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George Galloway’s Comeback Tests UK’s Febrile Politics Over War in Gaza – BNN Bloomberg

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(Bloomberg) — Left-wing serial disrupter George Galloway’s return to Parliament throws more volatility into the already febrile mix in British politics, as the Israel-Hamas war upends community cohesion and parties grapple for a stance on the conflict that doesn’t alienate supporters.

The 69-year-old’s by-election victory in Rochdale, northwest England was yet another dramatic moment in a parliamentary cycle with no shortage of them. Though it provides limited lessons for the Conservative-Labour battle in the looming general election, few Members of Parliament will welcome Galloway’s amplified voice causing trouble ahead of the vote. He used his victory speech early Friday to attack those parties’ leaders.

“Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak are two cheeks of the same backside and they both got well and truly spanked tonight,” Galloway said after the seventh parliamentary election win in his constituency-hopping career. He began his address taking aim at Labour’s internal strife on the war in the Middle East, saying: “Keir Starmer, this is for Gaza.”

It will be Starmer who feels the immediate pain from Galloway’s reemergence. Kicked out of the party about two decades ago, Galloway has pent-up resentment, and his political views overlap with Labour’s socialist wing that Starmer has worked hard to quash since taking over in 2020.

Gaza is Starmer’s biggest vulnerability. The conflict has poked at long-running Labour pressure points, including allegations of antisemitism that dogged the party under his left-wing predecessor Jeremy Corbyn.

Starmer’s electoral pitch, which has seen Labour hold a lead fluctuating around 20 points over Sunak’s Tories for months, is built around how much he has changed the party since the Corbyn era — it’s more pro-business, and in Starmer’s own words, it’s now “about government not protest.”

The task of presenting Labour as a government-in-waiting has rubbed plenty of nerves, especially on the party’s left. Starmer’s reluctance to call for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza in November, which angered his MPs, was at least in part about signaling how Labour has changed, showing voters the party was ready to act like a government on complicated foreign policy.

“Although most Labour supporters don’t take a side in the current conflict in the Middle East, those who do — both Muslim and non-Muslim — are much more likely to support the Palestinian side,” John Curtice, a professor of politics at Strathclyde University, told the BBC. He said the wider electoral impact will be limited because Labour typically has big majorities in constituencies with large Muslim communities.

Labour’s tensions spilled out in Rochdale, and Galloway took advantage. Though it was too late to change the ballot papers, Labour had no candidate after ditching Azhar Ali over remarks he made implying that Israel was complicit in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack. While Starmer’s party will fancy its chances of recovering a seat it had held since 2010 at the general election, Galloway’s win points to months of discomfort.

There were echoes of Galloway’s past wins in the Rochdale election, which he won with a 40% vote share, on a turnout of just under 40%. He was expelled from Labour in 2003, while the party was in government under Tony Blair, over his condemnation of the Iraq war. He later won two parliamentary elections for the Respect Party — in east London in 2005 and then in Bradford, northern England, in 2012. He has long been criticized for whipping up division, particularly in areas with substantial Muslim populations.

For years before that, though, Galloway was building a reputation as a renegade voice. He famously met Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad in 1994, three years after the first Gulf War in which allied forces had driven Iraqi invaders out of Kuwait – a conflict he opposed. “I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability,” Galloway told Hussein.

He gained a wider audience in 2005, when he appeared before a US Senate hearing to counter allegations he had profited from sales of Iraqi oil. Galloway denied that and told the panel that “$8.8 billion of Iraq’s wealth went missing on your watch” and that the “real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own government.”

The question hanging over British politics is how much Galloway, in the social media era, can replicate his record of bending narratives. In Rochdale, he said his Workers Party of Britain will target more seats in the general election. When it was put to him that a single MP could have little influence, he replied: “Do you think so, do you really think so?”

That’s a warning that will reverberate beyond Labour. For all their politicking, little separates them on the Israel-Hamas war — Labour, the Tories and the Scottish National Party all want some sort of cease-fire in Gaza, though for party-management reasons, they differ on the wording.

Sunak’s Conservatives are embroiled in an Islamophobia row related to protests around the conflict. The furor was triggered when Tory MP Lee Anderson, who just weeks ago was the Conservative Party’s deputy chairman, said Islamists have “got control of London” and that the Labour mayor Sadiq Khan — a Muslim — had “given our capital city away to his mates.”

He was suspended from the parliamentary party, but Sunak faced a backlash especially from right-wing Tories who want to take over after the election.

Then there’s the wider backdrop of intimidation against MPs, which saw the government promise more funding for security and Sunak warn this week that “mob rule is replacing democratic rule.” Adding a voice like Galloway’s into the political zeitgeist risks fueling extremes on both sides of his argument.

While Galloway has denied antisemitism, a spokesperson for the Board of Deputies of British Jews called his victory a “dark day for the Jewish community.”

Critics point to his short-term appeal where he won in the past — voters in Bradford and Bethnal Green removed him at their first opportunity — and the divisiveness that alienates all but his most ardent followers.

But it’s events in Gaza that are likely to have the biggest say over Galloway’s impact. A pause in the fighting there in November took some of the heat out of British politics, and it won’t be just Starmer hoping that talks about a cease-fire are successful in the coming days. 

“There aren’t 100 George Galloways, there are not even three, four, five, six,” John McTernan, a former adviser to Blair, told BBC radio. The Rochdale result, he said, was down to parties unable to reach a unified voice that matches the public view on Gaza, that the fighting should stop. “That’s a force in British politics that nobody in Parliament is able to channel properly.”

–With assistance from Alex Morales.

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.

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Review finds no case for formal probe of Beijing’s activities under elections law

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OTTAWA – The federal agency that investigates election infractions found insufficient evidence to support suggestions Beijing wielded undue influence against the Conservatives in the Vancouver area during the 2021 general election.

The Commissioner of Canada Elections’ recently completed review of the lingering issue was tabled Tuesday at a federal inquiry into foreign interference.

The review focused on the unsuccessful campaign of Conservative candidate Kenny Chiu in the riding of Steveston-Richmond East and the party’s larger efforts in the Vancouver area.

It says the evidence uncovered did not trigger the threshold to initiate a formal investigation under the Canada Elections Act.

Investigators therefore recommended that the review be concluded.

A summary of the review results was shared with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the RCMP. The review says both agencies indicated the election commissioner’s findings were consistent with their own understanding of the situation.

During the exercise, the commissioner’s investigators met with Chinese Canadian residents of Chiu’s riding and surrounding ones.

They were told of an extensive network of Chinese Canadian associations, businesses and media organizations that offers the diaspora a lifestyle that mirrors that of China in many ways.

“Further, this diaspora has continuing and extensive commercial, social and familial relations with China,” the review says.

Some interviewees reported that this “has created aspects of a parallel society involving many Chinese Canadians in the Lower Mainland area, which includes concerted support, direction and control by individuals from or involved with China’s Vancouver consulate and the United Front Work Department (UFWD) in China.”

Investigators were also made aware of members of three Chinese Canadian associations, as well as others, who were alleged to have used their positions to influence the choice of Chinese Canadian voters during the 2021 election in a direction favourable to the interests of Beijing, the review says.

These efforts were sparked by elements of the Conservative party’s election platform and by actions and statements by Chiu “that were leveraged to bolster claims that both the platform and Chiu were anti-China and were encouraging anti-Chinese discrimination and racism.”

These messages were amplified through repetition in social media, chat groups and posts, as well as in Chinese in online, print and radio media throughout the Vancouver area.

Upon examination, the messages “were found to not be in contravention” of the Canada Elections Act, says the review, citing the Supreme Court of Canada’s position that the concept of uninhibited speech permeates all truly democratic societies and institutions.

The review says the effectiveness of the anti-Conservative, anti-Chiu campaigns was enhanced by circumstances “unique to the Chinese diaspora and the assertive nature of Chinese government interests.”

It notes the election was prefaced by statements from China’s ambassador to Canada and the Vancouver consul general as well as articles published or broadcast in Beijing-controlled Chinese Canadian media entities.

“According to Chinese Canadian interview subjects, this invoked a widespread fear amongst electors, described as a fear of retributive measures from Chinese authorities should a (Conservative) government be elected.”

This included the possibility that Chinese authorities could interfere with travel to and from China, as well as measures being taken against family members or business interests in China, the review says.

“Several Chinese Canadian interview subjects were of the view that Chinese authorities could exercise such retributive measures, and that this fear was most acute with Chinese Canadian electors from mainland China. One said ‘everybody understands’ the need to only say nice things about China.”

However, no interview subject was willing to name electors who were directly affected by the anti-Tory campaign, nor community leaders who claimed to speak on a voter’s behalf.

Several weeks of public inquiry hearings will focus on the capacity of federal agencies to detect, deter and counter foreign meddling.

In other testimony Tuesday, Conservative MP Garnett Genuis told the inquiry that parliamentarians who were targeted by Chinese hackers could have taken immediate protective steps if they had been informed sooner.

It emerged earlier this year that in 2021 some MPs and senators faced cyberattacks from the hackers because of their involvement with the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, which pushes for accountability from Beijing.

In 2022, U.S. authorities apparently informed the Canadian government of the attacks, and it in turn advised parliamentary IT officials — but not individual MPs.

Genuis, a Canadian co-chair of the inter-parliamentary alliance, told the inquiry Tuesday that it remains mysterious to him why he wasn’t informed about the attacks sooner.

Liberal MP John McKay, also a Canadian co-chair of the alliance, said there should be a clear protocol for advising parliamentarians of cyberthreats.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.

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NDP beat Conservatives in federal byelection in Winnipeg

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WINNIPEG – The federal New Democrats have kept a longtime stronghold in the Elmwood-Transcona riding in Winnipeg.

The NDP’s Leila Dance won a close battle over Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds, and says the community has spoken in favour of priorities such as health care and the cost of living.

Elmwood-Transcona has elected a New Democrat in every election except one since the riding was formed in 1988.

The seat became open after three-term member of Parliament Daniel Blaikie resigned in March to take a job with the Manitoba government.

A political analyst the NDP is likely relieved to have kept the seat in what has been one of their strongest urban areas.

Christopher Adams, an adjunct professor of political studies at the University of Manitoba, says NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh worked hard to keep the seat in a tight race.

“He made a number of visits to Winnipeg, so if they had lost this riding it would have been disastrous for the NDP,” Adams said.

The strong Conservative showing should put wind in that party’s sails, Adams added, as their percentage of the popular vote in Elmwood-Transcona jumped sharply from the 2021 election.

“Even though the Conservatives lost this (byelection), they should walk away from it feeling pretty good.”

Dance told reporters Monday night she wants to focus on issues such as the cost of living while working in Ottawa.

“We used to be able to buy a cart of groceries for a hundred dollars and now it’s two small bags. That is something that will affect everyone in this riding,” Dance said.

Liberal candidate Ian MacIntyre placed a distant third,

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Trudeau says ‘all sorts of reflections’ for Liberals after loss of second stronghold

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OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau say the Liberals have “all sorts of reflections” to make after losing a second stronghold in a byelection in Montreal Monday night.

His comments come as the Liberal cabinet gathers for its first regularly scheduled meeting of the fall sitting of Parliament, which began Monday.

Trudeau’s Liberals were hopeful they could retain the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, but those hopes were dashed after the Bloc Québécois won it in an extremely tight three-way race with the NDP.

Louis-Philippe Sauvé, an administrator at the Institute for Research in Contemporary Economics, beat Liberal candidate Laura Palestini by less than 250 votes. The NDP finished about 600 votes back of the winner.

It is the second time in three months that Trudeau’s party lost a stronghold in a byelection. In June, the Conservatives defeated the Liberals narrowly in Toronto-St. Paul’s.

The Liberals won every seat in Toronto and almost every seat on the Island of Montreal in the last election, and losing a seat in both places has laid bare just how low the party has fallen in the polls.

“Obviously, it would have been nicer to be able to win and hold (the Montreal riding), but there’s more work to do and we’re going to stay focused on doing it,” Trudeau told reporters ahead of this morning’s cabinet meeting.

When asked what went wrong for his party, Trudeau responded “I think there’s all sorts of reflections to take on that.”

In French, he would not say if this result puts his leadership in question, instead saying his team has lots of work to do.

Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet will hold a press conference this morning, but has already said the results are significant for his party.

“The victory is historic and all of Quebec will speak with a stronger voice in Ottawa,” Blanchet wrote on X, shortly after the winner was declared.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and his party had hoped to ride to a win in Montreal on the popularity of their candidate, city councillor Craig Sauvé, and use it to further their goal of replacing the Liberals as the chief alternative to the Conservatives.

The NDP did hold on to a seat in Winnipeg in a tight race with the Conservatives, but the results in Elmwood-Transcona Monday were far tighter than in the last several elections. NDP candidate Leila Dance defeated Conservative Colin Reynolds by about 1,200 votes.

Singh called it a “big victory.”

“Our movement is growing — and we’re going to keep working for Canadians and building that movement to stop Conservative cuts before they start,” he said on social media.

“Big corporations have had their governments. It’s the people’s time.”

New Democrats recently pulled out of their political pact with the government in a bid to distance themselves from the Liberals, making the prospects of a snap election far more likely.

Trudeau attempted to calm his caucus at their fall retreat in Nanaimo, B.C, last week, and brought former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney on as an economic adviser in a bid to shore up some credibility with voters.

The latest byelection loss will put more pressure on him as leader, with many polls suggesting voter anger is more directed at Trudeau himself than at Liberal policies.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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