4 Political views

He has a reputation as a fiery left-winger. He is an advocate of redistribution of wealth, greater spending on welfare benefits , and extensive nationalisation of large industries. He opposes independence for Scotland. He supports the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. As a practising Roman Catholic he is firmly opposed to abortion, although he is more tolerant of homosexuality, supporting equalisation of the age of consent. As a Labour MP he was a member of the Socialist Campaign Group. In the 2001 Parliament he voted against the whip 27 times, placing him as the 9th most rebellious MP.

Galloway has attracted most attention for his comments on foreign policy, taking a special interest in Libya, Pakistan, Iraq and Palestine. His support for the Palestinian cause began in 1974 when he met a Palestinian activist in Dundee; he converted the rest of the Dundee Labour Party which flew the Palestinian flag over the Town Hall and twinned the city with Nablus. His involvement with Iraq began after the war in 1991 when he visited the country to observe the effects of United Nations sanctions.

In an interview with the Guardian, Galloway outlined his political views in relation to the Soviet Union:

"I am on the anti-imperialist left." The Stalinist left? "I wouldn't define it that way because of the pejoratives loaded around it; that would be making a rod for your own back. If you are asking did I support the Soviet Union, yes I did. Yes, I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life. If there was a Soviet Union today, we would not be having this conversation about plunging into a new war in the Middle East, and the US would not be rampaging around the globe."

5 Business Activities

Galloway has been involved in several publishing companies. He owned 'Asian Voice' which published a newspaper called East from 1996. An investigation by BBC Newsnight found that Galloway had secured payments of £60,000 and £135,000 from the Pakistani governments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. Galloway insisted this was for advertising space and bulk copies, but Newsnight alleged that it was for favourable coverage of Pakistan. He is currently one of two Directors of Finjan Ltd.; the other Director is his wife.

6 Iraq

He opposed the 1991 Gulf War and was critical of the effect the subsequent sanctions had on the people of Iraq, visiting Iraq several times and meeting senior government figures including Saddam Hussein. He acquired the nickname the "member for Baghdad Central". In a House of Commons debate on Iraq on March 6, 2002, Ben Bradshaw (then a Foreign Office Minister) said he "had .. made a career of being not just an apologist, but a mouthpiece, for the Iraqi regime over many years". Galloway called the Minister a liar and refused to withdraw, resulting in the suspension of the sitting. Bradshaw later withdrew his allegation, and Galloway apologised for using unparliamentary language.

In 1994, Galloway faced some of his strongest criticism, having returned from another Middle-Eastern visit. During this visit he met the Iraqi dictator and was filmed saying "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability". Galloway has always insisted that the praise was intended for the Iraqi people collectively.

In 1999, Galloway was criticised for spending Christmas in Iraq with Tariq Aziz the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister. He returned to Iraq again in 2002, when he tried to persuade Saddam Hussein to re-admit UN Weapons Inspectors.

7 Mariam Appeal

In 1998 Galloway founded the 'Mariam Appeal', intended "to campaign against sanctions on Iraq which are having disastrous effects on the ordinary people of Iraq". The campaign was named after Mariam Hamza, a single child flown by the fund from Iraq to Britain to receive treatment for leukaemia. The intention was to raise awareness of the suffering and death of tens of thousands of other Iraqi children due to lack of suitable medicines and facilities, and to campaign for the lifting of the western sanctions that Galloway maintained were responsible for that situation. The campaign won Galloway press coverage, first positive then increasingly negative, as allegations arose that funds were misappropriated and used to pay his wife and driver.

The fund was at the centre of a further scrutiny during the 2003 Gulf war, with allegations of lavish spending on Galloway's regular trips to the Middle East, including first class travel, luxury hotel accommodation, and consumption of expensive champagne and caviar. Galloway, however, denied that he had misused any funds raised for the Mariam Appeal and pointed out that it was not unreasonable for money from a campaign fund to be used to pay for the travel expenses of campaigners. Although the Mariam Appeal was never a registered charity and never intended to be such, it was investigated by the Charities Commission . The report of this year-long inquiry, published in June 2004, found that the Mariam Appeal was doing charitable work (and so should properly have been registered with them), but rejected the allegations that any funds had been mis-used:

"The commission's thorough inquiry found no evidence to suggest that the large amounts of money given to the Mariam Appeal were not properly used." [1]

8 Oil for Food allegations

On April 22, 2003, the Daily Telegraph published documents which had been found by its reporter David Blair in the ruins of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry. The documents purport to be records of meetings between Galloway and Iraqi intelligence agents, and state that he had received £375,000 per year from the proceeds of the Oil for Food programme [2]. Galloway completely denied the story, insisting that the documents were forgeries, and pointing to the questionable nature of the discovery within an unguarded bombed-out building. He instigated legal action against the newspaper, which was heard in the High Court from November 14, 2004.

The Christian Science Monitor also published a story on April 25 2003 stating that they had documentary evidence that he had received "more than ten million dollars" from the Iraqi regime. However, on June 20, 2003, the Monitor admitted that the documents it held were forgeries and apologised to Galloway. Galloway rejected the newspaper's apology, asserted that the affair was a conspiracy against him, and continued a libel claim against the paper. The Christian Science Monitor settled the claim, paying him an undisclosed sum in damages, on March 19, 2004. Galloway accepts libel damages [3] It emerged that these documents had first been offered to the Daily Telegraph, but they had rejected them.

In January 2004 a further set of allegations were made in a newspaper called al-Mada in Iraq. The newspaper claimed to have found documents in the Iraqi national oil corporation showing that Galloway received (through an intermediary) some of the profits that arose from the sale of 19.5 million barrels (3,100,000 m³) of oil. Galloway acknowledged that money had been paid into the Mariam Appeal by Iraqi businessmen who had profited from the UN-run programme, but denied benefiting personally, and pointed out that in any case there was nothing illicit about this:

"It is hard to see what is dishonourable, let alone "illicit", about Arab nationalist businessmen donating some of the profits they made from legitimate UN-controlled business with Iraq to anti-sanctions campaigns, as opposed to, say, keeping their profits for themselves."

The report of the Iraq Survey Group published in October 2004 found a George Galloway to be one of the recipients of a fund used by Iraq to buy influence among foreign politicians. Most UK newspapers made the assumption that this person was identical to the MP. If Galloway had indeed profited from the Oil for Food money he would presumably be guilty of a criminal offence for sanctions-breaking, and also of a contempt of the House of Commons for allowing his Parliamentary behaviour to be bought by a foreign government; the magnitude of the offence would be such that he would become the first MP for 50 years to be expelled from the House.

9 Criticism

In May 2002, at the Cambridge Union, American actor John Malkovich stated that he would like to shoot both George Galloway and the journalist Robert Fisk. On being told of this, Galloway responded "if it was a joke it is not very funny and if it wasn't a joke, he will be hearing from my lawyers".

One interview during the 2003 Iraq war on Abu Dhabi TV, broadcast on March 28, has attracted particular criticism. Galloway referred to Tony Blair and George W. Bush as "wolves" and then said:

"Even if it is not realistic to ask a non-Iraqi army to come to defend Iraq, we see Arab regimes pumping oil for the countries who are attacking it. We wonder when the Arab leaders will wake up. When are they going to stand by the Iraqi people?"

At the national conference of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, on June 30, 2003, he apologised for describing George Bush as a "wolf", saying that to do so defamed wolves:

"No wolf would commit the sort of crimes against humanity that George Bush committed against the people of Iraq."

Galloway denied he was inciting the Iraqis to attack British soldiers, but said that "it would be best for them [British soldiers] to refuse to obey illegal orders." These remarks led to his suspension from the Labour Party (see below). Some British newspapers accused him of treason and it was suggested that he should be tried for his comments under the Incitement to Disaffection Act of 1934.

10 Expulsion from the Labour Party

Citing Galloway's comments the General Secretary of the Labour Party suspended him on May 6 2003 pending a hearing on charges that he had violated the party's constitution by "bringing the Labour Party into disrepute by behaviour that is prejudicial or grossly detrimental to the Party". The National Constitutional Committee held a hearing on October 22 2003 to consider the charges, taking evidence from Galloway himself, from other party witnesses, viewing media interviews, and hearing character testimony from (among others) veteran Labour minister Tony Benn. The following day the committee found the charge of bringing the party into disrepute proved, and expelled Galloway from the Labour Party forthwith. Galloway called the Committee's hearing "a show trial" and "a kangaroo court".

11 Current Activities

In 2004 Galloway announced he would be working with the Socialist Alliance and others under the name RESPECT Unity Coalition. Many commentators were surprised by this development since he has a track record of antipthy to Trotskyists, and the largest component of RESPECT are the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party. He stood for this party in London in the 2004 European Parliament elections, but failed to pick up a seat.

Galloway's Glasgow Kelvin constituency is to undergo boundary changes at the next general election. After his expulsion, he initially fuelled speculation that he might call a snap by-election before then, by resigning his parliamentary seat, saying

"If I were to resign this constituency and there was a by-election I can't guarantee that I would win, but I would guarantee that Tony Blair's candidate would surely lose."

Galloway later announced he would not force a by-election, and intended not to contest the next general election in Glasgow. Owing to the boundary changes the Labour candidate in the constituency based on Glasgow Kelvin will be Mohammad Sarwar, the first muslim Labour MP and a strong opponent of the war, and Galloway did not wish to challenge him. After the European election results became known, Galloway annouced that he will stand in Bethnal Green & Bow, the area where RESPECT had its strongest election results and where the sitting Labour MP, Oona King, supported the war.

His autobiography, I'm Not The Only One was published on April 29, 2004. The book's title is a quotation from " Imagine" by John Lennon. Before its publication, current armed forces minister Adam Ingram claimed that Galloway had libelled him in its pages by descibing how in his youth, Ingram had been a member of a "sectarian, anti-Catholic, Protestant-supremacist Orange Order band". Ingram's legal bid to prevent publication of the book failed, and he is reportedly considering whether to sue Galloway and his publisher for defamation. [4]

12 External links

• George Galloway's homepage

Galloway, George Galloway, George

<Hide>