Until George Galloway’s Rochdale byelection win, few may have taken notice of the Workers party beyond those intrigued by the minutiae of the far left. Others may have flicked through some of its literature, such as “Ukraine and the origins of the special military operation”, a 44-page pamphlet using Vladimir Putin’s term for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and echoing Kremlin talking points on the conflict. But the win last week has suddenly catapulted it to national prominence as a vehicle for challenges that could deprive Labour of votes in scores of constituencies where anger at Keir Starmer’s stance on Gaza may now have a focus.
In some cases the challengers will be Workers party candidates attempting to piggyback on Galloway’s success. Galloway’s first speech in London since becoming an MP again will be not in parliament but in Lewisham on Tuesday in support of his party’s candidate for borough mayor. In other cases it will be independents backed by the party. Tasnime Akunjee, a lawyer who represented the family of Shamima Begum, is backed by the Workers party in a challenge to Labour’s Rushanara Ali in Tower Hamlets. The party is also supporting Andrew Feinstein, a former ANC MP in South Africa, in his challenge to Keir Starmer in Holborn and St Pancras, although Galloway said he may yet be moved to “a more winnable constituency”. Feinstein, who resigned from Labour in recent weeks, is considering standing but is currently engaged in consulting with local community groups. “Our party has doubled in the last two weeks and the number of people applying to be candidates has grown massively,” Galloway said, adding that most were former Labour members apart from “one or two further to the left”. While the Workers party originally thought it would stand about 50 candidates, it was now on course to field as many as 90, while Galloway said negotiations would take place with “well-placed independents”. “It’s our job to take chunks out of Labour, and it’s our intention to replace Labour,” he said. Formed in 2019 in an effort to pick up disaffected former Labour members who had supported Jeremy Corbyn, the Workers party drew on the support of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist), or CPGB-ML, a tiny Stalinist grouping that came with some personnel as well as links to China in particular.
CPGB-ML would later withdraw from the Workers party, and the latter has continued to recruit figures with slivers of support on Britain’s political fringes. Chris Williamson, the former Labour MP who was suspended from that party in a row over antisemitism and who now presents a show on Iran’s Press TV channel, joined last year. He is joint deputy leader along with Andy Hudd, a trade unionist who has represented Aslef members, and Peter Ford, a former British ambassador to Syria whose criticism of western states’ policy in the Middle East and hostility to Nato has found a home in the party. While Gaza has been the catalyst for the Galloway breakthrough and is likely to be a central rallying cry, the party is seeking to build a leftwing identity at odds with the supposed leftwing metropolitan elite behind Labour. A red, white and blue symbol in the shape of a cog combines a nod to patriotism and the notion of an industrial working class. On other foreign policy fronts, the party is starkly at odds with the UK political mainstream, and unafraid to publicise it. In the week that Galloway won in Rochdale, a Workers party delegation was taking part in the ‘World Festival of Youth’ in Russia. Though not a Workers party member, another key figure in Galloway’s orbit is James Giles, a London councillor who leads the Kingston Independent Residents Group and who was his campaign manager in Rochdale. Giles says there has been a spate of councils where independents have taken over as the main opposition. “Most of these people are on the left or are looking for a genuine left alternative, and also have a very strong anti-war belief,” he said. The alliance between the Workers party and independents could also be critical to the political fate of Corbyn, who faces a challenge in holding on to his Islington North seat. The former Labour leader would have been walking Galloway into the Commons chamber when the latter was sworn in as an MP but had forgotten he had a prior commitment, Galloway told the media on Monday, suppressing a smile. Giles said Galloway would “absolutely” be backing Corbyn in Islington, and the two men will be working together in parliament. • This article was amended on 6 March 2024 to clarify that Andrew Feinstein is considering standing in the Holborn and St Pancras constituency but is still consulting on this.