George Galloway: Right here’s why I’m going to court docket to problem a rigged election – phrases I by no means thought I might write about Britain

Postal votes used to make up a handful of votes in elections – now they comprise near half. And, in Batley and Spen, they had been all beneath the management of a Labour council which supported the Labour candidate. It stinks.

“George was matching Labour vote for vote, at one level he moved forward of them. Then an entire slew of votes arrived on the desk…” 

This testimony from a rival get together counting agent who witnessed the counting of votes on the Batley and Spen by-election is only a tiny pattern of the proof we will lead in our authorized motion to put aside the results of the election and drive a re-run of the competition. 

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To be clear, I’m NOT saying that I received the election, nonetheless much less that I’m sad with the gorgeous 22% vote share which we achieved from a standing begin in simply 4 weeks in a constituency the place I used to be incessantly, ubiquitously, described as an “outsider”. 

The conduct of the depend, whereas egregious, suspicious, damning, just isn’t the primary 

thrust of my court docket problem, but it surely does put the tin-hat on a contest so Orwellian as scarcely to be believed except you had been there. 

Although custom stipulates a recount of the votes the place the profitable margin is shut, significantly lower than 1% of the vote, this was denied by the Returning Officer. It was requested by each the Tory runner-up and on my own. It was denied with out motive. 

The “slew of votes” which tuned up at nighttime had been “postal votes”, although they didn’t arrive by publish, however by open black plastic bin luggage in unmarked vehicles with no police presence, completely unsealed, unprotected from potential contamination. This, within the highest profile by-election in a few years. 

In 2001, simply four% of the votes solid in Batley and Spen had been postal votes. In 2019, it had gone as much as 21%. On this by-election in 2021, it was an astonishing 42%, explaining the unusual sensation of getting received the election comprehensively on the day and but shedding it at nighttime. 

Leaving 16,000 votes within the tender care of a Labour native authority in a by-election during which the destiny of the Labour chief was at stake was all the time a triumph of hope over the bitter expertise of all those that have fought Labour in its citadels previously. They may educate Tammany Corridor a trick or two. 

Postal voting was for individuals who had been sick, serving abroad, or housebound. Postal voting on demand, as I identified in parliament over 15 years in the past, has change into a corrupt mechanism to rig elections. Phrases I by no means thought I might write in relation to my very own nation. 

However the stuff of my authorized motion begins lengthy earlier than that. 

A former pal and colleague of mine, Phil Woolas, was expelled from Parliament in 2010, his election victory –  by 103 votes – put aside, and he was disqualified from standing once more. His crime was the making of false statements in opposition to his Liberal Democrat opponent. 

Woolas’s offence pales into insignificance in comparison with what his get together did to me in 2021.

Photoshopped footage of me holding weapons within the presence of my young children, faux claims that I supported and was backed by the fascist assassin of the late Jo Cox MP, sister of my Labour opponent within the by-election, had been a every day occurence. Not a single MSM outlet even reported it.  

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Nearly each media outfit reported that Labour campaigners had been egged by my supporters. Not a single one reported minor with drug issues, with not the remotest connection to our marketing campaign, was then arrested for it. 

This media narrative of my bringing “divisiveness”, even “violence”, to the election marketing campaign was a gentle drumbeat, the sound-track to the by-election. But not solely was it false, it was an organised falsehood and was the very reverse of the reality.

 The photographic and video proof of our marketing campaign posters being torn down by Labour councillors is available, however was by no means reported by anybody. Ditto the video of Labour activists destroying our PA talking system. I’ll always remember the thin-lipped vanity of the activist who did it. The native police had been “too busy” to behave on it. 

This false narrative was set by the election-changing turning level of the marketing campaign. The haranguing of the Labour candidate by an anti-LGBT campaigner exterior the Medina Mosque.  

This ugly occasion has now became election-myth. And it was all co-ordinated by a Labour marketing campaign atop of which was a Blair-era spin-doctor flown-in from France to take cost. 

The person shouting at my Labour opponent – primarily about Kashmir earlier than turning to LGBT points – not solely had no connection to me, however had been bodily ejected from a rally of mine in Dudley in 2019. He had travelled from Birmingham to Batley and surprisingly discovered his option to the very mosque each she and I had been canvassing that afternoon. He has nothing to do with Batley, nothing to do with me, and but his sudden intervention within the marketing campaign undoubtedly turned the tide. 

He by no means talked about me, has acknowledged that his look had nothing to do with me, and the one individual in the entire encounter who undoubtedly knew him, a neighbouring Bradford Labour MP, stood laughing behind the Labour candidate all through the encounter. 

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Worse, a lot worse, the Labour candidate after the occasion mentioned on digital camera that I had “stood on the opposite facet of the street, laughing” throughout her ordeal.

This footage was endlessly performed on tv on newspaper web sites and was referenced by innumerable Labour figures all through the remainder of the marketing campaign and past. 

It was a giant fats lie. 

Not solely was I not on the opposite facet of the street laughing, I used to be on the identical facet of the street, 100 yards away and really removed from laughing. 

Importantly, I used to be on digital camera all through the occasion and all the foregoing could be and will probably be proved in court docket.

I knew on the on the spot the incident was occurring that it was a possible game-changer and really damaging to me. That is earlier than I knew it had been staged by a political enemy, who’d travelled 100 miles to do it, who’d needed to be thrown out of one among my occasions, who had travelled the nation harrassing Labourites on LGBTQ points, and who was recognized by no less than the Labour candidate’s minder. That is earlier than one of many largest “false-statements” in current electoral historical past was uttered by my opponent and went half-way around the world earlier than the reality may get its trousers on. 

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There’s way more, from the huge overspend on the Labour election marketing campaign, busting, maybe twice over, the allowable election expenditure, to the Labour Council (the identical one which counted the votes) spending scarce council cash eradicating 1000’s of my election posters three days earlier than polling day on illegal grounds, and on the very day yet one more Labour leaflet got here out headlined, “Galloway operating out of steam”. A lot, way more. 

If there’s any justice left on this land, this rigged election in Batley and Spen won’t stand.

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