The gallows for Galloway? Heavy threats in the East End
Strange goings on afoot in Bethnal Green and Bow where the Respect party, with George Galloway as its candidate, is fighting a strong campaign against incumbent Labour MP Oona King. Respect started out as an attempt at a far-left "red-green" coalition - and, if it had been a broad enough church, might have developed into a formidable electoral force in terms of votes; although, like UKIP on the far right, Westminster seats would have been hard to come by. However, if an article by Nick Cohen in last year's New Statesman is even halfway accurate, the party has now become dominated by the Socialist Workers' Party, in alliance with the Muslim Association of Britain. Neither of these origanisations will be to the taste of many on the 'free-thinking' Left, and towering over the party is Galloway - undeniably a brilliant orator and formidable strategist, but with many social views closer to Pope Benedict XVI than what one would conventionally define as progressive.
Respect's campaign trail hit a savage patch today when a group of Islamic extremists gatecrashed a meeting, denounced the act of voting as anti-Islamic, threatened Galloway with hanging if he continued with the campaign, and warned that Muslims voting for Respect faced a death sentence. Galloway was quoted in the Evening Standard as saying, "the police saved my life" - an unexpected conversion to the Blairite position on matters of law and order.
Certainly, if I had to choose, I'd rather Galloway was running the country - or even representing Bethnal Green and Bow - than the crazed death squads who were out for his blood today. But is Respect the best the Left can do politically? Wouldn't it be something if we could have a successful, radical left-of-centre party in this country that wasn't (a) a shotgun wedding of the SWP and religious groups, (b) New Labour, or (c) 3 people in a phone box? (I'm waiting for the comment that says , "hold on... you forgot the Liberal Democrats?
Respect's campaign trail hit a savage patch today when a group of Islamic extremists gatecrashed a meeting, denounced the act of voting as anti-Islamic, threatened Galloway with hanging if he continued with the campaign, and warned that Muslims voting for Respect faced a death sentence. Galloway was quoted in the Evening Standard as saying, "the police saved my life" - an unexpected conversion to the Blairite position on matters of law and order.
Certainly, if I had to choose, I'd rather Galloway was running the country - or even representing Bethnal Green and Bow - than the crazed death squads who were out for his blood today. But is Respect the best the Left can do politically? Wouldn't it be something if we could have a successful, radical left-of-centre party in this country that wasn't (a) a shotgun wedding of the SWP and religious groups, (b) New Labour, or (c) 3 people in a phone box? (I'm waiting for the comment that says , "hold on... you forgot the Liberal Democrats?
4 Comments:
Hold on... you forgot the Liberal Democrats
What's interesting here is not so much that I disagree with your views on the Islamic extremists or that it is amusing to find Galloway praising the 'reactionary' forces of law and order, but the contrast this post makes with the rest of the blog.
You make much of how the 'Iraq war' makes it hard for anyone on the left to support Blair (how comforting it must be for Saddam Hussein as he contemplates a Baghdad trial for crimes against humanity that he has such a large number of 'useful idiots' batting for him over here)yet the people threatening Galloway are the exact same in ideological terms as those who are causing much of the destruction in Iraq. Whether you agree with the war or not, I'd say it would be the height of folly to leave Iraq to the tender mercies of such beings and ,if anything the military campaign should be stepped up until such time as all the Islamic fanatics threatening security are hunted down and,if need be,eliminated.
Secondly,you claim that the conservatives policy on immigration is galvanising the left-wing vote and undermining Howard's chances. The growth of militant Islam has to a large degree been facilitated by a disastrous 'open door' policy which has made London one of the terror capitals of the world, and allowed Islamic extremists to claim asylum here. The fact that some of the countries from which they are fleeing (Egypt,Algeria, Yemen, to name a few) might well have sentenced them to imprisonment or in many cases death is totally irrelevant - The human rights of the kind of people who threatened Galloway and pronounced a 'fatwa' on their voting co-religionists should be a fourth -hand consideration and they need to be found and if necessary expelled as soon as possible.
You can't have your cake and eat it and as distasteful as it may seem, the events in Bethnal Green and Bow illustrate in quite stark fashion the need for much greater control of who is coming into the country.
Van Patten will have to wait until next time, but to Weaser: note it says 'successful' as one of the attributes the party needs to have. Until the Lib Dems can win (or at least hold the balance of power) in a Westminster election, they ain't fitting the bill.
Actually, I'll respond to one point Van Patten made now:
"it would be the height of folly to leave Iraq to the tender mercies of such beings and ,if anything the military campaign should be stepped up until such time as all the Islamic fanatics threatening security are hunted down and,if need be,eliminated."
This is fine if there are a fixed number of 'Islamic fanatics' doing the rounds. But what about if the heavy-handedness of the US presence in Iraq actually creates more fanatics? Then it would never be possible to eliminate them - more would just rise up to take their place.
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