagandist, hard left Brexiter bandwagon jumper who doesn’t care about the people of Manchester Gorton, but he’s a populist figure with a following that worships him as much as the rest of us despise him. That means he’s going to win some votes from Labour, and that can only help the Liberal Democrats
The photo’ with Farage reminds me of the old joke I heard on TW3 years ago. He’s not as nice as he looks! Also maybe a slight resemblance to Paul Nuttal.
More seriously however, superficially Galloway would appear to have some common ground with the late MP in their support for Justice for the Palestinians but his anti-Semitism is deplorable and will not play well with Gerald Kaufman’s former voters.
Jackie needs to go in hard on the |Labour candidate’s praise of the Iranian Government and on Corbyn’s & McDonnell’s support for Sinn Fein and the odious McGuinness
Why all the hate for this man! He speaks the truth when most are scared or don’t have the guts to and he has proven to be right about every iota of foreign policy that should be put forth . If you prefer a liar , warmonger and another follower then by all means those are plenty .
Mr Galloway is the man and I wish we had someone like him.