The
remarkable victory of George Galloway in the Bradford West by-election has sent
a massive cannon ball flying across the boughs of the Labour leadership. At a time of huge
unpopularity of the Coalition government, Labour should have romped home in
this traditional heartland. To their astonishment, Labour was driven into
second place behind George Galloway, who scored a massive 36.59% swing from
Labour to Respect.
The
remarkable victory of George Galloway in the Bradford West by-election has sent
a massive cannon ball flying across the boughs of the Labour leadership. At a time of huge
unpopularity of the Coalition government, Labour should have romped home in
this traditional heartland. To their astonishment, Labour was driven into
second place behind George Galloway, who scored a massive 36.59% swing from
Labour to Respect.
On
a high turnout of over 50 per cent (compared with 64.9 per cent in the 2010 general
election), Labour’s 5,763 vote majority was turned into a 10,140 majority for
Galloway. The other parties were also humiliated. The Tory party came third,
with its percentage of the vote falling from 31.2 per cent in the general
election to 8.37 per cent, a drop of 22.78 per cent. The Liberal Democrats were
also trounced with its share of the vote falling from 11.7 per cent to 4.5 per
cent. The victory for Galloway was a clear sign of a “plague on all your
houses” as far as Labour, Liberal and Tories were concerned.
The
sitting MP, Labour’s Marsha Singh, stood down on grounds of ill health which
provoked the by-election. Labour’s candidate was Imran Hussein, the deputy leader
of the local Council, who, based on Labour’s lukewarm policies, failed
miserably to connect with the electorate. The fact that the local Labour
controlled council has pushed through £67 million in cuts, axing over a
thousand jobs, is also a clear factor in reducing Imran Hussein’s appeal among
the electorate!
The
turnout and vote for Galloway was clearly a massive protest vote against the
policies of Ed Miliband and the Labour leadership. People had become fed up
with Labour’s lack of fighting programme. Instead, the Labour leaders had done
everything to alienate their traditional supporters. They have promised to
implement the austerity cuts… but over a longer period and not so deep. They
have failed to support workers in struggle, including the strikes over
pensions. They are opposed to the tanker drivers’ taking strike action. They
are trying to be respectable for the likes of the City of London, as the
Blairites had done previously. They are seen as very much out of touch.
The
fact that Galloway successfully campaigned on left-wing policies, such as no
cuts, no job losses, troops out of Afghanistan, taxing the rich, etc, shows
clearly that the working class is far to the left of the Labour leadership.
Miliband and company are firmly wedded to “responsible capitalism” and the
market economy. In this way, they are little different from the rest.
Galloway
correctly criticised the New Labour politicians for letting the working class
down and betraying their supporters. He blamed Tony Blair for pushing the party
to the right:
“Tony
Blair’s treason led to my victory”, he said. Labour
"must stop imagining that working people and poor people have no option
but to support them if they hate the Tory and Liberal Democrat coalition
partners.
"They have to stop supporting illegal, bloody, costly
foreign wars because one of the reasons why they were so decisively defeated
this evening is that the public don’t believe that they have atoned for their
role in the invasion and occupation of other people’s countries and the drowning
of those countries in blood.
“This is a rejection of the mainstream parties with their
Tweedledee, Tweedledum, Tweedledee-and-a-half approach. It was people saying
they want political leaders they can believe in, who say what they mean, do what
they say and don’t lie to people. We don’t say one thing to one set of people
and something else to another.
“People were not looking to the austerity policies of the
Coalition or the austerity-lite policies of Ed Miliband.”
Miliband said Labour had to learn the lessons of the defeat, but
is presently trying to befriend big business. “It was an incredibly
disappointing result for Labour in Bradford West and I am determined that we
learn lessons of what happened. I’m going to lead that. I’m going to be going
back to the constituency in the coming weeks to talk to people there about why
this result happened. Clearly there were local factors, but I also say only
four out of 10 people voted for the three mainstream political parties.”
We can only wonder whether Miliband will take the message if he
does go on a tour of Bradford. For even without going there, the lessons are abundantly
clear. It was not, as Harriet Harman said, a local “Bradford problem”. Another
front bench spokesperson, Kieth Vaz, said it was because Galloway was a
“celebrity”! The Labour leaders are desperately looking for ways of explaining
away this irritating result for them. Anything but accept reality! They are not
learning the very real lesson of the result in Bradford West and are making
excuses.
In the last general election in 2010 faced with the prospect of
a Tory majority, in some of the core working class areas, where Labour has had
its historical base, there was actually a swing back to Labour. Since then this
Labour Party leadership has failed to offer a credible alternative to working
people. That explains why working class people in Bradford and elsewhere have
lost faith in Labour over a number of years.
Workers in Bradford West have shown their real feelings towards
the Coalition parties and the Labour Party. It reflects the
real mood of anger developing in British society as living standards are cut.
The Labour leadership can see no alternative to the austerity programme of this
government. They also fail to see the effects these policies are having on
working class communities up and down the country.
The lesson of Bradford West is that if Labour wants to win it
must boldly oppose the austerity measures. If Labour is to recover, it must
break with Tory policies and fight for working people. That means breaking with
capitalism and a return to socialist policies.
Although this by-election victory will not be repeated
in the next general election, it is a warning to Labour not to take its
traditional supporters for granted. The present leadership is wedded to
capitalism. It is vital that these carpetbaggers are replaced with real
representatives who are committed to changing society.
