Galloway says Respect ‘hunting’ Labour
George Galloway, leader of the left-wing Respect Party, today said his party would appeal to thousands of disgruntled Labour voters who believed Labour had abandoned ordinary people.
And he launched a stinging attack on Tony Blair and his government, calling him a “liar” with a spin machine that the Nazi propaganda master Joseph Goebbels “would be proud of”.
Galloway, until last week an independent MP after he was expelled from the Labour Party, said Respect would stand up for the people Labour used to represent – “the poor the pensioners, the students, the immigrants.
“We stand for those people who New Labour used to represent … We believe in the things that Labour used to believe in, that most Labour people want to believe in.”
He added: “This is why I say we are hunting New Labour.”
But despite the ‘Old Labour’ approach, Galloway insisted there was nothing “old hat” about his party’s policies.
He also accused Labour – and the other parties – of failing to prevent the decline of British manufacturing.
And the fact that corporations paid less tax than they had under Margaret Thatcher “tells you all you need to know about New Labour”.
The poorest 20 per cent of society were worse off than they had been in 1997, while the number of billionaires had increased 150 per cent.
Mr Blair should “hang his head in shame”, he said.
Mr Galloway said the media often liked to caricature Respect as “only being interested in the war”.
He acknowledged the war was only one issue among many, but added: “In the way that Mount Everest is only a mountain, it is an issue that looms large across the election, because the war showed that we have a government of liars who will stop at nothing, nothing when they have decided on a course of action to fool whoever it’s necessary to fool to get their way.”
