Workers Party of Britain | |
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Leader | George Galloway |
Deputy Leaders | Andy Hudd Chris Williamson Peter Ford |
Founder | George Galloway |
Founded | December 2019 |
Headquarters | 91 Church Road Birmingham B13 9AE [1] |
Membership (November 2023) | 2,962 [2] |
Ideology | |
Political position | Left-wing [6] [7] to far-left [8] [9] |
House of Commons | 1 / 650 |
Local government [10] | 5 / 18,725 |
Website | |
www | |
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Organizations Parties Bibliography Media | ||
The Workers Party of Britain (WPB), also called the Workers Party of Great Britain (WPGB) or Workers Party GB, [11] [12] [13] is a socialist and socially conservative political party in the United Kingdom, formed in December 2019 and led by George Galloway, Member of Parliament for Rochdale since the 2024 Rochdale by-election.
The Workers Party of Britain was founded in response to the Labour Party's landslide defeat at the 2019 United Kingdom general election and the resignation of Jeremy Corbyn as Leader of the Labour Party. [14] It was formed with a commitment to "defend the achievements of the USSR, China, Cuba etc" and is "unequivocally committed to class politics". [14] The founding of the Workers Party of Britain was welcomed by the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist–Leninist) (CPGB-ML). [15] [4] Joti Brar, a vice-chair of the CPGB-ML, was elected as the Workers Party of Britain's deputy leader at its founding congress. [15] [4] In March 2021, the party stood its first candidate for elected office, Paul Burrows, in the by-election for Helensburgh and Lomond South ward on Argyll and Bute Council. [16] Burrows came last out of six, gaining 22 votes (0.9%). [17]
In the 2021 United Kingdom local elections, the party stood more than 40 candidates for local elections in England.[ citation needed ] The WPB contested its first parliamentary seat at the 2021 Batley and Spen by-election, with Galloway as its candidate. [14] Galloway gained 8,264 votes (21.9%) and came in third, behind the winning Labour candidate Kim Leadbeater and second placed Conservative candidate Ryan Stephenson. The Lib Dems came in fourth place, as they did in the previous election. [18] Galloway concentrated on the issues of the Palestinian territories, the Kashmir conflict, criticism of Labour leader Keir Starmer, the suspension of a teacher for showing a cartoon of Muhammad at Batley Grammar School, and the reopening of a police station in Batley. [19] [20] [21] The campaign received considerable media attention due to incidents of harassment during its final days. [22] [23] [24] [25] The Jewish Labour Movement called the result a "triumph for hope and decency" over Galloway's "toxic politics". Galloway vowed to challenge the result on the basis of an alleged "false statement" made about him by Leadbeater and Starmer, which he said tipped the result of the by-election. [26] [27]
The party contested the Almond ward of Edinburgh council in the 2022 Scottish local elections, and came second to last with 61 first preference votes (0.4%). [28] In the 2022 local elections, Workers Party candidate Ed Woollard achieved 15% of the vote in the Bordesley and Highgate ward of Birmingham. [29]
In July 2023, the Workers Party announced former Labour MP, Chris Williamson had joined the team, [30] and an article in The Guardian in March 2024 stated Williamson had joined the party "last year". [31] The party has defended Williamson, who was suspended from the Labour Party for his comments about antisemitism allegations in the Labour Party, and Ken Livingstone, who left the party following allegations of antisemitism. [32]
At the party's Congress in December 2023, Galloway was re-elected party leader. Three deputy leaders were elected – Chris Williamson, Andy Hudd (Vice President of the ASLEF) and Peter Ford (former Ambassador to Bahrain and Syria). [33] [31]
On 29 February 2024 Galloway won the 2024 Rochdale by-election. [34] The Israel–Hamas war dominated the campaign. In his election speech, Galloway said: "Keir Starmer, this is for Gaza. 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." [35] [36] Galloway won almost 40 per cent of the vote and overturned a previous Labour majority of 9,668. Turnout at 39.7 per cent was much lower than the 60.1 per cent for the 2019 general election. [37] Labour had withdrawn support for its candidate when it became known he had suggested that Israel was complicit in the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel. [38] Following the by-election it was announced that the Workers Party has 59 prospective parliamentary candidates for the next UK general election. [39]
During the week of Galloway's by-election win, a Workers Party delegation was taking part in the Kremlin-sponsored World Festival of Youth in Russia. [40]
In March 2024 the party gained its first councillor when the former mayor of Hounslow, Amritpal Mann, defected to the Workers Party. [41]
On 30th April 2024, Galloway announced that the party intended to stand in every seat at the next general election. He said that 500 had been selected, and dozens were named, including cricketer Monty Panesar (who subsequently withdrew [42] ), former Conservative/UKIP politician Amjad Bashir, former diplomats Peter Ford and Craig Murray, and Khalil Ahmed, a previous Labour candidate expected to stand in Wycombe. Galloway said the party was targeting Labour seats (describing the party as their "number one enemy") [43] [44]
At the 2024 United Kingdom local elections the party stood 33 candidates for councillor positions, with four of them being elected, including two in the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale (where they received 13% of the overall vote) and one in Calderdale. Shahbaz Sarwar, their candidate in Longsight Ward, Manchester, unseated deputy leader of City Council Luthfur Rahman, with 2,444 votes to Labour’s 2,259. [45] [46] [47] The WPB-endorsed independent candidate for the Mayor of the West Midlands, Akhmed Yakoob, came third with almost 70,000 votes, and announced plans to stand in the General Election. [48]
In May 2024, Galloway told Novara Media that gay relationships are not "normal", while Bolton WPB candidate, Sajid Pathan, refused to comment on this question. [49]
The party identifies as a socialist, working class party, which aims for "a redistribution of wealth and power in favour of working people". [50] It describes itself as "economically radical" and "committed to class politics". [51] [52] It has expressed support for a planned economy. The party's platform is outlined in its 10-point plan, in which it advocates "rebuilding British industry", universal "decent housing", "free or cheap" public transportation and an end to NHS waiting lists. [50] It advocates for referendums on net zero emissions policies and the future of the monarchy. Its manifesto states: "The transition to a Green economy should be at a pace that matches the ability of our population to afford it. We will not be seduced by the more apocalyptic Green hysteria that floods our media but we will seek rational debate centred on democratically aligned outcomes beneficial to workers". [53] [ non-primary source needed ] The party supports British unionism. [54]
The party has been defined as socially conservative, for example rejecting gender self-identification, [4] and party leader George Galloway describes himself as such. [55] Galloway said the party was "the working-class patriotic alternative to fake woke anti-British 'Labour'". [56]
Its website states that the party will "defend the achievements of the USSR, China, Cuba etc, not least the debt owed by humanity to the Soviet Union and Red Army in their war of liberation against German fascism". [50] The party is opposed to NATO and European Union membership, with a policy of withdrawing Britain from NATO. [57] [50] In a statement it said it "is unequivocal in its support for the Palestinian liberation struggle and opposition to Zionism as a violently racist ideology". [58] [59] According to Ben Quinn writing in The Guardian , the party published a pamphlet echoing "Kremlin talking-points" on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. [40]
The party has been referred to as "climate sceptical" and as "strongly downplaying the human impact of two hundred years of industrialisation and greenhouse gas emissions" in terms of its stance regarding how to respond to climate change. [60]
Year | Votes | % | Seats | Misc. |
---|---|---|---|---|
2021 | 411 | 0.04% | 0/60 | Contested South Wales Central (0.2%) |
Year | Votes | % | Seats | Misc. |
---|---|---|---|---|
2021 | 23,299 | 0.9% | 0/129 | As part of All for Unity, contested all regional ballots |
Year | Votes | Candidate | % | Seat | Finish |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2021 | 8,264 | George Galloway | 21.9% | Batley and Spen | 3rd |
2024 | 12,335 | 39.7% | Rochdale | 1st |
Year | Votes | Candidate | % | Position | Finish |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2024 | 2,378 | John Hamilton | 5.7% | Mayor of Lewisham [61] | 5th |
Year | Votes | Candidate | % | Position | Finish |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2024 | 8,396 | Waheed Akbar | 8.3% | Bedfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner | 4th |
Batley is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, West Yorkshire, England, south-west of Leeds, north-west of Wakefield and Dewsbury, south-east of Bradford and north-east of Huddersfield, in the Heavy Woollen District. In 2011, the population was 48,730.
Batley and Spen is a constituency in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. The current MP is Kim Leadbeater, a Labour politician, elected in a 2021 by-election by a 323-vote margin. The seat has returned Labour MPs since the 1997 general election.
Tracy Lynn Brabin is a British politician who has served as the Mayor of West Yorkshire since the office was established on 10 May 2021. She previously was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Batley and Spen from 2016 to 2021 under the Labour and Co-operative banner.
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A by-election took place on 29 February 2024 in the UK Parliament constituency of Rochdale following the death of Labour MP Sir Tony Lloyd. The winner was George Galloway of the Workers Party of Britain who received 40% of the vote and overturned a 9,668 vote Labour majority at the 2019 general election. The turnout was 39.7%, compared to a 60.1% turnout in the constituency at the last general election.
Whereas I'm very clear. As a father of six children, I'm socially conservative. I don't want my children taught the kind of things Labour wants to teach them in schools.