🇬🇧🗳🏆 George Galloway becomes UK’s most successful political outsider

No one else knows just how to exploit Labour’s weak spots, with Rochdale by-election victory the third time he has scalped his former party.

George Galloway overturned a sizable Labour majority for the third time in his parliamentary career in the Rochdale by-election – triumphing with a 5,697 majority of his own.

With previous election victories behind him in Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005, and Bradford West in 2012, it means no single challenger has stolen as many seats from the major parties in England at by-elections since the Second World War.

In the Rochdale seat, the 69-year-old Scot’s 39.7 per cent vote share marks the best performance of a candidate not belonging to the Conservatives, Labour or Liberal Democrats/Liberals since 1945 – trumping Ukip’s 18.8 per cent at the party’s peak in 2015. It is also the first time an outsider has clinched the constituency.

Despite the election being in the national and international spotlight – Mr Galloway making Sir Keir Starmer’s fluctuating position on Gaza his main line of attack – the voters of Rochdale themselves were not, for the most part, stirred to participate.

The turnout of 39.7 per cent was the lowest ever recorded in the constituency. Out of just over 78,000 registered electors, Mr Galloway’s mandate stems from just 12,355, or 15.7 per cent, of them.

Rochdale is Mr Galloway’s first victory since then, as well as the first win for his own Workers Party of Britain.

The Rochdale result suggested widespread revolt against the main parties. Yet on polling day, most voters decided to steer clear of the chaos.

Labour withdrew its support from its candidate, Azhar Ali, after leaked recordings emerged in which he claimed Israel was complicit in Hamas’s Oct 7 attacks. The party subsequently suffered a swing of -43.9 per cent. Someone on a Labour ticket hasn’t come fourth since the 2019 Brecon and Radnorshire by-election.

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