George Galloway from the Workers Party, who contested the Rochdale by-election on the issue of Israeli war crimes in Gaza, has been elected to the parliament by a huge margin. This has come as a huge setback to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Tory party and the opposition Labour Party, which won this by a huge margin in 2019 general elections. The by-election was necessitated by the death of Labour MP Sir Tony Lloyd.
The Labour had withdrawn the whip to its official candidate, Azhar Ali, after he was accused of raising a conspiracy theory on the 7 October attacks by Hamas in Israel.
Galloway had said that his victory would signal the total rejection of the mainstream parties.
Reacting to his win, Galloway said, “You have paid and you will pay a high price for the roll you have played in enabling, encouraging and covering for the catastrophe presently going on in occupied Palestine in the Gaza Strip.”
“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,” he said.
He added, “Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak are two cheeks of the same backside and they both got well and truly spanked tonight here in Rochdale.”
Here’s how different candidates polled;
George Galloway, Workers Party: 12,335
David Tully, Independent: 6,638
Simon Danczuk, Reform UK: 1,968
Paul Ellison, Conservative: 3,731
Azhar Ali, Labour: 2,402
Iain Donaldson, Liberal Democrats: 2.164
There was a turnout of close to 40% in the by-election compared to nearly 60% turnout five years ago. But experts say that Thursday’s turnout was slightly more than the average for a by-election.