George Galloway has been expelled from the Labour Party. Well, well, well. I wonder on whose toes he trodded. Perhaps Tony’s? He must have seriously pissed off the NuLabour powers to be since expulsions from the party are extremely rare.
But to be fair he was accused of inciting Arabs to fight coalition troops during the Iraq war and encouraging British troops to disobey what he called “illegal orders”. Although the official reason for giving the flamboyant Mr Galloway MP a boot was his denouncement of U.S. President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair as “wolves” during the Iraq war, there were other charges, most of stemming from an interview the left-wing firebrand gave to Abu Dhabi Television in March 2003.
The charges faced by Mr Galloway before the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party were understood to be that:
- He incited Arabs to fight British troops
- He incited British troops to defy orders
- He incited Plymouth voters to reject Labour MPs
- He threatened to stand against Labour
- He backed an anti-war candidate in Preston
He was found guilty of all but the third charge.
His supporters praised him for speaking his mind while his critics accused him of being an apologist for former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, whom he visited in 2002, and mockingly labelled him “MP for Baghdad Central”. He was defiant to the end, telling reporters:
This was a politically motivated kangaroo court whose verdict had been written in advance in the best tradition of political show trials.
I want to apologise to the wolf. Mr Bush and Mr Blair are a jackal and a jackass. I will ensure Mr Blair regrets this day.
Unfortunately, Mr Galloway has supporters and the anti-war movement will now turn him into their very own martyr. Let’s just sit back and watch the garbage percolate through the British political system.
The BBC’s spin on the event was drearily predictable. Throughout the day the story was headlined to give the impression that Galloway’s expulsion was due to his anti-war stance, rather than his open support for Saddam and inciting British troops to mutiny.
Today, continuing its role as the rallying point for the anti-war Left, the corporation is working hard to beatify Galloway. Labour ‘activists’ (for which read ‘Marxists’) are being poked out of their rat holes for quotes designed to show widespread support for Galloway within the party, while the man himself is being portrayed as displaying nothing less than Churchillian resolve and defiance.
While the sense of schadenfreude at seeing Bliar and his cronies being pecked to death by the BBC is exquisite, the scandal of the license fee funding this now openly Leftist organisation is a deep and rotting wound. Sooner or later it really is going to have to be addressed.
The man can’t even get his labels right. Bush can’t possibly be a jackass: that’s the symbol of the US Democratic Party and if Mr Bush is anything, it is not a Democrat 😉
In every one of the Radio 4 on-the-hour newsbreaks I heard yesterday, the BBC bluntly reported that Galloway was expelled “for his opposition to the war in Iraq”. On every occasion the Labour Party spokesman got his soundbite, he described Galloway’s offense as “inciting foreign forces to rise up against British troops”. That’s a gigantic factual difference.
I sometimes wonder if the BBC even knows how far it has wandered away from news reporting into editorializing.
I guess nobody bothers to remember his child charity scam, either. I mean, that really has no bearing on his character and fitness to be an MP, right?
I would also say it could seemingly be a reason for Labour to expel him, but then I realized I just said “Labour expel for corruption” and smacked myself. D’oh.
Nothing more here about his being on Saddam’s payroll?
Kevin: I have not heard any more about the controversy surrouding the documents found by a Telegraph reporter in one of the bombed ministries/Saddam’s palaces in Baghdad. I assume you are referring to information about Galloway contained in those. I remember there was some doubt as to their authencity.
Regarding the Iraqi papers which appeared to show that Galloway was a scam artist, the last I heard was that he was suing the Daily Telegraph for libel.
Presumably the case has yet to come to court.
G Cooper, so far as I recall the second set of allegations published in the Christian Science Monitor have been definitely exposed as fakes, and the CSM has admitted it was hoaxed. The Telegraph still stands by its allegations and the documents that prompted them.