okay far away far welcome to Casual
politics thank you casual I'm uh I'm
enjoying that one thank you very much um
I need that you need no introduction at
George Galloway you've been a member of
parliament since 1987 MH and uh you and
then you became a leading member of
respect party eventually you you also uh
you were leader you are still a leader
since 2004 so my first question is how
did you get involved in politics I was
born into politics really my parents
were political activists my grandparents
uh to some extent
also uh and so it was as natural as
mother's milk to me I was the kid in the
class at school who always knew who the
prim minister of Czechoslovakia was who
the uh president of Uganda was and uh
and so on so politics was always
discussed around my breakfast table and
uh I never had any doubt at any time in
my life that I would live a political
life and by the grace of God I've been
able to do so and um and what has
changed um in politics since you you
entered um in Parliament since 1987 well
on one level a great many things have
changed but on a fundamental level they
remain the same uh let me deal with the
fundamental level first uh The World Is
Still
divided uh between the rich and powerful
and the Poor and
Powerless uh rich countries dominating
poor countries rich people in the rich
countries dominating the poor people in
their countries and people in the poor
countries also dominating and exploiting
the poor in their countries that has not
changed it will not change
until the Socialist idea comes to pass
the German revolutionary Rosa Luxembourg
said uh almost a 100 years ago that uh
the choice facing the world was
Socialism or
barbarism and uh I believe that's still
the same choice so that has not changed
uh what has changed is the uh
stratification of people in class terms
the number of blue color trade
unionized
proletarians in Britain and most Western
countries it's obviously very much
smaller now than it was when I was born
when I was born uh factories
employing 10 15,000 people inside one
place Under One Roof in one Union uh
were Common Place indeed my father
worked in one and I later also worked in
one uh that's no longer uh the case
workers are are are are atomized more in
different uh small employee employers
and often times not involved in trade
unions sometimes not allowed to be in
trade unions so that's a big change uh
when I was born
98% of the
people uh in 1955 so when I was one uh
98% of the British people voted either
labor or
conservative only 2% voted for anyone
else and of course that's very different
now the two big parties labor and the
conservatives will be lucky to achieve
55% uh between them it's not even
inconceivable that they'll get
50% uh between them and so the plurality
of the British uh party political scene
vastly changed since uh I was young um
however you can have a lot of different
parties uh with different names uh
wearing different colors uh but if they
are fun fundamentally the same uh they
have the same attitude to property power
uh imperialism the things that make my
politics tick then you you're as well
having two or 22 it won't make any real
difference you talking about plurality
of British politics now we we saw um
rise of nationalist parties such as NSP
in Scotland and UK um and UK so in what
sense it has actually affected your
party and overshadowed your party's
policies uh well it's definitely uh
overshadowed Us in the sense that it's
easy to sell
nationalism
chanism xenophobia racism it's easy to
sell that to the simple-minded it's much
more difficult to sell uh the Socialist
idea to people in the current uh
condition current political uh climate
so njel farage has been much more
successful than me uh although he's not
a member of Parliament and I am and ukip
uh for a long time had no members of
parliament uh now have too um but that's
because uh not necessarily because he's
any uh better than me but because he's
selling something
eminently more easy to sell
uh but it's a false prospectus why it's
easier to sell well because there's a
predisposition amongst people in uh
Imperial countries like ours to believe
that Johnny forigner is a problem uh
Johnny forigner over there or Johnny
forigner in our midst you can easily
especially with Rupert Murdoch in the
sun and the Daily Mail and so on at your
uh site you can easily get the drum
beats going
people have real problems in this
country and it's relatively easy uh to
uh turn their attention to a scapegoat
to uh uh to a whipping boy that can be
blamed for these problems in the past in
the 30s nationalists blamed the
Jews uh today's nationalist blame the
Muslims uh blame the immigrants blame
the blacks blame the other
even if the other actually looks just
like you someone from Poland or lattia
is relatively easy to turn your uh turn
people's attention to to them but does
your party have S sustainable stance on
uh on the United
EU well we support the EU uh we think it
would be a catastrophe for Britain to
leave the
EU uh which is is not to say we support
how the EU Works how it runs who leads
it the uh perspectives that they have we
don't we oppose all of those but the
idea of a European Union ever deeper
Union ever uh more profound Union is one
that we support in fact we wish don't
expect to see it anytime soon but we
would wish for a United States of Europe
uh which we think is the way forward for
all uh all regions of the world a United
African States a United Arab states a
United Latin American states and a
United European States that's the way
forward but um as you have always been a
leading orator in British politics also
conservatives like um sir Peter tapsel
they they always said so have you ever
requested a debate to with Nel farage
yes I've been pursuing him publicly for
a debate for a long time uh in fact I
think we could sell out the Albert Hall
and I've proposed to him let's do it
let's take the Albert Hall fill it raise
a vast amount of money for your party
and ours we'll split the proceeds uh but
uh he's not uh uh accepting my challenge
because I think he uh realizes that he'd
get a much tougher time from me and from
any of the other political leaders
before going to Middle East as you are
an expert on Middle East just lost
Christian British politics is that um
now David Cameron said that he would do
dog at the TV debates lead um leadership
so but some people they said no if if
the green party are not included in that
in those debates so if we actually
include the green party in those debates
as well would would you like your party
to be in it in those debates well we'll
we'll take a legal action to stop the
debates if we're not uh because the
greens have one Member of Parliament and
so do we and moreover I've been uh
elected six times to Parliament and the
green MP has been elected once uh I've
been elected as a respect MP twice the
green party MP has been elected once
I've been in Parliament almost 30 years
she's been in for almost five so uh
there's no argument at all in our view
if you're going to have the greens in
the debate then you have to have us and
I pray to God over and over uh to be
included in such debates because I I
think that we would win
them and now on the Middle East you you
became very um familiar figure to the
public of your Infamous statement to
Sadam Hussein when you said I salute
your courage Your courage so at that
time do you think that was it the only
leader who could stand up to West I
wasn't actually uh addressing him with
those remarks I was addressing the
people of Iraq as a whole uh and I have
explained that many hundreds of times so
you'll have to forgive me if I uh if I
excuse myself from doing so all over
again uh I was not a supporter of Saddam
Hussein I was an opponent of Saddam
Hussein when British and American
governments and business people were
doing a roaring trade uh with Saddam
Hussein for example I was one of the uh
few opponents uh of saddam's attack
against Iran uh I was on Iran side in
the War uh I believed that building up a
Ator like Saddam Hussein would would
backfire just like the building up of
al-Qaeda types all over the world has
turned out to backfire another of the
predictions that uh we made but uh when
it came to uh starving to death hundreds
of thousands of Iraqi children uh by
sanction uh still more when it came to
hundreds of thousands of Western
soldiers invading and occupying Iraq we
stood with Iraq and since 2003 you've
been a leading figure of stop Coalition
war and uh so my question is do to what
extent do you think that you're being
hurt because um uh in September the
House of Commons voted for the second
intervention in Iraq so are you being
head at all well the previous year uh we
stopped not just a British but their by
a British and American attack on Syria
under the pretext of Believe It or Not
weapons of mass
destruction uh we defeated the
government by 13 votes in the uh chamber
that was a very significant Victory and
was a victory not just for our
parliamentary performance and tactics
though that was impressive I think uh
but the opposition to war the skepticism
about the case being made for war the
lack of credibility of the British
political class and
Leadership uh is all directly related to
the stop the war coalition's long
campaign against British involvement in
these wars so uh you can say we didn't
stop the Iraq War that's true uh we
probably did stop
uh not
ourselves
alone of course the local conditions
were not uh good for it but we probably
did stop British governments committing
themselves to further invasions of Syria
of Iran uh and even of Iraq you make the
point that Britain is bombing uh in Iraq
again that's true uh but they're not
going to send their soldiers there and
so far they're not prepared to bomb
Syria either so we have placed if you
like parameters around the British
government's ability to act in a way
that it might have wanted to act and I
think that's a tribute to the millions
in Britain who marched behind our
banners and you w said that it's not our
war and um it's it's not our um it's we
should not go and fight in Syria in Iraq
or in Libya and it because it's not
fight so uh whose war is it whose fight
is it well what happens uh in uh Libya
or Mali is a matter for the libyans and
the malians I give those two just as an
example uh the British have no right
whatsoever to dictate the outcome of
political conflict or struggle inside
these countries we have a right to
defend ourselves against any attack that
comes against us from them or anyone uh
we have a right to defend the rights of
uh British citizens to go about their
lawful business and so on but we don't
have the right to interfere in other
people's countries and this is an
imperial hangover no one in Norway sits
at night wondering what they should do
in uh in
madesu uh or in uh uh uh Mongolia they
rightly uh have concluded that that's
really not their business uh the problem
is the British haven't wholly concluded
that it's not their business uh from uh
the 19th century Britain has been
invading and occupying and looting other
people's countries uh and it's got to
stop uh sometimes they dress it up in
you know Evangelical clothes or
humanitarian clothes uh but as the
Archbishop Desmond Tutu put it they came
here with their rifle in one hand and
their Bible in the other they taught us
to pray with our eyes closed and when we
opened them they'd stolen our country uh
that's the role of uh imperialism and
that's been the role of Britain in the
imperialist uh age so uh you ask me
whose war is it not ours uh neighbors
can sometimes have and I argue this in
my my book that I see you have I'm not
the only one I argue the conditions that
would be would need to be present before
uh intervention by anyone in conflicts
abroad would be
legitimate uh and they are this uh if uh
if a conflict inside a country has
spilled over uh into neighboring
countries clearly the neighboring
country has uh a right maybe a duty to
inter me I give you two examples uh
Julius Neri got rest his soul when he
was the leader of
Tanzania uh invaded Uganda and brought
down uh ID Amin the dictator there uh
who had declared himself the last king
of Scotland and who had massacred the
local people but his massacres were
beginning to impact on
Tanzania uh and so nari was right to
invade a second example was when Vietnam
invaded Cambodia in order to destroy the
uh unbelievably extreme government of
paulp and the so-called K Rouge uh you
may or may not know that Britain and the
United States continued to recognize the
kar Rouge to recognize Paul pot and
insist that he kept his United Nations
membership and seat at the United
Nations they don't like to remember that
now
but uh the Vietnamese uh armed forces
were right to intervene in Cambodia and
bring down the kar rou regime because
Vietnam was being affected by the
nihilistic uh genocide that paulp had
Unleashed in in neighboring uh Cambodia
so I'm not saying I'm against
intervention in all uh
circumstances there are very few if any
circumstances in which it can be right
or
productive or successful uh for the big
Imperial powers to return to the scenes
of their former crimes uh but sometimes
there are uh there are grounds for
Neighbors uh to combine the African
Union being a very good example where a
conflict is causing havoc in neighboring
uh countries but there are three
conditions that have to be uh satisfied
first the action has to be powerful
second it has to be uh proportionate and
third it must do less harm than not
intervening now on those three counts
all of Britain's
recent uh by which I mean over the last
20 25 years all of Britain's recent
military interventions in other
countries have been not just unlawful
not just
counterproductive uh but have caused a
multitude of other problems that didn't
exist
before and you said that it's up to the
neighbors to fight this war but for
example I take Saudi Arabia as example
they've got
F PL fire planes because Mar Michael
potillo when he was the defense
secretary he sold to Sou Arabia to fight
planes but they haven't taken any
actions to fight terrorism well Saudi
Arabia is deeply implicated in the whole
Isis
story uh the takiri wahhabist uh
mentality which they which keeps them
going which is their fuel uh is an
export of Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabians
maybe not the state maybe individuals
although where one stops and the other
uh begins as a moot point uh has been
responsible for the early funding of
al-Qaeda and its uh offshoots Al-Qaeda
itself was founded by a Saudi Usama Bin
Laden uh Saudi
Arabia's fear of hatred of its
neighbors uh is a fundamental part of
this
narrative uh and it seems to me that
Saudi Arabia can only
dispel the widely held suspicion that
they and Isis are one and the Same by
decisively intervening to defeat them
their neighbor Iraq if it is overrun by
uh Isis which is an offshoot of
al-Qaeda uh then Saudi Arabia will be
next uh so they have every incentive
to become involved uh but they're not
involved uh there are no Saudi soldiers
helping the Iraqis to defeat Isis as far
as I know there are no Saudi airplanes
in the air bombing Isis if there are
they're almost certainly in Syria rather
than in Iraq so uh Saudi Arabia should
be held to account 13 of the 19 hijack
on 911 were Saudi citizens none of them
were Iranian none of them were Iraqi
none of them were Afghans 13 of the 19
were Saudis and Bin ladin's family as
many now know were horridly facilitated
in their exit from the United States in
the 2 3 days after the mass m of 911 so
Saudi Arabia is a deeply Sinister entity
uh with uh uh a dark past uh and our
ongoing productive profitable
relationship with it is a very very dark
mark and stain on the reputation of our
own country now only two last questions
on uh the Charlie ABDO attack in Paris I
that we can't ignore those attacks so
would you condemn um those attacks that
happen uh occurred in Paris and those
provocations
and would you say that I'm rather
offended that you should ask me that
question what uh what sane person would
not condemn uh the uh cold blooded
murder of unarmed people the murder of
police officers three of them the murder
of uh Shoppers in a kosher uh
supermarket in Paris these are
despicable acts of coldblooded mass
murder uh they are crimes
and as the people involved in them claim
to be religious it's worth pointing out
they're not just crimes they are sins
they are mortal sins for which the
perpetrator will surely uh receive
condemed punishment on the Judgment day
and do you think that do you agree that
they say multiculturalism has fell
especially in this country well I'm not
sure there is multiculturalism it's a
strong man that's erected in order to
knock it down anyone who's walked around
the poor suburbs or of Paris and seen
the teeming poverty in which the uh
immigrant uh families and the Immigrant
population live anyone who's experienced
the racism of the French uh CRS the riot
uh police anyone who has lived in France
uh and been from a minority uh ethnic
Community uh knows that multi
multiculturalism is not quite the way
you would describe living as a black or
Muslim or even worse black Muslim uh
person uh in France look we have no
alternative there is no choice involed
in this we are all mixed together in all
these countries uh we
cannot uh exter Pate even if we wanted
to uh any of the minorities that live in
our midst so we have no choice but to
get along uh in a harmonious way and
that means an end to bigotry and
discrimination and racism London for
example has the minorities are the
majority in London 53% of the population
of London are from the minority ethnic
communities uh so we have a right for
that to be reflected in the police force
in the uh political class in the media
and so on so far it is not uh there's a
problem in Britain with racism but if
you think Britain is racist you've never
lived in
France and um do you think that we
should you you talked about Harmony do
you think that we should all unite
alongside each other Muslims Jews
Catholics and Christians to combat
extremism well Catholics are Christians
too so there's no need for that uh false
dichotomy uh of course extremism of any
kind is
Despicable Jewish extremists Christian
extremists Muslim extremists Are all
pedling uh a philosophy of Despair uh a
council of Despair and if we uh don't
defeat them they will tear us apart and
we'll all be sunk uh I'm encouraged that
most Muslims most most Christians and
most Jews turn their back on that kind
of extremism and my last question how do
you foresee the future of the United
Kingdom as a whole after the Scottish
referend well the there's a real danger
of the uh State breaking apart uh if God
forbid the conservatives were to be
reelected for example in May for another
5 years there would there would almost
certainly be another referendum uh on a
Scottish Breakaway
and and it would almost certainly be
lost uh and then Britain would no longer
exist as a state uh now there are some
who find that proposition attractive I
don't myself because what would happen
is that the English state that would
remain would continue to play
the um uh
pernicious perfidious role which the
British state has played the English
state would carry on playing that role
it would still have a seat on the
security Council it would still be a
nuclear armed power it would still be in
NATO it would still be a key American
Ally all these things would continue so
nothing would be gained in that regard
uh but the state the English state that
would be left behind would be almost
certainly a perpetually right-wing State
and it would create an economic
environment for private profit
capitalism uh that the Scottish state
would have to replicate or die because
no one's going to locate their business
in a high tax High
regulation uh Social Democratic Scotland
if they can do so in the opposite
conditions in England so there would
then be a race to the bottom uh with
Scotland and and England in a Dutch
auction of how many regulations they
could burn how many taxes they could cut
how they could make life even easier for
exploiters uh and uh as each did the
other would uh respond and before long
you'd have uh the lowest regulation
lowest tax lowest public services that
is possible to imagine uh so I hope that
Britain will not break up uh but there's
a real danger that it will thank you
George Gallow for the clarity in order
of you I'm very grateful to you thank
you much thank you
[Applause]