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George Galloway

British politician, broadcaster, and writer (born 1954)

George Galloway (born 16 August 1954) is a Scottish-born politician, author and broadcaster known for his left-wing views. First elected as a Labour Member of Parliament in 1987 (later Respect), since a by-election in 2024, he has served as the MP for Rochdale representing the Workers Party of Britain .

George Galloway in 2007

Quotes

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1987–1989

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  • I travelled and spent lots of time with people in Greece, many of whom were women—some of whom were known carnally to me. I actually had sexual intercourse with some of the people in Greece. And if the British public and BBC Scotland think that's of interest they are welcome to broadcast it.
    • Quoted in "George and his dragons", The Herald (Glasgow, 28 September 2007), an excerpt from David Morley's Gorgeous George: The Life and Adventures of George Galloway, London: Politicos, 2007.
    • Comments at a War on Want press conference in Glasgow (September 1987) responding to pointed questions about whether he had traveled there with a woman. The reference is to a conference on the Greek island of Mykonos during 1985.
  • Conservative Back Bench Members have an unseemly and shabby desire to rubbish and eventually smash a section of the British work force that has served this country well. ... There are few less pleasant sights than to see well-upholstered, sleek and wealthy Conservative Members insulting a body of men who work hard for a living and who have done so for many centuries.

1990s

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  • I'm arguing this should not be published, not because of the threats but because of the offence that it has caused to the majority of Muslims.
    They have a right to expect some genuflection towards what they feel. To publish a paperback would cause an unnecessary distress to a large and significant and vulnerable section of our society.
  • The Tories and their friends are laughing all the way to the bank at the disunity in Scotland. We must extend the hand of friendship to the SNP.
    • Reaction to the results of the 1992 general election (10 April 1992), quoted in The Times (11 April 1992), p. 7.
  • Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability, and I want you to know that we are with you, hatta al-nasr, hatta al-nasr, hatta al-Quds until victory, until victory, until Jerusalem.
    • Quoted in "George and his dragons" The Herald (Glasgow) (28 September 2007), an excerpt from David Morley's Gorgeous George: The Life and Adventures of George Galloway, London: Politico's, 2007. This source also states "Galloway claims that this quote has been taken out of context and is part of a longer salute to the Iraqi people, not just the dictator."
  • We are being asked to sell the banner which has flown in Scotland with great success, a banner which is showing no sign of becoming unpopular.
    • Speech to a meeting of the Labour Party in Inverness (10 March 1995), quoted in The Times (11 March 1995) p. 8.

2002–2003

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  • I am on the anti-imperialist left.
  • 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.
  • [On Tony Blair and George W. Bush] They have lied to the British air force and navy when they said the battle of Iraq would be very quick and easy. They attacked Iraq like wolves. They attacked civilians. It is better for Blair and Bush to stop this crime and this catastrophe. It is time for them to return to the UN security council and give diplomacy a chance.
    • Abu Dhabi TV (28 March 2003), as quoted in The Guardian (1 April 2003).
  • The wolves are Bush and Blair, not the soldiers. The soldiers are lions led by donkeys, sent to kill and be killed.
  • [On David Blunkett] By a mile, it is the most illiberal, vindictive, biliously foaming Home Secretary of modern times. He has done more to destroy the concept of Labour being a party of equality and fairness than any other person... I hope his guide dog savages his ankles.

2004

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  • [Referring to the The Christian Science Monitor] This newspaper published on its front page in every country in the world that I had taken $10m from Saddam Hussein. That was a grave and serious libel...Of course the documents were a forgery and a newspaper of that importance ought to have made the effort, both morally and legally, to establish the authenticity of those documents before they published them.
  • How can you have a real election with hundreds of thousands of Crusader soldiers occupying the country, drawing up the electoral law, deciding who is allowed to take part in the elections, and utterly dominating the political life of the country?
  • The people who invaded and destroyed Iraq and have murdered more than a million Iraqi people by sanctions and war will burn in Hell in the hell-fires, and their name in history will be branded as killers and war criminals for all time. Fallujah is a Guernica, Falluajah is a Stalingrad, and Iraq is in flames as a result of the actions of these criminals.
  • If I had lost I would have been homeless, I would have had everything I possess taken from me and would have been bankrupted and forced out of public office. In those circumstances I don't feel in any way happy about the award of £150,000.

2005

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  • You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.
  • I am speaking for tens of millions, and maybe more, around the world, who know the truth about Iraq. Who know that the real criminals are in Washington. Not in the United Nations. The real criminals are in the White House, not in the Elysee Palace. The real criminals are in the Congress, not in the anti-war movement.
  • Bush, and Blair, and the prime minister of Japan, and Berlusconi, these people are criminals, and they are responsible for mass murder in the world, for the war, and for the occupation, through their support for Israel, and through their support for a globalized capitalist economic system, which is the biggest killer the world has ever known. It has killed far more people than Adolf Hitler.
  • I can't mention, I'm sorry to say, any Arab leader... Where is the... Nasser? Where is the Arab leader who will stand up and tell these people the truth? This is what we are waiting for.
  • We want to make reparation to the Palestinian people for the crimes of Balfour which were committed in the building behind me, when one person, on behalf of one country, promised a second people the lands of a third people - the Palestinians.
  • We are determined that we should stop the privatization of basic services of the British people. We are determined to defend the liberty of the British people which is being taken away day by day under the name of anti-terrorism. Ancient freedoms, which we had for hundreds of years, are being taken away from us under the name of the war on terror, when the real big terrorists are the governments of Britain and the United States.
  • We have worked without rest to remove the causes of such violence from our world. We argued, as did the security services in this country, that the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq would increase the threat of terrorist attack in Britain. Tragically Londoners have now paid the price of the Government ignoring such warnings.
  • Two of your beautiful daughters are in the hands of foreigners - Jerusalem and Baghdad. The foreigners are doing to your daughters as they will.
  • The daughters are crying for help, and the Arab world is silent. And some of them are collaborating with the rape of these two beautiful Arab daughters.
  • [I]t can be said that the Iraqi resistance is not just defending Iraq. They are defending all the Arabs and they are defending all the people of the world from American hegemony.
  • Some believe that those aeroplanes on September 11 came out of a clear blue sky. I believe they came out of a swamp of hatred created by us. I believe that because the total, complete unending and bottomless support for General Sharon’s crimes against the Palestinian people.
  • All dignified people in the world, whether Arabs or Muslims or others with dignity, are very proud of the speech made by president Bashar al-Assad a few days ago here in Damascus.
  • For me he is the last Arab ruler, and Syria is the last Arab country. It is the fortress of the remaining dignity of the Arabs, and that's why I'm proud to be here.
  • Syria is being threatened - because she will not betray the Palestinian resistance, because she will not betray the Lebanese resistance, Hizbullah, because she will not sign a shameful surrender-peace with General Sharon, and above all - more than any of these others - because Syria will not allow her country to be used as a military base for America to crush the resistance in Iraq.
  • So I say to you, citizens of the last Arab country, this is a time for courage, for unity, for wisdom, for determination, to face these enemies with the dignity your president has shown, and I believe, God willing, we will prevail and triumph, wa-salam aleikum.

2006–2007

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  • Now, would you like me to be the cat?
  • Pipe down Mr Indignation. We'll see what the viewers thought of your double standards, your indignation about me and the aplomb with which you become a lying plutocrat in your gentleman's club.
  • I had three goals and all of them were met.
    • Interview in Metro (2 May 2006).
    • Asked whether appearing on Celebrity Big Brother was a mistake.
  • [Q:] Would the assassination of, say, Tony Blair by a suicide bomber - if there were no other casualties - be justified as revenge for the war on Iraq? [...]
    [A:] Yes, it would be morally justified. I am not calling for it - but if it happened it would be of a wholly different moral order to the events of 7/7. It would be entirely logical and explicable. And morally equivalent to ordering the deaths of thousands of innocent people in Iraq - as Blair did.
  • I would not support anyone seeking to assassinate the prime minister. That's why I said in the interview I would report to the authorities any such plot that I knew of. What I did make abundantly clear to Piers Morgan in the GQ interview is that I would like to see Tony Blair in front of a war crimes tribunal for sending this country to war illegally and for the appalling human consequences which resulted. That's what I will continue to press for.
  • Israel is invading Lebanon and has killed thirty times more Lebanese civilians than have died in Israel, so it’s you who should be justifying the evident bias which is written on every line on your face, and is in every nuance of your voice, and is loaded in every question that you ask.
  • One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. You are totally wrong in saying that in most people’s eyes Hezbollah are terrorists. In most people’s eyes Israel is a terrorist state. It’s the fact that you cannot comprehend that fact that leads to bias that runs through all of your reporting and every question that you’ve asked me in this interview!
  • What a silly question! What a silly person you are! Hezbollah is winning the war; you can see on the other half of the screen. Hezbollah is more popular today in Lebanon amongst Christians, amongst Sunnis, amongst Shiite, amongst all Arabs, amongst all Muslims that it has ever been. It’s Israel who’s lost the war, and Bush and Blair for politically organizing the war, who’ve lost politically. This is a defeat of Bush and Blair and Israel. Everybody but you can see it!
  • You don’t give a damn! You don’t give a damn, you don’t even know about the Palestinian families! You don’t even know that they exist! Tell me the name of one member of the seven members of the same family slaughtered on the beach in Gaza by an Israeli warship. You don’t even know their names! But you know the name of every Israeli soldier who has been taken prisoner in this conflict. Because you believe whether you know it or not that Israeli blood is more valuable than the blood of Lebanese or Palestinians. That’s the truth, and the discerning of your viewers already know it.
    • Interview on Sky News (6 August 2006).
    • After Sky news reporter says about israeli soldiers: "I have to say some people might find it offensive when there are more families mourning their dead."
  • Well, I don’t agree that it’s genocide, but I definitely agree that there’s suffering going on there.
  • These extremist Islamists locked me in a room and threatened to hang me because we are the democratic alternative to them. We say to young Muslims: we know that you’re angry, you’re right to be angry. But the best way to be angry is to hit the government where it hurts, through politics, through the ballot box, through elections, through engaging with non-Muslims to build a broad front to bring about a change in policies at home and abroad.
  • Christianity doesn't come into it. George Bush and Tony Blair are not Christians. Religious people believe in the prophets, peace be upon them. Bush believes in the profits and how to get a piece of them. So don't ever confuse this with a war of civilizations.
    • Interview with George Stroumboulopoulos of the CBC's The Hour (20 November 2006).
  • The roots of this problem definitely are in the fact that not enough groups, trends, parties or individual personalities came into Respect [...] Therefore the perception was created that it was an organisation dominated by the SWP, who have form, or dominated by me, or, later, dominated by Muslims.

2011–2012

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  • Hamas won the only democratic election ever held in the Arab world so how they can be tyrants I really don't know [...] I am not in favour of Hamas but I am in favour of democracy.
  • Because I don't believe that the government of Iran is a dictatorship I have no problem about working for Press TV in London which is a British owned television station. I'm not responsible for the government of Ahmedinijad. I'm not responsible for the leadership of Press TV.
  • Let me tell you, I think that Julian Assange's personal sexual behaviour is something sordid, disgusting, and I condemn it. But ... Even taken at its worst, if the allegations made by these two women were true, 100 per cent true, and even if a camera in the room captured them, they don’t constitute rape. At least not rape as anyone with any sense can possibly recognise it.
  • [One of the women] Claims that she woke up to him having sex with her again. This is something which can happen, you know.
    I mean not everybody needs to be asked prior to each insertion.
  • It might be really sordid and bad sexual etiquette, but whatever else it is, it is not rape or you bankrupt the term rape of all meaning.

2013

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  • Are you an Israeli? I don't debate with Israelis. I have been misled, sorry I don't recognise Israel and I don't debate with Israelis
    • The Guardian debate at Christ Church, Oxford University concerning Israel in the West Bank (21 February 2013).
  • I refused this evening at Oxford University to debate with an Israeli, a supporter of the apartheid state of Israel. The reason is simple: no recognition, no normalisation. Just boycott, divestment and sanctions, until the apartheid state is defeated. I never debate with Israelis nor speak to their media. If they want to speak about Palestine – the address is the PLO.
    • Facebook post cited in The Guardian Oxford debate about Israel in the West Bank (21 February 2013).
  • Thatcher described Nelson Mandela as a "terrorist". I was there. I saw her lips move. May she burn in the hellfires...Tramp the dirt down.
    • The Guardian reaction to the death of former British prime minster Margret Thatcher on Twitter (9 April 2013).
  • We did not suspend our democracy in our darkest hours why are we suspending it now? the fawning over Thatcher had gone too far... This put the tin hat on it the idea that we should suspend a vital part of our democratic process for a party political and private funeral, Mr Churchill didn’t ask for Parliament to be silenced, for confrontations across the House to be forbidden. When our soldiers were being laid waste in the Norway debate, the House of Commons perhaps rose to its finest 20th Century moment. Nobody said: "Our armed forces have suffered a disaster, the House of Commons cannot meet, the clash of ideas cannot be heard, we must muffle the drums and silence ourselves."
    • The Mirror George Galloway blasts cancellation of PMQs for Margaret Thatchers funeral (16 April 2013).
  • It's not just people with a percentage of the vote who have the right to speak. All of us have the right to speak. What happened to Farage looked ugly in the rest of the country and the rest of the world. And the SNP I fear will take you down a road where grudge is everything.
    • The Express During an interview on Question time with Nigel Farage condemning the hostility shown by the Scottish people (14 June 2013).
  • It was al Qaeda who used the chemical weapons. Who gave al Qaeda the chemical weapons? Here's my theory: Israel gave them the chemical weapons.

2015–2017

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  • I don’t begrudge the Labour members here their moment of celebration of course [...] But there will be others who are already celebrating: the venal, the vile, the racists and the Zionists will all be celebrating. The hyena can bounce on the lion’s grave but it can never be a lion and in any case, I’m not in my grave. As a matter of fact I’m going off now to plan the next campaign.

2019

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  • If the Bank of England is “independent” who took the decision to steal Venezuela's gold?
  • During my time in Venezuela... when I looked at the news stands it astonished me that the vast majority of the newspapers and the magazines owned by the rich were spewing out their anti-Chavez propaganda... the people who told you that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that we must invade and destroy Iraq... that we must invade & destroy Libya for freedom and democracy... invade and destroy Syria in the interests of human rights & democracy... and many other places in the world. The same people who told you all these lies are telling you to hate Nicolas Maduro... [they] want to march you into yet another disaster... ask yourself.... If they were lying then why are they telling the truth now? ...Viva Venezuela, Viva Chavez, Viva Maduro!!
  • While the so-called European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to recognise a man in the street as President of Venezuela, the African Union voted unanimously to endorse the presidency of Maduro and Venezuelan sovereignty. Just think about that...
  • The former MP posted on the social media site after the Champions League final between Liverpool and Tottenham on Saturday night. He praised Liverpool's win, before adding: "No #Israël flags on the Cup!" - appearing to reference Tottenham's strong links with the Jewish community...He defended the comment, claiming a number of Tottenham fans were flying the flag of Israel in the crowd and it showed an affiliation to a "racist state".

2021–present

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  • We are not ashamed of our country's flag.
    Citizens of other states wave their flags, proudly. Why should the people of Britain not be proud of their state? (on Facebook, 26 February 2021)
  • I'm voting #Tory with my first vote for the incumbent MSP. And then for myself and [other A4U candidates] on the list. Now THAT is @Alliance4Unity.
  • [M]ake Rochdale great again.
    • Campaign slogan during the 2024 Rochdale by-election, as cited in "", BBC News (1 March 2024).
    • Galloway was elected as the town's member of parliament.

About Galloway

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2000s

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  • My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Kelvin made his familiar views known in his inimitable way. Some of the good points that he made on the middle east peace process would, I believe, carry more credibility if he had not made a career of being not just an apologist, but a mouthpiece, for the Iraqi regime over many years.
    • Ben Bradshaw "Iraq" Hansard (HoC [Westminster Hall], 6 March 2002), Col. 88WH.
    • In response, Galloway said "[t]he Minister is a liar", and demanded he retract, as did the deputy speaker for Galloway's use of unparliamentary language. The sitting was suspended for ten minutes. In due course,both men withdrew their statements and apologised.
  • Galloway’s preferred style is that of vulgar ad hominem insult, usually uttered while a rather gaunt crew of minders stands around him. I have a thick skin and a broad back and no bodyguards. He says that I am an ex-Trotskyist (true), a "popinjay" (true enough, since its original Webster’s definition means a target for arrows and shots), and that I cannot hold a drink (here I must protest).
  • [F]resh from his senate triumph, and dressed in his natty beige suit, Galloway always looked the winner. You'll rarely meet a more skilled politician...I was vaguely surprised that Hitchens even landed some punches.
  • Galloway should recognise his error in arguing that every sovereign government must be free "to make its own mistakes". No. Not when those mistakes include genocide. Absolutely not.
  • Throughout last week the High Court [during Galloway's libel suit against The Telegraph] witnessed George Galloway's soul laid bare: the pungent rhetoric, the radical politics forged in a Celtic furnace, the defensive posture of a particularly spiky porcupine. There are some dimensions of the MP for Glasgow, Kelvin which are predictable in an iconoclast of the old left; but others which are uniquely his own.
  • Galloway has many of the ingredients that might have taken him to the top: brains, good looks, courage, a compelling style. What he lacks is fatal: judgment.

2010s

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  • And indeed in Bradford some of his appeal to the voters was couched in sectional and religious language unprecedented in the past 60 years of British politics. One of his leaflets began thus: "God KNOWS who is a Muslim. And he KNOWS who is not. Instinctively, so do you. Let me point out to all the Muslim brothers and sisters what I stand for."... I should just add that almost no Galloway event or pronouncement is now complete without several invocations of "Allah" in one form or another.
  • [A] well-known former parliamentarian from the main centre-left party has used a charismatic radical left populism to mobilise alienated voters at the sharp end of austerity against a political elite that has failed to deliver for them for decades.
  • [T]he metropolitan media so loathe Galloway that – with the exception of the Guardian – they failed even to report the growing tide of support for Respect during the campaign and have been largely unable to make sense of it since, dismissing the result as a one-off based on Galloway's larger than life personality and ability to "play the Muslim card".
  • George Galloway and Steve Bannon were speaking on the same panel in Almaty. This photo appears to suggest warmth and fellow feeling between the two men. If so, it is one of the most disturbing images of our troubled times.
  • I've always admired George's anti-imperialist stances and I don't regret, for a second, standing side by side on those issues. But for me, to have to make a choice between that and standing up for the rights of women was a false choice. I thought it was a blurring of something that didn't need to be blurred. It's not that complicated – you can hold two ideas at the same time.

2020s

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