Rochdale by-election result (29th February 2024):
Workers Party of Britain: 39.7% (n/a)
Independent - Tully: 21.3% (n/a)
Conservatives: 12.0% (-19.2)
Labour: 7.7% (-43.9)
Liberal Democrats: 7.0% (n/a)
Reform UK: 6.3% (-1.9)
Independent - W Howarth: 1.7% (n/a)
Independent - Coleman: 1.5% (n/a)
Greens: 1.4% (-0.7)
Independent - M Howarth: 0.8% (n/a)
Official Monster Raving Loony: 0.7% (n/a)
There's always a frisson of excitement when a new party wins a parliamentary seat for the first time, so I turned to Wikipedia in the hope of discovering what manner of party we were getting, but I ended up more confused than when I started. The Workers' Party of Britain ideology is described as (among other things) "far-left" and "communist", which if taken literally would mean a communist party now has representation in the UK Parliament for the first time since Willie Gallacher lost his seat in 1950. But curiously, Wikipedia's only source for this claim is a webpage in which communists denounce the Workers Party of Britain for "transforming itself into a left-social-democratic vehicle for bourgeois parliamentarism and anticommunism"!
Unfortunately 'Gorgeous George' has gone full-on Neil Oliver. Horrible man.
ReplyDeleteHe is Britain’s finest Useful Idiot. Truly indefatigable, too.
DeleteThe right thing for Palestine would be to kick up a fuss in Westminster, which he will do (do take notes, SNP) while being crystal clear that Israel is his enemy, not Jews. Discipline, however, is not his forte.
Keep a look out for wildly off-key nonsense like anti-immigrant, Faragist, even Trumpy stuff spilling into his speeches, along with a spike in web searches for the Bilderberg Group and The Illuminati. Oh, it all joins up, so it does. Like a zip behind your head.
Gaza is all the Protocols of the Elders of Zion’s fault, we can all agree.
DeleteIt’s time to celebrate the greatest comment ever made on Scot Goes Pop:
ReplyDeletehttps://scotgoespop.blogspot.com/2024/02/the-contrast-between-labours-ongoing.html?showComment=1707753828289&m=1#c7062164724724563512
Anonymous
DeleteFebruary 12, 2024 at 4:03 PM
The Labour candidate has issued a very clear apology and this has drawn a line under the matter.
There were local factors in this by election which prevent strong conclusions from being drawn.
ReplyDeleteOh hey, you’re back!
DeleteJames has it right.
ReplyDeleteAt least as far back as the late 1970's Zionist factions within the Labour Party worked hard at denying that there was any distinction between opposing Israeli oppression of Palestinians and anti semitism. Many of us on the then Labour left fought that deliberate deception.
What I don't understand, having had nothing to do with the Labour Party since the mid '80s, is how the latest push for witch hunting opposition to Zionist oppressions has been so successful as to take Labour fully into the ranks of the oppressors of the Palestinian people.
Just in case anyone is in any doubt it is perfectly possible and correct to oppose both militarist Zionism and anti semitism !
Seems to me it's one of the few important matters that the SNP leadership is getting broadly right at present.
One word answer: Blair.
DeleteThe 1990s thoroughly transformed the Labour Party into the English equivalent of the US Democrats. Socialism replaced with neoliberalism. The whole raison d’ĂȘtre of the party being “Better Tories than the Tories.” Enough election losses to a disintegrating yet still victorious Tory party ruined their moral compass. They got desperate, then cynical, then ultimately believed it.
Corbyn scared the hell out of the professional party. Re-emergence of their original mission could not be tolerated. Never again! So they use every means they have to bash him and the left and so now it’s all this.
The lower down you go in Labour, the better the people are. But the higher up, the more contorted and ultimately neoliberal they become, right up to Sir Keir himself. It’s like a window into the future of the SNP if they stay on this path away from Indy for much longer. Their soul is gone. Then the public begins to give them a kicking after kicking.
" The lower down you go in the SNP, the better the people are. But the higher up, the more contorted and ultimately neoliberal they become, right up to Humza Yousaf himself."
Deletegeorge going to shate all over starmer
ReplyDeletethem both wrestle in it
happy days
Keep an eye on the polls. If this really affects things, we could see the impossible: the Tories winning yet again after all. What a nightmare for the union!
DeleteThe nightmare at the GE will be for the Nats.
DeleteThat all depends on Labour’s strength. A little glimpse of abject panic here.
DeleteThe England version of George Galloway is a firebreathing left wing old school socialist, despised by those in power. How come we never get that version? Whenever he comes back to Scotland, he hangs around with his Tory/Spectator reading pals, and campaigns alongside them as a right wing yoon.
ReplyDeleteBecause we are colonial property. Not real people, like the English. He always has his eyes towards the capital.
DeleteWell said Andrew , lets remember how Galloway campaigned with Labour and the Conservatives and Lib Dems against Scottish independence
DeleteTerence Callachan Dundee
Workers Party of Britain appears indeed to be a Kautskyist social-democratic amalgam of Trotskyist ideas, most of which are anti-communist (in the sense of orthodox communism). And George seems to have more in common in his extreme views with Stuart Campbell (another of your favourites!), who also has gone rogue.
ReplyDeleteYou may rest easy, James, no comminist has been elected MP yet, we won't turn into the Soviet Union or East Germany!
I advise against extrapolation from this one observation.
ReplyDeleteBy-elections, ensconced as they are in the parochial vicissitudes of local politics, resist facile extrapolation to broader electoral trends.
The idiosyncratic confluence of local issues, personalities, and contexts renders such contests a Sisyphean task for pundits gallantly seeking to divine wider political auguries from these insular electoral skirmishes.
Chat GPT says Keep Calm and Carry On.
DeleteGalloway himself has a long record of being a one-man, traveling flash in the pan, yes. But Labour does have an Israel problem, this we can all see, as clear as the emperor's willy!
The wee fat twat in the hat who talks like a cat is back. The ultimate carpetbagger (allegedly - careful, this anti-establishnent rebel loves to do the rich people thing and sue through the establishment's courts) The working class Dundonian wi the plummy voice.
ReplyDeleteWhy would anyone vote for the befuddled auld joke? He's the world's first Irish nationalist British unionist. Simultaneously an Irish catholic Arab muslim (allegedly) More full of sh@t than the gutters where his politics come from.
Inaccurate because there are others who have put forward the case for Irish unification while holding out against Scottish independence.
ReplyDeleteMust be hard being so humourless and pedantic...
DeleteAnon at 11.23am - you are correct. There are people who attend Parkhead who are against the union in Ireland but for it in Scotland. There are also people who attend Parkhead who are for the union in Scotland and Ireland. Finally, there are people who attend Parkhead who are against the union in Scotland and Ireland. The same goes for Ibrox but in different proportions.
DeletePeople realising that if you vote Tory or Labour you are aiding and abetting a Palestinian genocide. Sunak and Starmer swimming in the blood of women and children. Even the US sec of State for defence has stated that more than 25,000 women and children have been killed by the IDF - these soldiers are way worse than Butcher Cumberland's redcoats and they ain't finished yet not by a long way if they are not stopped. Murdering bastards.
ReplyDeleteTypical Nat nonsense. Trying to make political gain out of a tragedy in a foreign country. Shameful.
DeleteSo says my Britnat troll.
DeleteThis diddy at 12.02pm is actually trying to suggest that I want people to vote SNP đđđđđđđ
DeleteRoll on Scottish independence i will payvthe fares for all those britnats who say they will leave , nobody will miss you and nobody will welcome you
DeleteDear oh dear, more Nat nonsense.
DeleteYou’re not much of a troll, are you mate? Give it some welly at least.
DeleteAnother low by election turnout that could signify nothing by the time the general election comes
ReplyDeleteGalloway made it religious that usually means a fight back from the other side when their time comes
Tories and Labour know this, they've used it on Ireland and Scotland and every other country they invaded in the past, now somebody is using it on them
Galloway would defend or condemn sputum if he thought there was a vote in it
ReplyDeleteHe's just a wee Tory Labour unionist chancer in a bad hat
England's problems are Scotland's opportunities. Or at least they bloody well should be.
ReplyDeleteUltimately, it’s about the Scottish people realising that England’s problems are not our own, and their desires are very different to ours, too. We’re not in it together. They don’t care about us. Let’s just finish this thing.
DeleteIn the midst of Galloway's triumph in Rochdale, Scottish Westminster VI from Survation is out-
ReplyDeleteSNP 38
Lab 35
Con 15
LD 8
Movement away from Labour (ie outwith MOE) since last Survation poll.
Sorry, I stand corrected, SNP 38, LAB 33.
ReplyDeleteApologies.
So combined SNP, Labour and LD share 79%. That's before anti-Tory tactical voting is taken into account. As a lifelong Tory, this worries me greatly.
DeleteAgreed. There's no silver lining at all here. Baaaaaaad news for our party.
DeleteGaza blood on your hands Tories.
DeleteIfs, stop talking bull.
DeleteBritnats will force up the price of handwash as they try to wash the blood of thousands of dead children off their hands to no avail.
DeleteIt’s not bull’s blood, anon. It’s children’s on you.
DeleteIt’s utterly pathetic the way Nats are trying to make political gain out of this tragedy. Just like Sturgeon did during Covid.
DeleteThere seems no limits to how low you’ll stoop.
Disgusting.
" Tragedy" - the tragedy is people voting for political parties that facilitate a genocide - Sunak and Starmer. Now that is disgusting.
DeleteIfs, more utter BS.
DeleteBritnat anon - more than 25,000 dead children - aided and abetted by Sunak (S) and Starmer (S) - the modern day SS. Leaders of the main English parties. Blood on their hands. Blood on your hands as you support them.
DeleteIFS, truly desperate Nat BS.
DeletePerhaps because of the greed and selfishness in their black hearts and their general vileness as people ?
ReplyDeleteI cannot understand either how or why voters in England can fall for that opportunistic conman, George Galloway. When he was described by a BBC commentator this morning as 'hard left', I nearly choked on my cornflakes. When he was attempting to con Scottish voters in 2021 with his 'All for Unity' lot, he was in tow with some of the most far right wing individuals living in Scotland, sauntering around with his Union Jack appareil. He is the very worst type of politician, in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteSo , whether you love him , hate him or are totally indifferent , Galloway wins a “ democratic “ bye election ( again) and is elected by the voters to represent them in the English Parliament. However , according to both Starmer and Sunak ( two cheeks of the same English establishment arse) , “ democracy is now under threat” . In other words the English establishment endorses democracy just as long as the winning candidate conforms to what & whom they require ( in their view) . Any maverick outsider wins and then “ democracy is under threat” . Pathetic
ReplyDeleteJames it might be worth a visit to u tube and a video “ the real threat to democracy “ by Peter Osbourne . Very illuminating .
ReplyDelete