Rochdale by-election: George Galloway to stand for Workers Party of Britain to ‘teach Labour a lesson’

Photo: David Hunt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

George Galloway has announced he will stand in the Rochdale by-election for the Workers Party of Britain

Former MP George Galloway has thrown his hat in the ring to bid to become the next member of Parliament for Rochdale in the upcoming by-election.

The former Labour and Respect Party MP has said he is running ‘to teach [Sir Keir] Starmer and Labour a lesson.’

Galloway, 69, is the leader of the Workers Party of Britain, a minor political party formed in 2019 to "defend the achievements of the USSR, China, Cuba etc."

He became the youngest-ever chair of the Scottish Labour Party in 1981, and has previously stood as MP in Bradford West, Bethnal Green and Bow, and Glasgow Kelvin. He was expelled from the Labour Party in 2003 for bringing the party into disrepute over his opposition to the Global War on Terrorism and became leader of the Respect Party in late 2013.

Galloway has also previously stood in other by-elections and also starred in the 2006 series of Celebrity Big Brother, where he infamously pretended to be a cat.

Other candidates to have announced that they are standing in the Rochdale by-election include Azhar Ali (Labour), Billy Howarth (Independent) and Guy Otten (Green). Other parties are still selecting candidates for the by-election.