George Galloway says he will run candidate against Angela Rayner and claims he could cost Labour many seats – UK politics live | Politics
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- March 4, 2024
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Galloway says he will run candidate against Angela Rayner at general election, and claims he could cost Labour many seats
Galloway claims the fact that journalists have turned up for his al fresco press conference show that they realise he is not just a one-off, and that he represents a large number of people.
He says Angela Rayner has a majority of just 3,000. But there are 15,000 people in her constituency who support his point of view. He says he will put up a candidate against her – either a Workers Party of Britain candidate, or someone with the same point of view.
And he says there are many other constituencies that are similar,
There are many constituencies in London … Bethnal Green in the heart of the City of London, in Birmingham, in other parts of the West Midlands, in north-west England, in the towns around Rochdale, Oldham, Blackburn, Burnley, Nelson, Bury.
We’ll be putting candidates up in all these places and we will either win or we’ll make sure that Keir Starmer doesn’t win.
Key events
Here are some more comments from peers speaking in the Lords debates on “rule of law” amendments to the Rwanda bill.
Lady D’Souza, a crossbencher and former Lords speaker, said the bill was a “legal fiction” because it was “writing into law a demonstrably false statement that Rwanda is a safe country to receive asylum seekers and thereby forcing all courts to treat Rwanda as a safe country, despite clear findings of fact”.
Labour’s Shami Chakrabarti told peers that the opposition wanted the bill changed to ensure compliance with international law.
Ken Clarke, the Tory former chancellor, said he was opposed to the bill, and hoped it would be challenged in the courts. He said:
I can’t recall a precedent in my time where a government of any complexion has produced a bill which asserts facts, a matter of facts, facts to be fact, and then goes on to say that this should be regarded legally as a fact interminably until and unless the bill is changed, and then goes on to say that no court should even consider any question of the facts being otherwise.
It’s no good blaming the Human Rights Act, I do not think it probable that the British courts were going to come to any other conclusion.
And if the Labour party allow this bill to go through, I very much hope there will be a legal challenge, and the supreme court will consider it obviously objectively again.” would ensure compliance with the rule of law.
Michael Howard, the former Conservative party leader and former home secretary, told peers in the Rwanda bill debate that the supreme court was not entitled to rule that Rwanda was not safe as a country, because that was a decision for government. He said all the government was doing with its bill was restoring its right to take this decision for itself. He explained:
In resolving to decide this issue for itself, the supreme court was trespassing on the province of the executive and, if there is any breach of the principle of separation of powers in this matter, it is not the government that is guilty, it is the supreme court.
All the government is doing in this bill is to reassert its responsibility, as traditionally understood by the principle of the separation of powers, for executive decision-making. And there is a reason why it is the government, and not the courts, which has that responsibility. It is because it is the government, and not the courts, which is accountable. The courts is accountable to no one – they pride themselves on that.
But accountability is at the heart of democracy. That is why the government is fully entitled to bring forward this bill and why much of the criticism which is directed at it for doing so is, for the reasons I have given, fundamentally misconceived.
Putri Gayatri Pertiwi standing behind him. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images
In the House of Lords peers have started their debate on the report stage of the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration). The list of amendments is here, and peers are currently debating amendment 1, a cross-party amendment intended to ensure the bill’s compliance with domestic and international law, and other “rule of law” amendments.
Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, is speaking now. He defends the case of underlining the importance of complying with international law, because he says international law is there to stop governments doing things that are wrong.
The Alba MP Neale Hanvey has said he was happy to sponsor George Galloway (see 2.43pm) when Galloway took his seat in the Commons. This is from Georgia Roberts from BBC Scotland.
Alba’s @JNHanvey says he was happy to introduce Galloway in Commons:
“Refusing to support any new member is not only a parliamentary discourtesy, it is an insult to the electorate and their democratic voice. Such schoolyard behaviour has no place in a functioning democracy.”
— Georgia Roberts (@GeorgiaZemoreyR) March 4, 2024
Alba’s @JNHanvey says he was happy to introduce Galloway in Commons:
“Refusing to support any new member is not only a parliamentary discourtesy, it is an insult to the electorate and their democratic voice. Such schoolyard behaviour has no place in a functioning democracy.”
Kendall says ‘hidden unemployment’ caused by people being ill takes real joblessness rate to 20% in some places
Liz Kendall’s speech this morning was described by Labour as her first major speech in her role since she became shadow work and pensions secretary last September. But anyone expecting new policy, or at least fresh thinking on welfare issues, will have been disappointed. In this respect it was a blank sheet.
But some of the rhetoric was interesting, and it did include a compelling critique of the government.
We are the only country in the G7 whose employment rate hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels.
The reality is, increasing numbers of people are leaving the labour market and no longer even looking for work.
This parliament has seen the highest increase in economic inactivity for 40 years.
And the number of people out of work because of long term sickness is at an all-time high.
2.8 million people not in work because of poor health.
The over 50s: mostly women, struggling with bad hips, knees and joints; often caring for elderly parents at the same time.
Young people with mental health problems; many lacking basic qualifications.
With all these problems far worse in Northern towns and cities, which the Conservatives promised to ‘level up’ but have once again born the brunt of their economic failure.
In places like Blackburn, Sunderland, Middlesborough and Hull, including these ‘hidden unemployed’ takes the official unemployment rate from 5 to 20 per cent.
This is unacceptable.
For all the Tory claims about being tough on benefits, over the next five years there will be 600,000 more people on incapacity and disability benefits and these benefits will cost an extra £33bn.
That’s more than our day-to-day expenditure on defence.
The Office for Budget Responsibility says the sustained rise in health-related worklessness is holding back growth and living standards while putting ever greater pressure on the public finances.
Yet all we get from the Tories is more of the same.
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She said that 200,000 people aged 24 or younger are out of work due to ill health – double the number a decade ago – and she listed Labour policies that would help them. The plans include: specialist mental health support in every school, 1,000 new career advisers in schools, technical excellence colleges for skills training, a growth and skills levy replacing the much-criticised apprenticeship levy, employment advisers in Young Futures hubs and and overhaul of the access to work support scheme for young disabled people.
This is our commitment to young people.
We will invest in you and help you build a better future, with all the chances and choices this brings.
But in return for these new opportunities, you will have a responsibility to take up the work or training that’s on offer.
Under our changed Labour party, if you can work there will be no option of a life on benefits.
Not just because the British people believe rights should go hand in hand with responsibilities.
But because being unemployed or lacking basic qualifications when you’re young can harm your job prospects and wages for the rest of your life.
This isn’t good enough for young people or for our country.
Unlike the Tories, Labour will not let a generation of young people go off track before they’ve even begun.
This was almost identical to the sort of language used by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown when they launched their new deal for working people before the 1997 election. But under current rules there are conditions attached to benefits – healthy people cannot just choose “a life on benefits” without having to show they are looking for work etc – and Kendall did not propose any changes to the way sanctions work.
Galloway says he will run candidate against Angela Rayner at general election, and claims he could cost Labour many seats
Galloway claims the fact that journalists have turned up for his al fresco press conference show that they realise he is not just a one-off, and that he represents a large number of people.
He says Angela Rayner has a majority of just 3,000. But there are 15,000 people in her constituency who support his point of view. He says he will put up a candidate against her – either a Workers Party of Britain candidate, or someone with the same point of view.
And he says there are many other constituencies that are similar,
There are many constituencies in London … Bethnal Green in the heart of the City of London, in Birmingham, in other parts of the West Midlands, in north-west England, in the towns around Rochdale, Oldham, Blackburn, Burnley, Nelson, Bury.
We’ll be putting candidates up in all these places and we will either win or we’ll make sure that Keir Starmer doesn’t win.
Galloway says Rishi Sunak is using protest as a wedge issue.
He says Sunak is trying to force Keir Starmer to either stand up for the right to protest, or to defend the crackdown being planned by the government.
The next election will be about Muslims, he claims, and about the taking away of civil liberties in this country.
Galloway is now taking questions.
He says his first speech will be about Gaza. He says genocide is taking place there. He says journalists do not accept that. But if he had been standing for election in 1940 and 1941, he would have been entitled to campaign on the Holocaust, he says.
George Galloway says Commons has declined since he was elected in 1980s
George Galloway is giving a press conference now outside St Stephen’s entrance at the House of Commons.
He says he has served longer in the Commons that Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer put together.
He says staff at the Commons have been welcoming to him, even if other MPs have not. But none of them have behaved badly.
He says the place has declined since he was first elected in 1987. In those days there were 100 MPs in the Commons who were prominent “figures in the land”. But that is not the case now, he says.
He says he hopes to speak on Wednesday, either in PMQs or in the budget debate.
He says he has a lot to say. He says the country is at a dangerous point, perhaps similar to what it faced in 1940. But there is no Churchill figure to remedy the situation.
The country is facing problems like child poverty. Rochdale used to be one of the richest towns in the country. He says he wants to make it great again.
In particular, he wants to save the football club, he says.
He wants to reopen the open air market. And he wants to bring a maternity unit to the town. He says it is a town where you cannot be born, you cannot die, and you cannot be locked up.
He says Rochdale should have its own postcode. At the moment it has an Oldham postcade. But the letter R is available; the town should get it, he says.
George Galloway takes seat in Commons
George Galloway has taken his seat in the Commons (a term used to mean that he has sworn the oath of allegiance, and as a result is entitled to take his seat – like all MPs taking their seat, he never actually sat down, and he left the chamber straight afterwards).
He was escorted into the Commons by Sir Peter Bottomley, the Conservative MP who is father of the house, and Neale Hanvey, the leader of the Alba party (Alex Salmond’s fringe Scottish nationalist party), who were acting as his sponsors.
Scrap plans to scan accounts of benefit claimants or risk new scandal, MPs told
Plans for automated surveillance of millions of bank accounts to catch welfare cheats should be scrapped, campaigners have said, warning the approach risks a repeat of the Post Office Horizon scandal. Robert Booth has the story.
George Osborne, the Tory former chancellor, claimed in his podcast last week that there has been “friction” between No 10 and the Treasury in the run-up to the budget. And in the Sunday Times yesterday Tim Shipman wrote:
There have, however, been broader tensions between Hunt and No 10. “Rishi doesn’t think Jeremy is as clever as him, and his team think Hunt isn’t imaginative enough,” a Whitehall source said. “Hunt is resentful that he doesn’t get invited to the morning meetings and that he cut £22 billion in tax last year and he got no credit, because No 10 immediately started talking up tax cuts this year.”
Hunt had privately talked up plans to make a major move to make housing more affordable, but Sunak vetoed changes to stamp duty. Now, it is understood, the budget contains no major measures to appeal to younger voters struggling to get on the housing market.
One official said: “Jeremy’s just a bit absent really. He isn’t really in the room for the big decisions and spends most of the time tweeting about Surrey.” Another said: “We have no strategy because 10 and 11 don’t talk: 10 talks up tax cuts and then 11 has to talk them down. Honestly, it’s a mess.”
At the No 10 lobby briefing, asked if Rishi Sunak thought that Jeremy Hunt was timid, or lacked imagination, the PM’s spokesperson replied:
Absolutely not. The chancellor is working very closely with the prime minister to deliver our plan for the economy and obviously the chancellor will be setting out further measures in line with that on Wednesday at the budget.
Russia’s leak of a conversation by German military officers involving details of British operations on the ground in Ukraine is “worrying on a number of levels”, Tobias Ellwood, the former chairman of the Commons defence committee, has said.
Dan Sabbagh and Kate Connolly have written about the leak here.
Ellwood told the Today programme this morning:
This interception and the leak of military planning discussion is worrying on a number of decibel levels.
Firstly, why the obvious, why wasn’t basic concept protocols followed? But it also revealed a tension, I think, between senior German military who want to see Taurus dispatched and the German Chancellor, who seems increasingly focused on his political survival rather than what’s best for the continent. And it’s also how this plays out in Germany.
At the No 10 lobby briefing this morning the PM’s spokesperson said investigating the leak was “a matter for Germany”, which remained “a very close Nato ally”. As PA Media reports, the spokesperson declined to comment on UK operations in Ukraine, beyond saying there was a “small number of troops” providing protection for British diplomats and training for Ukrainian forces.
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