George Came, and Went. (But not to the Afro-Caribbean Centre.)

By our count, roughly 80-100 people turned up for the Galloway event. In the end, it seemed a bit of an anti-climax. It was not at the (Afro-Caribbean) Community Centre. Apparently, the booking was suddenly cancelled on the day of the event. He knows who was behind the decision, “the mayor was behind it”.

He reflected upon the change of leadership and how he had welcomed the ascent of a Muslim woman to the mayoralty, unfortunately, he reflected, “things have got worse”. We can only concur.

He opened with a familiar theme; the west is always wrong. And Sunak and Starmer are responsible for launching “yet another war against another Arab country”.

He asked rhetorically, “What did Yemen do to deserve this?”. Apparently, they did not engage in state-sponsored piracy on the high seas, they were protecting Palestinians. They were not opening another front at the behest of the Iranians, they were trying to get aid into Gaza, by imposing “economic sanctions” on international shipping. The actions of the Yemeni Houthi leadership seemed to draw the approval of the crowd.

He heaped praise upon the organisers of the event, “Newham independent group are the beginning of a revolt” though he did perhaps lapse into hyperbole when he added that it “will spread throughout the whole country”.

We were reminded of his visit to Newham in 2013 because we thought that that was when the “revolution began”! But then, you cannot have too many revolutions.

Back to the main theme of his talk. It was the same old tired story. The Zionists are committing genocide. If there were no Jews in the region, there wouldn’t be any problems. 

He was not above throwing in a familiar, and highly emotive trope calculated to raise the hackles of his audience.

“This Zionist gang, led by Netanyahu will not stop until they have destroyed Al Aksa itself. They will not stop until they have driven Muslims and the Palestinian people from the whole city of Jerusalem, so what they call the Temple Mount (mumbles)…they are determined, be sure of this, remember, you heard it here, they are determined to destroy Al Aksa”.

The failure of the “350 million Arabs and the 1.6 billion Muslims” to adequately support the Palestinian cause, (he states deliver aid, but the sub-text clearly get rid of Israel) is because their leaders are the same as the leaders in Newham. We are not sure how often Mayor Fiaz has been compared to MBS or Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, but you live and learn. Reflecting upon the leaders of Newham and the Arab world; “They are people who care nothing about the people they are there to represent and care everything about their positions”. 

“They’ve got money for many things, but not for keeping the streets clean.”

But back to the main thrust of his speech. His criticism of Sunak extended to the latter’s support to Ukraine, or as he termed it “the crooks of Kiev”.  His apparent support for Russia alongside his appearances on RT suggests that he might have something of a blind spot for the kleptocracy which replaced the Soviet Union. 

He mixed distressing and highly emotive anecdotes with opinions masquerading as facts. Swinging back to the UK, he informed the audience that they were “not free, it is an illusion”. Of course, the way to be free is to join with Galloway. “Democracy is an illusion”, which was a bit rich given the nefarious autocratic regimes that Galloway has supported, (Syria, Iraq, Iran, Russia, China).

It was with some irony that we noted the following remarks. Galloway was critical of those who are voted into power and feel that they have a right to remain there, “they are voted in but come out twice the men as they went in” (referring to their girth). This famous supporter of the Palestinians clearly was not able to see what was happening in Qatar and Ramallah. 

Here is Abbas. There certainly seems to be substantially more of him now.

Before succeeding Arafat … and here he is now.

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His net worth is estimated to be in the region of $100 million, acquired since he won his first and only election as head of the Palestinian Authority. However, his personal fortune pales beside that of the leaders of Hamas.

Abu Marzuk, a senior Hamas political leader who heads its “international relations office,” is worth $3 billion.

Khaled Marshal is said to be worth $4 billion.

Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the Hamas Politbureau is said to be worth in excess of $4 billion.

By comparison, Yahya Sinwar has an extremely modest personal fortune amounting (according to the BBC) to merely $1-3 million. Sinwar was the architect of the 7th October massacre.

It’s funny that George didn’t see fit to mention any of these gentlemen. We can only ponder why.

Err, that’s about it. Here are some photos from the event courtesy of Newham Independents and The Workers Party.

One tit-bit that emerged from the meeting was that The Workers Party intends to stand 50 candidates in the general election. Of course, first they have to find 50 people who will stand. The reason Corbyn is unlikely to stand for Mayor of London was revealed, it seems that Galloway is going to throw his hat in the ring, again. So, we know who Newham Independents will be campaigning for in May. He is doubtless hoping to improve upon the 1.4% of the vote he obtained in 2016.

The Workers Party display their candidates and new campaign poster.