Sign up for View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox
Get a free View from Westminster email
George Galloway has lost the Rochdale constituency just a month after he won it.
The leader of the British Labor Party won 11,508 votes, after Paul Waugh of the Labor Party who won the seat with 13,047 votes.
On the BBC’s election programme, Neil Kinnock, the former Labor leader, could barely contain his glee.
He described Mr. Galloway as “repulsive” – ​​but he said when he led the party, he could not find a reason to throw people out.
The Labor leader is not counting on Rochdale, a seat he has only held for four months.
Follow our election liveblog here
Mr Galloway thanked the people of his constituency who “gave me 54 sitting days in the last parliament as an MP”.
He took to X after his defeat, writing: “I thank the people of Rochdale who gave me 54 sitting days in the last parliament as an MP.
“Thank you so much to my agent, my campaign team and the thousands who voted for me today.
“We took the government party to 1,500 votes and put Labor on notice that we are here to stay in Rochdale.
“We will put up a lot of council candidates, create a full-time office there, campaign to reopen the maternity ward and A&E, and keep the pressure on Labor in the city.”
Galloway won the seat in the February by-election, overturning Labour’s majority of 9,668.
A former Labor and Respect Party MP, he has held four seats in parliament since 1987.
The political firebrand was the first Labor MP for Glasgow Hillhead from 1987, and after the constituency was dissolved before the 1997 election, he became the Labor MP for his successor, Glasgow Kelvin.
He was expelled from the Labor Party in 2003 for damaging the party’s reputation, after he called the Labor Government “Tony Blair’s lying machine”, and said British troops fighting in Iraq should refuse to obey his orders.
In 2006, he appeared in the fourth series of Celebrity Big Brother, becoming famous for his impersonation of actress Rula Lenska’s pet cat. They lasted three weeks before being evicted.
In the February by-election, Mr. Galloway took nearly 40 percent of the vote and a majority of nearly 5,700.
During the general election campaign, Mr Galloway came under fire for saying he trusted Vladimir Putin more than Keir Starmer. He faced criticism earlier this year for “blatant homophobia” after saying he didn’t think gay relationships were the same as heterosexual relationships.
He has also been repeatedly accused of spreading conspiracy theories, including recently speculating that the Princess of Wales “died” and the April 2022 massacre of Russian civilians in Bucha, north of Kyiv. likely to be staged.
He has long been a staunch supporter of the Palestinian people and a staunch critic of Israel, calling for the dismantling of the “Zionist state”.
But he has also been accused of antisemitism, including when he was sacked by TalkRadio in 2019 for congratulating Liverpool FC on beating Tottenham Hotspur FC in the Champions League final by tweeting “No Israeli flag in the Cup!”
The British Labor Party was founded by Mr Galloway in 2019 in response to Jeremy Corbyn’s defeat in that year’s general election.
Mr Galloway has also done so and said it would end the careers of other politicians, including being blamed in the press for meeting Saddam Hussein.
The former MP was criticized in 2012 for saying that having sex with an unconscious woman would be “bad sexual etiquette” but not rape.
Full results:
Paul Waugh, Labor – 13,027 (32.82%)
George Galloway, British Labor Party – 11,587 (29.20%)
Michael Howard, Reform – 6,773 (17.07%)
Paul Ellison, Conservative – 4,273 (10.77%)
Andy Kelly, Liberal Democrat – 2,816 (7.10%)
Martyn Savin, Green – 1,212 (3.05%)
Majority of workers – 1,440 (3.63%)
Voters 71,264
Number of voters 39,688 (55.69%)
