Starmer’s “Worst Nightmare”- Galloway wins in Rochdale | The News Agents

George Galloway has said that Keir Starmer’s woken up to his “worst nightmare”, after the former Labour MP won the Rochdale by-election by almost 6,000 votes.

Jon and Lewis analyse Galloway’s victory, and ask what this means for Keir Starmer ahead of this year’s General Election. Is it really the nightmare scenario Galloway is making it out to be?

#news #politics #keirstarmer #georgegalloway #labour #NewsAgents #EmilyMaitlis #JonSopel #LewisGoodall

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The news agents we’ve got 59 parliamentary candidates ready to go and we’ll stand in therefore three score labor seats uh and either defeat them ourselves or cause their defeat I think Kier starmer’s woken up this morning to his worst nightmare I wouldn’t want to delve into K st’s mind because maybe there are

Worse nightmares but to have George Galloway back in parliament in Rochdale in a safe labor seat is probably a pretty bad nightmare about what else it might mean if the Workers Party were to field candidates in numbers of constituencies across Britain in the forthcoming general election Rochdale

Was the safest of safe labor seats through a combination of incompetence mismanagement fecklessness poor decision- making the labor leadership has not only managed to hand this reddest of red dots on the political map to an opponent but to one of its fiercest and most implacable enemies what does the George Galloway Victory

Mean for K Dharma and for politics to come welcome to the news agents the news agents it’s John in London and it’s Lewis on the yakatan peninsula actually in a um a small outside toilet and Lewis I would imagine huge numbers of people in the yuk fan just talking about Rochdale you know

Honestly it’s Thursday night it’s a Friday morning it’s a big night in Mexico John as you know and frankly it’s amazing at about one o’clock in the morning everyone put down the mecal and they just and the tequila and they just went straight back in Rochdale Rochdale

The call went out and and so yeah so I’ve just been doing a small talk just for you know interested locals and then I came into this outside toilet in the place that we’re staying on holiday because it’s the only place it doesn’t actually sound isn’t as so echoey that

It sounds like we’re staying in an Abbey so that’s currently why I’m sweating in here but you know I I wouldn’t like I like to be doing anything else on the holiday frankly John rather than to you about byelection coming from the garden Jose Galloway’s won in Rochdale another victory for the workers

For the OB another great victory for the workers y yeah it’s the Talk of the Town the Y town I mean it is an extraordinary night because on one level You could argue that Rochdale signifies absolutely nothing it’s a freak Maverick election where Galloway comes first and an independent who’d only entered politics

Four weeks earlier a local businessman comes second and what does it tell about us about the general election probably nothing in the narrow internal political debate people will say this was an an historical anacronismo at Westminster you can’t just just ignore this no you can’t and

John I think you’re right in ter if people are sort waking up this morning and thinking oh my God does this change something for K STA and the general election and for labor does this mean that actually the victory that we’ve all been assuming is coming is less assured

No it doesn’t mean that I mean if you’re looking in terms of byelection Victories which tell us something about the forthcoming general election you’d be far better off looking at Welling bro the huge label wi we saw there you’d be far better off looking at sby the huge

Labor women we saw there or Kingswood all these seats they’re taking from from the stories but just because it doesn’t mean that it changes anything for the general election it does change something about politics right now because it means that all of these all of these tensions that have been

Building and building and building both for Kama and within the labor family about Gaza but also outside and between communities becomes more and more intense because Galloway even though he’s a deeply effective political campaigner a very very effective oror as I said on the show before I think

Probably the best the British politics has seen he is someone who really to some extent at least often adds fuel to these tensions and the Flames of these tensions and given he is such a often disliked indeed reviled figure by many British Jews you can just imagine when

He gets up at the next side in the House of Commons which we will be doing as quickly as possible making a statement and making a speech on Gaza those clips spread like wildfire you can just imagine the impact it’s going to have yeah is worth talking about George

Galloway for a moment and I I know we’ve done this on the podcast before but I think that he is such an extraordinary figure in British politics you know if you’re being kind he you would be saluting his indefatigability uh you would also say this is remarkable that he has now come

Into Parliament having won elections for three different parties you know the labor party respect and now the workers party so he is a political phenomenon and I remember when he went up to Capitol Hill and went before a senate committee and these senators are used to having people being utterly deferential

And George Galloway just ripped them to shreds I mean it was a Slaughter what happened because Galloway was so smart so agile on his feet so capable in The Wider politics though something we’ve discussed a lot on the podcast in recent weeks is the impact that reform might

Have on the conservative party and this is in a mirror exactly but I wonder whether there are a number of constituencies now where there will be Galloway acolytes not with the same rhetorical skills who will be offering themselves up to run in the general election where they could start eating

Into Labor’s majority and start doing for labor what reform are doing to the conservatives yeah it’s certainly possible I mean I think the thing is I mean we should Zoom back a bit and say you know I mean rochell as we’re were saying at the start it’s a really really

Saves labor seat there’s no way that labor should ever have lost it it’s highly embarrassing the immediate short-term problems for labor is that this is just highly highly embarrassing for starma right like we know the problems they had with the candidate we know it was unprecedented to withdraw support there’s questions for the

Leadership as to why the byelection was held so quickly why the election process happened so quickly it was rushed as it is a safe labor seat has just been thrown away and worse than that we know what Galloway will do now right Galloway will does what he always does when he

Has the pulpit of the House of Commons he will use his considerable rhetorical skills and he will get up week after week asking questions about Gaza to starma and to sunak he will become a lightning rod of left-wing discontent around Gaza and something I was thinking

About earlier is the fact that we know that the phrase It’s always attached to to Galloway is that he’s a Rabel Rouser that he finds discontent and he is very effective at kind of sort of spreading it which in some ways you can argue is a

Bit unkind to him in the sense that he what he does is he finds political fishes and he exploits them some people would say for his own purposes but but whatever he has never been actually despite all of that and all of his success he’s had in previous byelections

And seats he’s never actually been an MP before in the kind of what I’d say is the like lightning social media age his Clips on Gaza and we know Clips on Gaza right this they absolutely just go everywhere they are going to be all over Tik Tok they’re going to be all over

Twitter and whether his opponents like it or not there is a not inconsiderable minority of people who will like his message and he will make the most of the window he has does that spread to other seats I think that’s difficult but there’s no doubt that this is an

Opportunity for him and his type of politics and he’s going to try and exploit it well leis we’ve both spoken about his rhetorical skills let’s hear a little more of him in Rochdale earlier this morning after Victory had been declared K starmer this is for Gaza you have

Paid and you will pay a high price for the role that you have played in enabling encouraging and covering for the catastrophe presently going on in occupied Palestine in the Gaza Strip rdale town councilors I put you on notice now that I hope to put together a Grand Alliance of all the

Parties to remove to remove you a climate change Den you said in the hting that you wanted to extract oil and gas from the northa [Applause] I want [Applause] to I want to I want to put the town councilors on notice that we intend to clean the town

Hall walk I make of course no disrespect to so it’s all going well yeah well that was George Galloway being interrupted by a climate change protester but you you get the general impression of uh what he was on about and it was left to labor to try and kind

Of minimize the damage this is Ellie Reeves who was running the campaign we regret that we couldn’t field a candidate in that uh by elction and I apologize to the people of Rochdale uh for that but we didn’t stand a a candidate comments came uh to light uh

And K starma took Swift action to suspend him from the labor party and remove him as Labour’s candidate going into that by elction you know George gallway is someone that uh Stokes Division and uh hatred uh in communities courtesy of Sakira the labor party we have George Galloway sitting as an MP in

Westminster would the labor party like to apologize on that well I I’ve said that uh I’ve just said that we apologize to the people of Rochdale for not being able more broadly now now that Mr Galloway now and notwithstanding of course he’s won the votes of the folk of

Rochdale but more broadly a lot of people are expressing concern so would labor like to apologize for facilitating this we are sorry for for what’s happened and the challenge for labor now will be to select a labor C candidate for the general election uh this year uh

Someone it’s just painful and like I say the next 24-hour media cycle is going to be painful it’s going to be painful next week for the labor party when I mean there’s this suggestion that Galloway when he turns up to Parliament Monday is going to be sworn in or at least be

Accompanied when he’s sworn in by Jeremy Corbin who is an old friend of galloways a and and look it is going to add to as I said the kind of intensity around this debate it reminds us again the extent to which Gaza has rocked British politics and continues to Rock British politics

Especially on the left and his win will inspire and energize lots of people on the left it will also incense the right I mean they will argue I mean you’ve been talking all week on the show John about the kind of you know the Tory rights and their sort of Prophecies of

Doom and and the idea that you know sort of darkness is coming in all sorts of ways particularly with regards to kind of islamism they will argue they will point to people like farage will point to Galloway and we’ll say this proves us right that there is a rising radical

Islamist party on the way and if Galloway can exploit that in a seat like Rochdale which is actually you know not hugely Muslim but Muslim the Muslim vote there is a significant minority and we should say that it will be that there will be plenty of non-muslims who voted

For Galler as well but they will point to this the right and say this proves us right about the sort of politics that is coming to our way we need to be very very wary of it and we should remind people of course that Galloway has had

As IED to already a kind of pretty checkered record with regards to his own relationship with jury and Israel and lots of controversies around Israel in particular I mean I was reminded of something that i’ totally forgotten about until early this evening which was

A clip of him when he was the MP for Bradford back in 2013 and he was at an Oxford University event and he was discovered that he was debating with an Israeli and this is what happened we wanted peace we got War we must make the same mistake again so my first point

Only a peace treaty can provide a framework for enduring peace and security I’m sorry Mr G you said we are you in Israeli I am yes I don’t debate with Israelis I’ve been misled sorry racism I don’t recognize Israel and I don’t human and with that George Galloway

Walked out of the room at this Oxford Union debate refusing to uh speak to someone on a similar platform who was Israeli uh we know that he had previously got sacked from talk radio for an anti-semitic tweet he is now the Member of Parliament for Rochdale and in

A moment we’ll be going live to Rochdale this is the news agents so we’re joined Now by Henry ryy lbc’s reporter he’s been at Rochdale at the count overnight Henry I’ve covered quite a few byelections we all cover quite a few byelections from the audio that we’ve heard it sounds like quite the evening in row yeah genuinely one of

The most bizarre nights of my life which culminated at 4:00 in the morning being at a Suzuki garage with George Galloway giving a campaign rally while everyone was sort of sat there blur eyed it was just a a really strange evening right from the start I mean usually by El get

The sort of Westminster bubble excited people like us but I mean outside the count was it was like um the sort of Picadilly circus type busyness that you get at a football ground there were cars trying to park all night there were hundreds of people waiting outside the

Count who hadn’t registered but they wanted to be there to get a taste of the actions they were waiting outside it was utterly bizarre and of course as you reference culminated in the return of George Galloway and what was the atmosphere like Henry because I’ve heard various complaints I mean from Richard

Ty the leader of Reform Party saying that this wasn’t a free and fair election there was a lot of intimidation it was not proper yes I mean undoubtedly there has been division between Mr Galloway’s camp and Mr danuk Camp of course Simon danuk is Mr TI’s candidate

For this particular seat and it all really started because there was a hustings arranged just a few weeks ago which George Galloway the reform side claim was involved with organizing and they didn’t invite Simon danuk I mean they’ve just been having a go at each other having a pop at every opportunity

And they’ve been clearly waiting for the moment where they would butt heads at the count and Richard Ty arrived with Simon danuk who let’s not forget was the MP for Rochdale well just a few years ago he was elected on two occasions on a labor ticket but it was quite tense at

Times certainly I mean candidates started entering via the front entrance where as I said to you before there was a couple of hundred people waiting they then were coming in through the back because of security reasons we were pretty much kept away from most of the candidates throughout the evening so it

Wasn’t a particularly Pleasant atmosphere but certainly there was no sense of nastiness I actually asked Richard Ty that question about whether he felt it was a free and fair election because he gave a statement and as you referenced he claimed that it wasn’t we know Simon danchuk his candidate had a

Death threat at one point and he made a few illusions that the postal vote system which was high it was a high postal vote turnout had some role to play in George gall way getting such a high percentage of the vote so potentially Mischief making from Richard

TI okay well Henry let’s just hear a bit of your conversation that you’ve had with George Galloway this morning you spoke once about bumping into Tony Blair in the toilets of Parliament and saying something to his face if that happens with K starma what would you say to him

It was actually outside the toilet in the library Corridor to be precise and two weeks before the uh Iraq war and everything I warned them about came to pass Tony Blair didn’t take my advice and Kier starmer wouldn’t either but if I do bump into him I’ll definitely give

Him a piece of my mind what would you say I’d say that the course of action you have embarked upon in your to quote him unqualified support for Israel without qualification he said uh is going to lead your party to disaster you’re aband bment of traditional labor values your Embrace of neoliberal

Economics and imperialist politics abroad uh is going to be the death of your party and it richly deserves it it’s amazing isn’t it Henry because obviously this is going to be internalized and reported and narrated as Galloway did saying that this is a about Gaza it’s a victory for all of

Those who are opposing what Israel is doing in Gaza and so on and there’s dedly there there’s going to be a significant element to that in terms of how people voted but everything that I’ve read from reporting in the constituency I know you you’ve done a bit of this is to essentially with

People saying that they were concerned about a lot of local issues that weren’t even getting remotely addressed at all and this was being hijacked by a sort of wider set of questions which are important but nonetheless slightly weird to be exercised in a byelection yeah and

I think that’s why we had David Tully this independent candidate who came seemingly out of nowhere doing so well I mean he came second against all expectations he’s a local businessman he runs a local car repair service and is a season ticket holder with rdale football

Club which actually was one of the local issues that George Galloway referenced in his speech because that club’s in a fair bit of financial difficulty but in terms of the campaign itself it is strange from George Galloway side because on the one hand they’ve been saying George Galloway is not winning

This election because of Israel Gaza actually he’s winning it on local issues as well and then the first thing he references in his speech is that k dor this is because of Gaza and I did quiz some of his campaign team because as was reported on Twitter he was sending out

Different leaflets to different Wards so in predominantly Muslim Wards they were getting a leaflet with completely different policies completely different priorities than uh Wards which had different demographic of population when I asked them that they actually compared George Galloway to Barack Obama believe it or not and said that he did the same

In 2008 and 2012 in the presidential election well that’s a very handy comparison to have in mind I mean it reminds me frankly more of liberal Democrats who used to do that endlessly of kind of you know youa your message to the particular audience you’re speaking to at any time

But I think that if that is what Galloway was doing I think that underlines what we’ve been saying in this podcast he is a very formidable campaigner and he knows how to win votes he does and look this is his fourth constituency now and he’s very keen to

To keep on to this seat for as long as possible he’s sort of a bit of a loone MP isn’t he for 6 to8 months potentially unlikely that he’d win it at a general election it seemed like it was I mean there could not have been a more perfect

Storm for George Galloway than this particular election with not just International factors but with the green candidate the labor candidate having their support withdrawn but you’re right I mean Parliament I mean Jacob Reese Moog was saying through the night who’s no natural bedfellow to George Galloway that parliament’s got a sensational oror

Back in its ranks he’s he’s clearly a very good oror he’s clearly an excellent Campa whether you agree with the tactics or not and uh well tonight really demonstrated that he’d done that but although having said that I do sense when he gets into Parliament he’ll be

Probably more Andrew bridgen a bit of a a lone voice in the background as opposed to um necessarily mixing with caucuses of other MPS Henry listen great to have you with us thank you very much indeed thank you I mean what I think um Henry reminds us of there is the fact

That and I’ve seen the pictures I’m sure you have John as well of basically all of the lobby or much of the lobby the Westminster press pack in this Suzuki garage surrounding George Galloway and you know it is like must the flame and that reminds us the thing with Galloway

Is and why he has outsid importance even though he is basically just a oneman band he is like the leftwing farage he is just Mana from heaven for journalism in a sense that he always has a sort of perfect line he’s great copy I mean I’ve I’ve reported on him doing byelections

You know he’s always got the sort of the opportunity just kind of ready to go he’s got his bus with Tony Blair’s face on it just patrolling around any given constituency and he’ll text you going come right now great picture he knows the game he is a formidable formidable

Campaign as we were just saying and even though he will be a constituency of one he will exploit the opportunity there’s one other thing I think we could we could just say about what this means about politics to come in terms of longer term politics is what it means

After the general election right which is that yes this constituency doesn’t tell us much about the general election itself but it does probably tell us something about the sort of seats that labor could be vulnerable in in future at the moment we do know that the Muslim

Vote for labor is weaker than it was under Jeremy Corbin for starma right for all sorts of reasons that’s got worse after the Gaza situation has developed at the moment it’s not a problem for starma because his lead is so massive imagine a situation where store are in

Government and suddenly that lead isn’t there anymore and those Muslim votes in constituencies like Rochdale where it’s not the majority but it’s a big minority suddenly becomes pivotal and you can imagine a situation where the labor Urban vote starts to weaken and there are lots of MPS like in seats like you

Know Jess Philip seats in Birmingham or west streeting seat for example in ilford where they could suddenly or Shaban mmud in central Birmingham as well that they start to look a bit little bit more vulnerable than they do right now so you can sort of see the

Glimmers of a future politics where the sort of Galloway effect even if it’s not just him himself but where the labor Urban vote starts to look weaker the thing that occurred to me leis what you’re saying and it kind of crystallizes what I was thinking is that this feels like a midterm byelection

After starma had been in power for two years it’s like we’ve gone on from the Rishi sunat government and that this is what starma is facing now having been prime minister for a couple of years and you know these forces have been exaggerated and been at play I mean I

Suppose my only other thought on all of this and shocking awful night as it has been for Kiama what if Azar Ali hadn’t been mired in controversy and had to be disowned as candidate because of those anti-semitic comments and conspiracy theories that he was recorded advancing what if Azar Ali

Had been the labor candidate properly had had the machine behind him and still lost to George Galloway today I think it would be even worse for K Dharma than him being able to say yeah we screwed up the whole management of that byelection we screwed up the selection procedure we

Went too fast we got the wrong candidate and we’ve paid a very heavy price for it terribly sorry about it we’ll win it back at the general election I mean I think that Galloway was formidable yes he had the door opened for him and he went through it but it’s perfectly

Possible he could have done exceptionally well anyway in that byelection and that potentially would have been even worse for starm well as Henry said it’s the perfect storm it all just coales for him I mean for example I mean when he stood again in battle in Spen when Tracy braan resigned and it

Was obviously Joe Cox’s old seat and her sister Kim lebe who’s now the MP was standing I covered that by elction Galloway was standing he did quite well again a sizable Muslim minority seat he did quite well he only getting up about 20 25% of the vote he kind of

Underperformed the circumstances weren’t there The Wider circumstances weren’t there for him then in the way that they are with Gaza now and so I think you know all of that just coalesced and it all worked for him I mean the other thing to say of course of course we

Should say terrible terrible night for labor in all sorts of ways it will be missed by most that the conservative vote came third because of what was going on with the other parties but was 12% of the vote absolutely gruesome generally I mean obviously it’s not a strong conservative seat by any means

But you know you was think in a situation where labor literally decided to withdraw support completely from their candidate the toys might pick up just a little bit didn’t happen the one one sort of silver lining for the conservatives which they would look at with that is that this is yet another

Byelection actually where reform underd delivered underperform which has actually been their Trend the one exception being wellinger to some extent but generally speaking they have actually not done well when there have been actual votes to count and to cast as opposed to just telling a pollster that broadly speaking you’re going to

Vote for reform one other thought and it’s me trying to win my sweep stake bet that we had whenever it was six months ago about me saying there’s going to be a May election you ain’t getting that money give it up John give it up but but could this affect Rishi sunak

Calculation given the problems that he now sees for labor as a result of what’s happened in Rochdale and what could happen in other seats does he just think actually I might not get a better time to hold a general election uh no I don’t think so I think that’s about as likely

As me finding someone to go and share a bottle of Mescal with and digest the remainder of the rdale by elction results in this little town in yukatan frankly John I just don’t think that is very likely at all just because I just think you know again you’re at 20 points

Behind it’s just the same thing you’re 20 points behind you’re just not going to bother but they are going to at least enjoy the fact they can at least save her a day and probably a weekend and maybe into Monday when just for one starma which doesn’t happen that much at

The moment a little bit maybe over the last couple of weeks but he is on the back foot again and that they can just all they can do keep their head down lay low and just let labor have to suck up all of that negative energy and negative

Press Ascension as a result as I say what has been basically from start to finish with this Rochdale by elction a complete car crash for the labor party we’re going to take a break now and you’re just going to sit with the picture of Lewis goodle up against the

Wall a bottle of Mescal and him slowly drinking his way into Oblivion Oblivion this is the news agents well Lewis I’m joining you on the other side of the Atlantic although I think you and your wife will be relieved to hear I’m not actually coming to Mexico but I’m going to be a little further north in the US ahead of the mid well we

Could come would you like matless and me Landing in on your holiday would that all your dreams come true we don’t see enough of each other do we no no that is good we must holiday together I do think that’s important I can’t imagine why that might end up

Being a problem but then again again I mean you know I mean this is surreal enough me sat in this small outside toilet talking to you 3,000 mil away so I mean why not let’s add some more nuttiness into the whole mix not that this is a ridiculous outfit or anything

That we’ve got ourselves involved in by the way Louis you realize you have now got nowhere to go when you accuse me of going on holiday not wanting to spend time with my loved ones because I’m always on the podcast well this is why we just need to

Go on holiday together let’s cut out the middle men and women John let’s just get rid of them could be a whole new development for the news agents look we’ll be in America next week Lewis is going to be back in London with the budget coming up thanks for being with

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