Who can forget George Galloway of the Respect party winning Bradford West in a by-election after running a foul sectarian campaign back in 2012? And his tweet saying “shattered but happy after the Blackburn triumph?”
The 2015 General Election’s brightest spot was Naz Shah’s defeating him and telling him off for running a further disgusting sectarian campaign. Shah’s back story includes a forced marriage and Galloway’s agent was doubting this on the grounds that if mother and other witnesses attended a forced marriage, it wasn’t forced!
Shah comes from a disability rights background and is an eloquent speaker.
It was Shah’s “anti-Zionist” remarks that kicked off the whole Ken Livingstone debacle on antisemitism and Shah, whose apology seemed sincere, really emerged with the most credit, certainly compared to Livingstone, Corbyn and Shami Chakrabati and her whitewash of antisemitism in the Labour Party.
Now Salma Yaqoob, former leader of Galloway’s Respect party, is running against her in the General Election. Yaqoob lives in Birmingham, has tried to get into the Labour Party and was refused and now, it seems, wants to split the left vote in Bradford West.
Yaqoob broke with Galloway over his rape remarks vis-a-vis Julian Assange. She has a feminist streak and is no Islamist. But why Bradford West when Birmingham has its own set of problems and a sizable Muslim population? Also she was campaigning for Labour a week ago.
