How does Poplar & Limehouse candidate George Galloway fit into the spectrum of Muslim politics?

There’s a will o’ the wisp quality to George Galloway. His views and aims are almost impossible to divine beyond the superficial level. Trace the records of his utterances and writings back even a few years, and which gee-gee GG is riding (or even what sport he is at) remains an enigma, a vain attempt to lasso ether.

Some (like his fixer Ron McKay) call life with Gorgeous George ‘just great fun’, but the deadly seriousness of some Gallowayisms would contradict that. Referring to the sensitive situation in Pakistan at one point, he wrote:

‘Politics is too important to be left to petty squabbling politicians. Democracy is a means, not an end in itself…’

In a UK context, of course, he continually demands an end to the sham of the current Parliamentary system in favour of much greater democracy for ordinary people – and the ordinary people he has chosen to speak for are Britain’s Muslims. But what sort of Islam does Galloway claim to represent?

In his old constituency of Bethnal Green & Bow (before the Boundaries Commission helpfully created Poplar & Limehouse for him to fight instead) is the East London Mosque, a hotbed of Islamist fundamentalism and centre of the hardline Islamist group Islamic Federation of Europe (IFE). The IFE is centred at this mosque; it was the subject of a Dispatches programme (see Youtube clips) on 1st March 2010, in which the programme-makers’ contention was that Islamists were creating a power base in Tower Hamlets from which to expand. That the IFE works in this manner in the East End is hard to deny. Journalist and author Nick Ryan told The Slog earlier this week:

“It’s what they call village politics. You get all the key post-holders, infiltrate all the right community committees, win the local wards one by one. It’s not just about voting, it’s about ensuring you have real power”.

In the years since Galloway’s stunning 2005 victory, this has been a very effective strategy for Muslim Candidates in general and GG’s Respect Party in particular. In the last London Assembly elections, it came second in the borough with nearly a quarter of the vote…pushing both Tories and Lib Dems into a poor third and fourth place. There remain doubts about how ‘clean’ East End local politics really are: ballot stuffing via fiddled postal votes is commonplace. Even so, this is a Party working an unfair electoral system to full advantage.

But is George himself an Islamist? Well, his Bengali supporters in 2005 tended to get into fights with Islamists, but today the situation is less clear. Galloway himself continues on his ethereal path saying
“inshallah” [God willing] and “alhamduillah” [praise be to God] and ending whistle-stop meetings with “salaam aleikoum, brother”.

Yet Galloway was allegedly recorded some years ago saying in private that “Without the Islamic Federation of Europe’s support, I would not be in Parliament”. The IFE is, very clearly, an Islamist organisation.

At one point, Galloway’s entourage let rumours develop that The Georgeous One had converted to Islam. This turned out (we think) to be untrue. Either way, there is a major mismatch between GG’s avowed pro-abortion choice, pro-Gay, pro-Feminist stance, and the diametrically opposed views held by the majority of Islamic voters in the UK. In some Islamic States (for example, Iran) Galloway could be beheaded for even suggesting that homosexuality should be legalised.

Despite this, George Galloway has been taken to Bangladesh on several occasions (to meet the major power-brokers there) by leader of the Respect Group on Tower Hamlets Council Mir Abdul.

It’s just as hard to tell what stable he was jockeying for in relation to Iraq, and the toppling of Saddam Hussein. During the libel case he successfully brought against the Daily Telegraph, George testified that he had always “abhorred Saddam Hussein as a bestial dictator”, but these weren’t the sentiments he seemed to be expressing on film in Iraq before the War. His abhorrence for Saddam was expressed in a Courtroom in support of a hefty libel award (which he won), and on Al-Jazeera television after the War he did display the same awareness of his particular audience when he said:

“I am still a member of Parliament and was re-elected five times. On the last occasion I was re-elected despite all the efforts made by the British government, the Zionist movement and the newspapers and news media which are controlled by Zionism.”

I doubt if the voters of Poplar & Limehouse (outside the heavily Islamic areas transferred to it by the Boundaries Commission) would take that kind of conspiracy allegation seriously – although the line would’ve played well in Blackburn, a seat with a very large Muslim population which GG was considering very seriously as his next jump, before he decided not to look the Poplar gift-horse in the mouth.

The only conclusion it’s possible to reach with any degree of comfort based on these facts is that George is a Catholic Gallowayist. A number of Eastenders interviewed by The Slog over the last few days have insisted that the wannabe MP for Poplar & Limehouse is using Muslims – as they in turn are using him. And this kind of mutual benefit is what many folks think politics is all about.

In the next episode, we will look at what end this use of support bases might have in sight.