UK Jewish leaders call anti-Israel Galloway’s election victory a ‘dark day’

The Board of Deputies of British Jews, the largest Jewish community organization in the UK, calls veteran anti-Israel politician George Galloway’s victory in the Rochdale by-election yesterday “a dark day” for the UK’s Jewish community.

“George Galloway is a demagogue and conspiracy theorist who has brought the politics of division and hate to every place he has ever stood for Parliament,” it says in a statement.

Galloway, 69, swept to victory in Thursday’s contest, winning almost 40% of the vote in the parliamentary seat of Rochdale, a town in northern England with a big Muslim minority.

In his victory speech, he took aim at Keir Starmer, the leader of the main opposition Labour Party, who according to opinion polls is likely to become Britain’s prime minister at the general election this year.

“Keir Starmer, this is for Gaza,” Galloway said. “You have paid, and you will pay, a high price for the role that you have played in enabling, encouraging and covering for the catastrophe presently going on in occupied Palestine in the Gaza Strip.”

Labour said Galloway only won because the party pulled its support for its candidate, Azhar Ali, for suggesting Israel was complicit in Hamas’s slaughter in southern Israel on Oct. 7, which saw terrorists kill around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and take about 250 others hostage.

“Galloway only won because Labour didn’t stand a candidate,” Starmer said. “Obviously we will put up a first-class candidate, a unifier, before the voters in Rochdale at the general election.”