Britain: Galloway's victory puts spotlight on Labour’s failure to offer any alternative

The remarkable victory of George Galloway in the Bradford West by-election has sent a massive cannon ball across the bough of the Labour leadership. At a time of huge unpopularity of the Coalition government, Labour should have romped home in this traditional heartland. To their astonishment, Labour was driven into second place behind George Galloway, who scored a massive 36.59% swing from Labour to Respect.

On a high turnout of over 50 per cent (compared with 64.9 per cent in the 2010 general election), Labour’s 5,763 vote majority was turned into a 10,140 majority for Galloway. The other parties were also humiliated. The Tory party came third, with its percentage of the vote falling from 31.2 per cent in the general election to 8.37 per cent, a drop of 22.78 per cent. The Liberal Democrats were also trounced with its share of the vote falling from 11.7 per cent to 4.5 per cent. The victory for Galloway was a clear sign of a “plague on all your houses” as far as Labour, Liberal and Tories were concerned.

The sitting MP, Labour’s Marsha Singh, stood down on grounds of ill health which provoked the by-election. Labour’s candidate was Imran Hussein, the deputy leader of the local Council, who, based on Labour’s lukewarm policies, failed miserably to connect with the electorate. The fact that the local Labour controlled council has pushed through £67 million in cuts, axing over a thousand jobs is also a clear factor in reducing Imran Hussein’s appeal among the electorate!

The turnout and vote for Galloway was clearly a massive protest vote against the policies of Ed Miliband and the Labour leadership. People had become fed up with Labour’s lack of fighting programme. Instead, the Labour leaders had done everything to alienate their traditional supporters. They have promised to implement the austerity cuts... but over a longer period and not so deep. They have failed to support workers in struggle, including the strikes over pensions. They are opposed to the tanker drivers’ taking strike action. They are trying to be respectable for the likes of the City of London, as the Blairites had done previously. They are seen as very much out of touch.

The fact that Galloway successfully campaigned on left-wing policies, such as no cuts, no job losses, troops out of Afghanistan, taxing the rich, etc, shows clearly that the working class is far to the left of the Labour leadership. Miliband and company are firmly wedded to “responsible capitalism” and the market economy. In this way, they are little different from the rest.

Galloway correctly criticised the New Labour politicians for letting the working class down and betraying their supporters. He blamed Tony Blair for pushing the party to the right:

“Tony Blair’s treason led to my victory”, he said. Labour "must stop imagining that working people and poor people have no option but to support them if they hate the Tory and Liberal Democrat coalition partners.

"They have to stop supporting illegal, bloody, costly foreign wars because one of the reasons why they were so decisively defeated this evening is that the public don't believe that they have atoned for their role in the invasion and occupation of other people's countries and the drowning of those countries in blood.

“This is a rejection of the mainstream parties with their Tweedledee, Tweedledum, Tweedledee-and-a-half approach. It was people saying they want political leaders they can believe in, who say what they mean, do what they say and don't lie to people. We don't say one thing to one set of people and something else to another.

“People were not looking to the austerity policies of the Coalition or the austerity-lite policies of Ed Miliband.”

Miliband said Labour had to learn the lessons of the defeat, but is presently trying to befriend big business.

“It was an incredibly disappointing result for Labour in Bradford West and I am determined that we learn lessons of what happened. I'm going to lead that. I'm going to be going back to the constituency in the coming weeks to talk to people there about why this result happened. Clearly there were local factors, but I also say only four out of 10 people voted for the three mainstream political parties.”

We can only wonder whether Miliband will take the message if he does go on a tour of Bradford. For even without going there, the lessons are abundantly clear. It was not, as Harriet Harman said, a local “Bradford problem”. Another front bench spokesperson, Kieth Vaz, said it was because Galloway was a “celebrity”! The Labour leaders are desperately looking for ways of explaining away this irritating result for them. Anything but accept reality! They are not learning the very real lesson of the result in Bradford West and are making excuses.

In the last general election in 2010 faced with the prospect of a Tory majority, in some of the core working class areas, where Labour has had its historical base, there was actually a swing back to Labour. Since then this Labour Party leadership has failed to offer a credible alternative to working people. That explains why working class people in Bradford and elsewhere have lost faith in Labour over a number of years.

Workers in Bradford West have shown their real feelings towards the Coalition parties and the Labour Party. It reflects the real mood of anger developing in British society as living standards are cut. The Labour leadership can see no alternative to the austerity programme of this government. They also fail to see the effects these policies are having on working class communities up and down the country.

The lesson of Bradford West is that if Labour wants to win it must boldly oppose the austerity measures. If Labour is to recover, it must break with Tory policies and fight for working people. That means breaking with capitalism and a return to socialist policies.

Although this by-election victory will not be repeated in the next general election, it is a warning to Labour not to take its traditional supporters for granted. The present leadership is wedded to capitalism. It is vital that these carpetbaggers are replaced with real representatives who are committed to changing society.

Source: Socialist Appeal (Britain)