Demagogues like Galloway feast on human misery, but Labour must stay calm

When George Galloway last made it into the House of Commons in a by-election, Labour MPs were given some advice by their whips. Don’t engage with him. Don’t try to take him on in the Chamber. You will lose.

This wasn’t just because the party had a dim view of the debating abilities of its elected members (although there’s probably something in that). It was because Galloway is a demagogue. Trying to beat him with rational argument wouldn’t work because that is not how he appeals to people: he plays on prejudice and fear. The way he behaved in the 2015 Bradford by-election underlined that.

He accused his opponent Naz Shah of lying about her forced marriage, waving a copy of what he said was her nikah, the document certifying her marriage, and claiming it said she was 16 and a half at the time of the wedding, not 15 as she had claimed. Shah later won the seat at the general election a year later, underlining what Labour MPs and officials are trying to cling to today: that by-elections are very different to generals.

But the pain of the Israel-Hamas conflict will still be deeply visceral come the general election, whether it takes place in May or later in the year. Galloway and other demagogues like him feast on fresh human misery and old prejudices. His victory in Rochdale shows how seriously all parties have to take the threat of this kind of politics. He is a creature of the left, steeped in Labour tradition. He was a Labour MP for 16 years, expelled in 2003 for bringing the party into disrepute by claiming Tony Blair had lied to the armed forces and suggesting that troops should “refuse to obey illegal orders”.

Even then, many members stood by him, including Tony Benn and Tam Dalyell. They would presumably say that the journey he has taken since then means Galloway is a very different beast. Still, in 2014, Galloway and Gordon Brown united on stage at a No to independence event to try to defeat what they saw as the more dangerous populist promise of the SNP that Scotland should go it alone.

He has made life miserable for more Labour candidates than just Shah: just ask Kim Leadbeater, who stood in Batley and Spen, the seat once held by her murdered sister Jo Cox, in 2021. Leadbeater ended up having to have police escorts while campaigning after intimidation from some who were believed to be Galloway supporters, who was also fighting for the seat, although the politician himself condemned all physical intimidation. Leadbeater won, but still talks today about how she and her colleagues do not feel safe.

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Politics has become so much more polarised now, to the extent that within the mainstream parties, we find politicians also feasting on conspiracy theories and trying to win votes by appealing to the darker sides of voters’ characters, not the better versions of themselves. It means it is much easier for Galloway to operate because he can meld into the messy wider picture.

We hear repeated complaints from MPs about the threats and harassment they face but, too often, their colleagues are busily stirring up ill-feeling and indulging in a culture war of their own. Or their leaders refuse to try to push difficult debates into more civilised territory, running in the other direction from a field they say is “too toxic” without reflecting on their own power and responsibility to take the poison away and prevent others making it worse.

Labour now has a choice. It has to take the threat posed by this kind of politics seriously. But how? Does it try, as its ex-candidate Azhar Ali did with increasing fervour in Rochdale, to pick up some of the themes that Galloway exploits so well? Or does it take a calmer approach? Many in the party will be saying today that this result shows the party now cannot rely on its Muslim voters, many of whom are hurt by the way Keir Starmer has approached Israel’s assault on Hamas and the tens of thousands of deaths in Gaza.

Internal polling, though, might suggest otherwise: I’ve seen analysis suggesting that if there was a 10-point uniform national swing from the Conservatives to Labour, Starmer’s party would need more than 55 per cent of voting Muslims to switch to a third party or not vote to make Labour lose any of the seats it currently holds. The analysis continues that 77 per cent of voting Muslims voted Labour in 2019, so a drop to 45 per cent when the national swing is going the other way would be “dramatic”. In other words, it might be better to stay calm and not engage Galloway, just as the party has had to do repeatedly over the past 30 years.

Isabel Hardman is assistant editor of The Spectator