A left-wing United Kingdom politician has registered a landslide win in a parliamentary by-election on a platform promising to advocate for Gaza.

George Galloway won the seat in the northern English town of Rochdale after a fractious campaign, which saw the Labour Party withdraw support from its candidate over his anti-Israel comments.

Galloway won 12,335 votes compared with 6,638 for second-placed David Tully, an independent candidate. The former Labour candidate, Azhar Ali, came fourth after the opposition party pulled its support after he was recorded espousing conspiracy theories about Israel. Turnout was low at 39.7 percent.

“Keir Starmer, this is for Gaza,” Galloway said on Friday, referring to the Labour leader who initially refused to call for a ceasefire in Gaza where more than 30,000 people have been killed in the past five months of Israeli bombardment.

Late on Friday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who supports Israel’s war, said the election of Galloway to a parliamentary seat was “beyond alarming” and accused him of dismissing Hamas’s October 7 attack.

  • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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    9 months ago

    He is not saying he supports Russia. He is saying that the 2008 statement to include Ukraine into Nato was very provocative. Especially since Nato previously guaranteed that Ukraine would not become a member.

    This is extremely difficult to understand for people who only consume liberal media where Imperialism is good and we were the good guys in Afghanistan. It does not equate saying “Russia good”. It means “Hey guys maybe there’s a reason why Russia is attacking Ukraine, maybe we can promise to not include them in Nato and then they will stop, because they have said multiple times before the attack that this Nato expansion is not something they’re comfortable with and we promised them in the past we would not do it”.

    In 2008, NATO began the same trick with Ukraine, grooming it for eventual membership, but by now alarm bells were ringing in Moscow. Already in 2007 Putin had spoken out bluntly in opposition to those who wanted to establish a unipolar world. He objected to NATO enlargement and its planting of ballistic missile defences in eastern Europe.

    If you want to understand that position here is a clear video about it

    • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      The whole of the article is word for word the Kremlin peddled nonsense that you’d expect from a tankie. Whether you agree with it or not isn’t really the point but rather that that’s literally what people call tankie stuff these days.

      where imperialism is good

      I’m against Russian invasion though

      • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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        9 months ago

        Same. I’m also against Nato expanding though. Everyone creating their own giant war block is a recipe for ww3.

        • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          I’m not if it is by countries willfully joining it. Hell, I was for very long time against Finland joining NATO but Russia had to be Russia. Would you have been fine with Russia attacking us to prevent us from joining? Should be the country’s own decision, not decided by Russia (or the US).

          Tbh this is a bit off-topic, but I don’t mind

          • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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            9 months ago

            We promised Russia not to expand Nato eastward. Which gets very well explained with multiple examples in the video I linked earlier.

            The reason Russia is invading is literally the Nato expansion, they directly cited that. They even offered to stop and retreat if a treaty would be signed that Ukraine would not enter into Nato. Boris Johnson then personally went to Ukraine and told Zelensky to refuse because they would rather throw Ukrainians into the meatgrinder so they can place ballistic missles on the border.

            The problem is that you are still under the assumption that Nato never attacks. But it does, as we’ve seen in libya Nato is not a defensive organization they steal people’s oil and natural resources. Imperialism

            Now we have Russia joining with China and Iran to create their own big war block. Just like how everyone got dragged into WW2.

            • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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              9 months ago

              If Ukraine wanted to join they should’ve been allowed to. It’s their choice, not Russia’s. What are they, some sort of Russian vassal or something? It’s insane to justify a foreign invasion on the grounds that a country isn’t following a foreign policy that you’d want them to.

              I wonder why they wanted to join… And why Finland joined immediately after Russia attacked Ukraine.

              • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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                9 months ago

                As you keep avoiding, and the main point, Nato promised Russia to not do that.

                If Russia would start putting Ballistic missiles in Mexico would that be fine with you?

                • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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                  9 months ago

                  I just think it’s irrelevant. It doesn’t justify an invasion! There’s been a pinky promise after German unification 30 years ago (no actual treaties, nothing concrete) (E: even that level of assurance is debated) and that’s being used as justification over attacking Ukraine and annexing parts of it. Ridiculous. Not to mention Russia pinky promised not to attack Ukraine and they broke that. What now, is the US justified in attacking them? Of course not.

                  If Russia would start putting Ballistic missiles in Mexico would that be fine with you?

                  Sure. Would you say USA was justified in invading them over that? I wouldn’t. Not to mention USA invading if Mexico wanted to seek closer ties to Russia or China or whoever. That’d be an obvious violation of Mexican right of self-determination and imperialistic behaviour from USA.