Right. I'm the artist taxi driver. And
I'm George Galloway.
The MP for Bradford West. Respect MP.
Did you know did you start your
political career when you were 13? Even
earlier. I uh was born into a political
family that uh sent me out in short
trousers at 5 and six to leaflet school
gates at election day. And uh our house
was darkened with Labor posters. Harold
Wilson's face uh darkened our windows
throughout every election campaign. So,
uh even earlier. Yeah. But I officially
joined the party at 13. Although you're
not supposed to join it till you're 15,
but hey, I've always looked older than
my age. Yeah. My son, he he joined the
Greens already. Caroline Lucas signed
him up. Okay. What does it mean, George,
to be an MP? What does it mean? Well,
I've 26 years sat in this building. I've
been elected six times.
On one level, it ought to be something
to be proud of because it's not a job
that MD can give you or withhold you.
The people elect to it. So in an ideal
country, in an ideal world, we'd all be
really proud to be MPs. But in fact,
it's now a parliament of poodles with
pagers and expense forms in their inside
pockets, filling those pockets and doing
whatever somebody else tells them as
opposed to their own the dictates of
their own conscience. Uh it wasn't ever
thus when I came in here in
1987. Uh there were 100 200 men and
women of independent mind who you could
guarantee that when they stood up they
would say what they believed. It might
be right. It might be wrong. But you
knew that they really believed it. They
weren't saying it cuz some focus group
had identified it as a useful point of
view or some page uh had arrived on
their pager telling them that that was
the line to take. So, I'm kind of half
proud, half not, half feel it's
worthwhile, half feel it's not. Uh, but
I've just been in this morning. I've
done a lot of media interviews this
morning, but I've also dealt with half a
dozen really quite important urgent
local Bradford cases. That makes a
difference to people's lives. You get
somebody uh a visa, you get somebody uh
their uh their uh social security money
reinstated or their housing benefit, you
find them a house, that sort of thing.
That's valuable. So So what what do you
think of this statement? We have a
bankrupt and corrupt political system,
one that cares for corporations and not
people. I agree with that. Uh not
everyone within the political system.
There are even some halfdecent MPs still
but uh generally speaking this is not a
parliament of the people for the people
by the people. It's a corporate
parliament where the main parties as
I've often said are three cheeks of the
same ars and you couldn't if you'll
forgive the grubby metaphor slip a
cigarette paper between uh either of
them on the big issues. uh they all uh
support
privatization, austerity, war and to one
extent or another are playing the race
card and uh terrifying. This current
government has abolished its duty to
care uh uh with with the the outsourcing
and the privatization of the NHS and
with this this heinous welfare reform
bill. Yeah. Although the road to this
particular pdition was paved by the
Blair and Brown governments. Uh, of
course I'm the last person to exculpate
the Tories from their crimes. But none
of these crimes would have been possible
but for the Blair uh revolution uh which
uh effectively declared that public was
bad, private was good that uh there was
a market for everything and that that
market should be as unregulated or in
Gordon Brown's immortal phrase about the
banks as light touch regulated as
possible. Uh even Mrs. Thatcher didn't
do the things that Cameron is now doing
and that Blair and Brown did before him.
Well, they they they've got this
ideological austerity, this sort of like
uh where the poor but not for the rich,
but but the primary purpose of this
government right now seems to be the
movement of public money into private
pockets. Yes, capitalism is now on a
publicly funded life support system. Has
been now for years, will be for many
years to come, maybe forever.
and uh the capitalism that they used to
teach us about in economics classes at
school. Uh all this guff, the Adam Smith
guff, uh it turns out to be a complete
illusion that uh in the end the public
which has been exploited by the
capitalist system in the first place
shared little of the uh largest that
capitalism produces. When capitalism
fails, they have to bail it out with
their tax money. It's a clearest
transfer of public to private, of
resources from poor to rich that there's
ever been in this country. It's
absolutely naked. And and at the same
time, you touched on it there. At the
same time, they're pushing through this
agenda, trying to win the populace vote,
trying to divide the nation. Yeah. With
bongo bongo land with racist fans, with
border, you know, racist profiling of of
normal normal UK citizens being
targeted.
They're uh playing that card and we'll
see a whole deck of these cards uh still
to come.
uh the parties all of them even labor uh
are to an extent or other playing this
game. It's terrifyingly dangerous. It
could set the country on fire literally.
It could lead to blood and it's divide
and rule. Nothing uh nothing more or
less than that. They want to divide the
so south from the north. Men from women,
black people from white, Muslims from
non-Muslims. Uh British from French. Uh
British from what they call bongo
bongoland which they mean by which they
mean the rest of the world. The fear of
Johnny foreigner. Is he coming here? Is
he getting something that belongs to us?
These are all devices to divide and more
easily control and rule the people. and
uh and and this this is also attached to
the war machine which is banks, oil and
arms which is you you can see in what's
your what's your thoughts on on on
places like Syria at the moment? Well,
Syria has gone disastrously badly for
the imperial camp. They thought,
believed, said two years ago that the
regime in Damascus would have fallen. Uh
it's not going to fall. Everyone now
knows it isn't going to fall and
therefore their new allies or rather
their renewed allies in al-Qaeda are not
going to triumph. It's a very important
setback for them and it's an important
victory for those of us who stood firm.
Not because we support Bashar al-Assad.
I don't and never have. Not because we
love the Bath party. I don't and never
have. The reason for supporting the
unity as an Arab nationalist country of
Syria is to prevent a descent into a
vortex of sectarian hatred and madness
that ends with people eating but the war
machine they without debt death and
destruction the war machine that right
now you're looking at people like in
power thinking where are we going to get
go next Iran Venezuela you know they
want their oil and that's how without it
the global economy uh would collapse
What what what about uh Scottish
independence? Oh, I'm against that. I
knew you'd ask me uh about that. First
of all, I don't think it's independence
at all. Scotland would still have a
foreign queen. Uh it would still use
foreign currency, the pound. That
foreign currency would be controlled by
the bank of guess what? England. Uh they
haven't had the courage of their
convictions to go for the euro. And how
could they? How's the euro doing? So it
isn't independence, but what it would
lead to is a race to the bottom. A
Scottish government competing with a
perpetually Tory government in England,
low tax, low spend and uh free market
Tory England. uh Scotland would have to
compete with that and therefore even the
small number of liberal reforms like
prescription charges and so on that the
Scots enjoy would very soon uh
disappear. Moreover, taking uh scores of
anti-tori MPs out of Westminster by
virtue of independence would leave the
English people, most uh of whom have
nothing to gain from Tory rule under uh
Tory Hegman forever. You you've taken a
lot you've taken a lot of stick for your
for your stance on basically everything.
Actually, I was going to say Scottish
independence, but whenever you say
something, it seems that that that you
kind of divide opinion, you know,
because maybe it's because you just come
out with things, but especially like
like you around that uh Julian Assange
things and some things that you said
about about rape. There's a lot of
hatred out there for you you you've
never um apologized for what you said. I
I I don't apologize for saying what I
believe to be true. And if I'm the last
man standing believing it, that'll be
okay with me. Obviously, I hope to
persuade others of the correctness of
what I am saying. But I will never say
something I don't believe and I will
never not say something that I do
believe. Selma, who was head of the who
who left respect, she said choosing
between George
Galloway anti-imperialist dances and
standing up for the rights of women was
a false choice.
I'm not sure. Were you sure the viewers
will all know who she who she is, but uh
were you were you sad about about that
Salma leaving respect? Uh yeah. Uh and
uh for those who don't know, he's
referring to Salma Yakub who was for a
time uh a leading figure in respect and
I wish her well. Uh she is a great uh
figure and I hope she goes on to play a
big role in uh in public life. Um but uh
hey, we've gotten over it and most
people actually don't know that she was
ever there. Never mind that she left. Uh
we were right in the stand that we took
on all the major matters uh over uh the
eight years, nine years now of our
existence and I hope we'll continue to
be right. That's what's important. Uh
Martin Luther King once said, "Some
people do things because they're
popular. Some people do things because
they're profitable." But do you do you
understand if people get upset with your
views and No. Uh you don't understand if
people get upset. No, not in our own
party. No. Uh but outside the public.
Yeah. Of course. Because a lot of people
is a very divisive uh business. Yeah.
Politics is a a question of A or B. And
if you choose A, the people who wanted
you to choose B and believe in B are
necessarily upset by your uh by the
stand that you've taken. Uh, I just say
what I think is right and I think I say
it quite well. That's why it attracts
attention and when it attracts attention
that accentuates. Are you going to run
for mayor of London? I probably will.
Uh, um, I have a committee exploring it
now. Uh, it's a shrunken field. Uh,
Boris Johnson won't be running. Ken
Livingston won't be running. I would
never have run against Ken Livingston.
He's a very old friend of mine. Uh, and
Labour will field Ken Livingston minus.
The Tories will field Boris Johnson
minus. So, you think you can win it? I
can win. Yeah. See, a lot of politics is
about personality. You only got to look
at Boris. Boris is like a [ __ ] he he
he's he's I mean, he's shutting fire
stations. He's a
lunat like like laughing when you're
looking at your children when they're on
fire because you voted for Boris because
you thought he was fire. I think that's
a very powerful way of uh putting it.
This uh buffoon isn't as uh stupid as he
looks. Uh this is all being I think he
is. I think I think we're living in the
end of our times. I think our species is
[ __ ] I think it's all over, mate. No,
I don't agree with that. But what I was
going to say, I'm the artist taxi
driver. This, my friends, is George
Galloway. Who thinks?