THE workers and youth of Bradford West have dealt a body blow at the Labour Party reformist leadership by unprecedently throwing out their Labour MP in a by-election, at a time when anti-Tory government feelings are at an all time high, and electing Respect Party candidate George Galloway.
He took the seat from Labour, winning the by-election by 10,100 votes.
Galloway, expelled by Labour in 2003, said it was the ‘most sensational victory’ in by-election history. He called it the Bradford Spring and paid tribute to the thousands of young people who had voted for him.
He received 18,341 votes – a 56% share, while the Labiour vote plumetted, as dd the Tory vote,while the treacherous LibDems lost their deposit.
Labour candidate Imran Hussein came second with 8,201 votes as the party’s share of the vote was 20% down on its 2010 figure.
Conservative candidate Jackie Whiteley was third, with 2,746 votes. Jeanette Sunderland, of the Liberal Democrats, secured 1,505 votes.At the 2010 General Election, Labour’s Marsha Singh, who resigned on health grounds, won with a majority of 5,763.
The party had held the West Yorkshire seat since 1974, except for a brief period in the 1980s when the sitting MP defected to the SDP
Labour’s deputy leader Harriet Harman said the results were ‘disappointing’.
Galloway co-founded the anti-war Respect Party after being expelled by Labour because of his support for the Iraqi people against the UN sanctions and the imperialist attacks.
Yesterday after the result was announced he declared it to be the begining of the ‘Bradford Spring’.
He said the ‘mammoth majority’ and ‘mammoth vote’ represented a ‘total rejection’ of the three major parties in the British political system, and he paid tribute to the thousands of young voters who had turned out to support him.
Galloway however remained a true reformist and urged the Labour Party to turn away ‘decisively’ from the course set by former Prime Minister Tony Blair, and continued by Miliband and Balls.
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.’
He added that a defeat for Labour at the next general elecction would be a massive disaster as he urged the Labour Party to ditch its current leaders.
He said of the Labour Party leaders: ‘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.’