George Galloway lands in Rochdale to open new Workers Party office

The next five years look set to be the swan song of political giant George Galloway, who hopes to leave an established Workers Party as his legacy.

After cutting the ribbon on his newly established North West HQ in Rochdale town centre, he reiterated his passion for the area. The office on Drake Street will act as the northern base for his party as it prepares for the next general election in five years’ time.

Galloway has been in and out of the House of Commons over the last five decades, but last week admitted that the next general election will most likely be his curtain call.

But before that happens he wants to thoroughly stamp the Workers Party on the political map – in the space vacated by what he describes as ‘the Labour Party of old’.

The 70-year-old claims the Labour Party he joined way back at the start of his political career ‘has evacuated from what it was’.

When he won the Rochdale by-election in February, Mr Galloway claimed he’d fallen in love with the area, committing his political future to the town. And, despite losing his seat to Labour’s Paul Waugh at the general election in July, he believes the town centre’s new Workers Party office is evidence of that.

“I will never sever my links with this town,” he explained. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to because two of my sons live here.

“I’m a Man United stalwart so I’m in this region all the time and Rochdale is my base in this region. We are here to say, we hold both the council seats where this boundary is, and only a fool would predict that we wouldn’t pick up more council seats around here.

“When we came here in February, we said we want to clean the town hall clock and we still want to clean it. It’s still not clean.

“We still believe that Rochdale deserves better than the council it has. We hope to be agents of change in that.”

Mr Galloway pointed out that they won thousands of votes in Oldham, Ashton and Bury and at the July election, which they intend to build on. And added this office opening is inspiring further requests from party members across the north, who want to open their own offices.

However, he explained the Drake Street base will be the heart of the northern operations going forward.

Mr Galloway has made clear he wants to leave his mark on politics, but expects to have retired by the time the next general election rolls around. However, any by-election that crops up in the meantime is something he would ‘seriously consider’.

He said: “I don’t think we’ve made those decisions on the next general election just yet. But if a suitable parliamentary by-election comes up, then I will give serious consideration to standing in it.

“At this point I don’t intend to stand in the next general election just for reasons of age and my kids… There are no firm decisions yet, but the only firm decision is that I won’t be a candidate in the next general election.

“I feel like I’ve done enough in parliament with seven terms over five decades. The 80’s, 90’s, naughties, 2010’s and 2020’s.

“If a by-election were to come up in an area where we are strong there is a good chance I would go for that.”

Thoughts on general election loss

Looking back at the last election, Mr Galloway believes there is room for improvement. Explaining his loss to Paul Waugh in Rochdale, he said the Workers Party was simply not ready for the general election when it was called in summer.

He claimed that if the election had been fought in November, as many believed it would, the Workers Party would have amassed around 500 parliamentary candidates – rather than the 151 in July.

Mr Galloway added: “It was closely fought here in Rochdale, we came within 500 votes of winning in Birmingham and were 1,500 short in another one. So there were lots of close runs but we got 210,898 votes.

“If the election was held in November as everyone imagined it would, we probably would’ve had 500 candidates. We nearly did [keep my seat and nick a few others].

“We have not been discouraged. Labour have been every bit as bad as we predicted they would be, perhaps even worse.”

With no obvious parliamentary elections on the horizon, Mr Galloway’s focus is firmly on getting his members into council seats.

“The councillors and our candidates who stood for parliament are going to be core to our growth in our areas,” he continued. “One or two candidates have indicated they want to run again and others have said they will go for council seats.

“Most members of Parliament are former councillors, so it’s a good plan to give our parliamentary candidates experience of running for council seats and hopefully winning them.

“We have elections next May, and the following May we will have thousands of seats to fight for, and we will be fighting for them.

“I will be looking at the next general election from a beach somewhere in retirement, but I’m hoping to have left a firmly established political party – filling a space evacuated by Labour.

“We’re the Tony Benn Labour Party, we’re the Labour Party that used to exist but no longer does. I want that to be established in people’s minds and on the electoral map and I’m confident that we can do that.

“I expect to leave with many councillors and several members of parliament.”

Galloway explained they will be picking their candidates in the coming months so they can build an ‘unstoppable campaign’ for the future.

He added that he will be going from town to town and city to city on the campaign trail, adding that he is still in good health and ‘fighting fit’.

The political veteran even shared that his weight still sits at 77kg – the same as when he first got elected into parliament at the age of 32.

George Lythgoe, Local Democracy Reporter