Galloway’s Tricky Balancing Act
This is a guest post by tim
In his recent speech in Amman, Galloway boasted he has sat in the British Parliament for the last 20 years. That’s a bit like claiming you’ve sat on the London Eye for the last eight years, after visiting it occasionally.
Often absent through holidays and pressing “one man shows” George again skipped all the votes on the Embryology and Abortion bills going through Parliament in the last couple of days. This time though, it seems George wasn’t out of the country or out earning. I suspect he was trying to hold his “party” together.
What is left of Respect Renewal is a small clique of Trots and a diminishing number of far right Islamists based around Jamaat and the Muslim Brotherhood. Trying to reconcile the two is proving difficult for George.
When he was in the Labour Party he voted against the whip on numerous “conscience issues” including Abortion and Fertilisation. The Right To Life UK Group described him thus:
“In 1990 he opposed clauses aimed at legalising abortion on demand, with one doctor needed only to certify that the pregnancy has not exceeded 12 weeks. He also voted against abortion up to birth on various grounds, including handicap. He is also against the use of the human embryo for experiments and human cloning … He is completely opposed to euthanasia by omission and euthanasia by commission.”
Everyone knows George has strong views on Abortion
“I’m strongly against abortion. I believe life begins at conception and therefore unborn babies have rights. I think abortion is immoral.”I believe in god. I have to believe that the collection of cells has a soul”
And on the rest of the Embryology Bill
“And the proposals in the Embryo Research Bill before the House imminently blasphemes against the very idea of God. “
So why didn’t George vote?
The answer is simple. He didn’t want to alienate the last bits of left wing fig leaf hanging around his Offices.And it’s rumoured that an agreement was reached that George should not vote.
One of his supporters Andy Newman claimed yesterday.
“It is impossible to contemplate that any broad based party could be built that didn’t allow people to follow their religious convictions.”
When one bit of that party believes in abortion on demand, and one subscribes to a group believing that four male witnesses are required to testify to a rape, it must indeed be a difficult position.
So after years of lambasting everyone in Parliament who he disagrees with as cowards, Galloway disappears.
If his constituents want his views, they can get them when he’s being paid for them. Galloway has a Radio Show. They can tune in.
George has dropped out.
Comments
| 21 May 2008, 6:59 pm |
Before anyone points it out, I realise the Abortion Bills weren’t whipped,I was referring to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.
| 21 May 2008, 7:19 pm |
I expect the excuse will be something like “George has got some false consciousness on these issues”
I haven’t follow SU for a while, what’s the news from the Galloway toadies?
| 21 May 2008, 7:51 pm |
Talking about far-right Islamists, what *is* happening with Hassan Butt?
| 21 May 2008, 8:45 pm |
The reason is clear - Galloway’s personal belief on this matter doesn’t match the majority of his party, so he abstained as every other MP had the chance to do. Are you suggesting he should just take on board any idea that will get him more support? Not bending to popular opinion shows strength - something more politicians should have, wouldn’t you agree?
| 21 May 2008, 9:04 pm |
Galloway IS his party. What he says, goes.
The SWP challenged that. He took his party away from them.
| 21 May 2008, 9:20 pm |
One of the few issues where Galloway has bothered to vote consistently in the past has been “pro life” or fertilisation/embryology issues.Nothing wrong with that.And he’s voted against the majority of his party.
On this occasion the majority of his party are probably in line with his views.However there are a small number of people from the traditional far left who are strongly in favour of womens rights to abortion and have been embarrassed by Galloways gaybaiting and god bothering in his media outlets .
To keep them on board Galloway agreed not to vote what he believes and what he’s voted in the past.Avoiding the vote was the best option, and with his record, why should anyone be that surprised.
| 21 May 2008, 9:27 pm |
respect renewal supporters often go on about their party’s politics on women’s rights, gays etc but the truth is that Galloway will ignore his acolytes when he sees fit, he is not bound by any stricture or respect renewal conference motion
what you get with Galloway is what you see, and all of the noble policies of respect renewal count for nothing when compared with gorgeous George’s ego and vanity
far from being a radical, Galloway is very old-fashioned, he’s in it for himself and fortunately for him, he’s charming enough to mesmerised some of his followers into believing in him
| 21 May 2008, 9:32 pm |
Unbelivable, then, Tim, that we at last have a GG prinicple. And one which, while I may not agree, I don’t retch at the thought.
| 21 May 2008, 9:37 pm |
He is principled on these issues.
(I really really don’t know why the Catholic teaching on contraceton,divorce,and bearing false witness aren’t part of the package)
But the reason he didn’t vote was to hold his dwindling embarrassed trot grouplet together.
| 21 May 2008, 9:43 pm |
Ah, I see your point, Tim. That was a short itjahad.
| 21 May 2008, 10:01 pm |
It’d been bubbling along for a bit,a bit mundane for a “principled man” who “speaks truth to power”.
this letter was published.
“However, I rang his office in the House of Commons to check he intends to do the right thing on May 20, to be told by the woman answering the phone that he is “very anti abortion.”
The other half of the office/party got angry and the default voting position of Absent was reached.
| 22 May 2008, 1:00 am |
I don’t see anything “left-wing” (as opposed to decadant, middle-class, liberal-amoral, murderous) about being in favour of killing foetuses - indeed, were one to argue that the “left” has generally been that part most favour of abolishing capital punishment (which is a tenuous argument, anyway - has more to with religious than political matters, really), one might think that being pro-life, as opposed to pro-killing, was the “authentic left-wing position” or something.
But as it is today those of us who care about such matters (but wouldn’t vote for a single issue party like teh Pro-Life Alliance - because they are, well, a single issue party) will have to put our faith in the Conservatives - and those Catholic and other Labour MPs that have a conscience
| 22 May 2008, 1:44 pm |
venichka
You actually seem grumpier than me these days!
I do think there are principled positions that are realist and moral and do not favour killing human beings either in a potential and simply organised cellular form or in a mature cellular form that has experienced consciouness and a social existence.
My understanding of Catholic doctrine is that it is as opposed to Execution as it is to Eutahansia/Physician assisted death as it is to abortion (and contraception).
It is the termination of human life by human hand that is the unifying principle.
I have always been struck by the equally obnoxious (in my view) pro-lifers in the US (generally protestant religious right) whose fanatical views can encompass (and have contributed to) a situation where a crack addicted mother is required to give birth (iin jail) to a crack addicted baby (brain damaged) who is exposed to an unstable and chaotic life of fostering and childrens’s homes before joining a gang and commiting a senseless murder by the age of 16 who is then tried and eventually executed (despite being brain damaged).
I thought the best thing about the situation in this country that it has not become a free standing political issue that warped party politics along ‘moral’ lines.
I don’t think the death penalty is an issue for political revision in this country, nor should the availability of abortion be (though obviously the terms and conditions of its practice must be kept under review both to ensure that the policy keeps pace with technological advance as well as placing the highest pressure on the NHS not to create late term abortions solely as a result of beaurocratic delay).
If we really want to be concerned about the sanctity and dignity of life, I suggest we become increasingly involved in the gut wrenching scandal that is the British treatment of the elderley and end of life decisions (the conditions of which should horrify proponents of the ‘right to die’ enough to give them pause to think about the institutional arrangements that would actually deal with the day to day practice of such a ‘right’).
I recently met with a Dr and Nurse and BBC investigative reporter who had attempted to expose some of the conditions of geriatric and end of life care, in this country.
Spine chilling.
I do not make glib comparisons between life in a democracy and prison camp existence but truly some of the scenes of utter depravity, immorality, callous neglect and brutality and total loss of any last shred of human decency found daily in British insitutions entrusted with the care of our people, the generation that sacrificed so much for our freedoms, should make us question what kind of society we have become.
Here is an issue that should unite the compassionate of left and right and ignite an indignant human rights response yet it is nowhere on the radar of politicians despite ‘how will I be treated when I am old’ being a fear of most ordinary people thay you can ellicit in a very short conversation.
I am quite convinced that this well understood failure to care for our old and frail, is one of the greatest factors in pulling people away from any faith in a welfare state, indeed from faith in politicians who have seen future pension funds as a pot to dip into for curren expenditure, and a selfish concentration on their own life and wealth.
And morally if there is one thing that could push me to Rome it is the greatest of theological virtues ‘Caritas’ ie charity but as love (agape) Deus caritas est -
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing……………………………
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And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
Paul 1 Corinthians 13
| 22 May 2008, 5:19 pm |
I think that the RCP are just pissed off that HP revealed their “deep entryism” into the bowels of City Hall?
expect more RCPers to pop up
| 22 May 2008, 7:45 pm |
talking of the bill before parliament and GG balancing act between fertilisation and abortion issues while trying to keep his islamists happy has anyone noted that the trusty Google ads in the top right hand corner? are offering us a ;
’single Muslim’ service. we can browse photos of single Muslim’s from a database of 150,00 in the UK.
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