The victory of the left-wing George Galloway in the Rochdale constituency, Manchester, for the Workers Party has been a huge blow to Sir Keir Starmer and the Tories. Support for Labour plummets in a traditional stronghold and obtains just over 2,000 votes, 7.7%, placing it in fourth place and losing 90% of its electorate compared to 2019.
After the results were known, Galloway pointed out that his resounding victory, with more votes than Labor and Conservatives combined, was for Gaza, and that Starmer and right-wing Labour would pay dearly for their support of the Zionist genocide. A support that has been transformed, for years, into a campaign of political persecution against left-wing militants, including the former leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn, falsely accused of anti-Semitism for denouncing the criminal actions of the state of Israel and its brutal occupation of Gaza and West Bank.
It is evident that the hundreds of thousands of workers and young people who are occupying the streets of Great Britain month after month against the massacre in Gaza - last weekend again with a monster demonstration in London, are disgusted with Labour Party which is increasingly more indistinguishable from the Conservative Party and what Starmer boasts himself of calling “the party of business.” The deputies of this neoliberal friend of the capitalists have emerged as indispensable actors when it comes to encouraging the Tory Government in its fanatical support for the genocide perpetrated by Netanyahu.
After Galloway's victory, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who serves as such without having been elected at the polls, held a scandalous press conference outside Downing Street to describe Galloway as a follower of Hamas and Hezbollah, and as being an ally of the far right! And this is said by the PM of the most far-right conservative government in the history of Great Britain, who has not hesitated to imprison immigrants on a barge off the British coast as if they were cattle, and who detains peaceful activists for the crime of carrying Palestinian flags.
These statements are part of a criminalization strategy that puts hundreds of thousands who fill the streets of London and other cities against the genocide in the spotlight, calling them “extremists and criminals” under the already hackneyed and false accusations of anti-Semitism or of being at the service of fundamentalist terrorism. According to Sunak, a billionaire who acts as an arrogant henchman of American imperialism, this movement of solidarity with Palestine and against genocide, and Galloway's victory, threaten British democracy.
And for this reason, he took advantage of this press conference to announce that he will present to Parliament a new framework of action for the security forces, that is, more repression and new attacks against democratic rights, and that they will withdraw visas and expel immigrants convicted of hate crimes that this cohort of reactionaries deems appropriate.
The fact that the prime minister holds a press conference about the electoral results of a small constituency in Manchester reveals the deep concern that runs through the ruling class and the political establishment. And is not for less. And along with the Labour disaster, the Conservatives also had another nightmarish night in that same constituency, losing 74% of their voters compared to the 2019 elections, and coming in third place, behind an independent candidate who has defeated them by twice as many votes.
The space for the revolutionary left in Britain grows
The Rochdale results are a very serious symptom of the immense unrest and anger that runs through British society after 14 years of nightmare conservative governments; after a Brexit led by right-wing populism that has resolved absolutely nothing; and in the face of a Labour Party completely disconnected from workers and youth, and who publicly proclaims to be at the service of big capitalists or reactionary governments like Netanyahu's. What good is such a party to the working class and the oppressed? None at all!
Galloway's victory opens a new scenario for the general elections at the end of the year that must be put to use seriously by the forces that claim to be the revolutionary and communist left, by the social movements, by the activists and union reps who have been at the forefront of the most important wave of strikes experienced by the United Kingdom in decades, and by MP and local councillors persecuted and expelled by Labor simply for defending left-wing policies, including Corbyn himself.
An alternative is necessary that confronts the rotten apparatus of Labour in all those constituencies where it is possible, following the example of Galloway, both to hit the conservatives, and their policies of cuts and austerity, and that bosses' Labour of Keir Starmer. And it is necessary to do so by linking to the mass movement in the streets, to the strikes that workers continue to carry out against inflation and increasingly extreme poverty, and to the powerful mass movement of solidarity with the Palestinian people and against a genocide organized and financed, among others, by British “democracy”.
A movement that is causing a wave of radicalization to the left and the best conditions to advance in the construction of a militant communist left organization with authentic roots in the working-class movement. The challenge is extraordinary, but we must act seriously, without opportunism, without creating a ridiculous and arrogant circus of communist ideas, but rather working patiently and systematically to win over the most advanced activists of the unions and youth front and build a combat party.
