welcome to welfare clinic today we have
a very special guest guest needs no
introduction he has been former member
of Bethel green and B and Bradford uh
West who has been outspoken on issues
affecting people's of this country and
around the world it's none other than
George Galloway George welcome uh to the
show it's a pleasure um I want to start
off um talking about the European refere
and your support for the grassroot uh
campaign and you recently attended a
rally uh with Nigel fra knowing you well
as um I do I thought how was it to be in
a platform with a man that you literally
have nothing in common well there were a
lot of Labor people too uh on the
platform uh although some of them I
didn't have anything in common with
either uh the truth is this is a binary
Choice one or the other there's no
Shades of Gray permitted you either vote
to stay in the European Union or you
vote to leave it so undoubtedly there
are people you could call them strange
bed fellows on either side of the aisle
uh those who wish to remain include
Jeremy Clarkson Tony Blair Goldman Sachs
David Cameron George Osborne I could go
on and that must be uncomfortable for
people uh who are labor inclined to be
on the same side of an argument with
them and ditto uh me with some of the
people I shared a platform with at that
uh out rally but I'm convinced uh after
the events in Greece uh and I announced
this nobody seemed to notice it very
much I announced this uh over a year ago
uh at a meeting on Greece that I could
know longer urge anyone to support this
European Union it's not because I don't
like Europe I love Europe it's not
because I don't like Unity I love unity
but this particular political
organization uh called the EU now called
the EU when we first voted for it it
wasn't of course a union it was a common
market I campaigned against it under the
leadership of Mr Tony Ben uh my
political father then for most of my
life uh and uh we lost but over the
decades the Common Market has become
something quite different it's become a
trap a trap for our own people and a
trap that keeps out uh people like you
from a commonwealth uh background and uh
one of the reasons why I'm campaigning
in uh the eent is to persuade
Commonwealth citizens that actually they
have the most to gain from from uh
leaving the EU both in terms of
immigration uh and in terms of uh job
opportunities you know Once Upon a Time
citizens of the Commonwealth had
preference here as well they should
because we stole everything the
Commonwealth had to offer so the least
we owed them was a Visa without having
to crawl through a hoop to get it but
there's a lot of restriction now on
people coming from Commonwealth in terms
of immigration you have the bride price
having to show £18,000 worth of in it's
23 Now 23 uh now it's a huge sum for
people to show on paper that they are
earning the difficulties of getting
visas you call this the welfare Clinic
as you know for nearly 30 years as an MP
I had a weekly welfare clinic and most
of the cases were about visas and it's
like getting a camel through the eye of
a needle to get a commonwealth citizen
in even for a wedding or a funeral uh or
uh other vital family uh occasions
whereas a Bulgarian can walk in with all
his wives and all his family anytime at
all without a Visa live here work here
claim here put his name down for a
council house here and so on so uh I
think that Britain's 7 million
Commonwealth citizens have the most to
gain from Britain leaving the EU um I
believe you you was uh strongly in favor
of uh staying in Europe not so long ago
what has changed that you now uh
campaigning to leave Europe two years
ago I announced uh 20 21 months ago I
announced that I could no longer support
the European Union and it was over the
issue of Greece because that showed that
the EU had become a European Central
Bank IMF European uh Commission troa
that was ready to crush any individual
democracy if people in Ireland voted to
reject the lbon treaty as they did they
were forced to vote again until they
changed the result the people of Greece
voted and then voted again and then
voted again for uh a course of action
that would have ended the horrific
austerity we've had bad austerity here
but the people of Greece half of the
children in Greece are hungry literally
hungry officially according to European
statistics more than a third of the
health budget in Greece has been
completely demolished so the treatment
of Greece and other countries like Spain
Portugal Ireland uh persuaded me that
actually in so far as the European Union
had ever done anything good for us and
you could see a few small things in the
late ' 80s early '90s uh this was
deadner and that we would no more want
to be in their Embrace than we would
like to be in the Embrace of the IMF and
the World Bank but do you think when the
in campaign the stronger in Britain
campaign argues that if we leave uh
Europe we will have less power we'll be
isolated uh we wouldn't be getting any
support that we get at this uh moment
and often and I've heard you before say
that uh we the Europe is kind of
controlled uh by unelected uh
representative what would we would you
say to their supporters in response to
that well first of all the influence
that they mean when they usually talk
about this is the kind of influence I
have no wish to exercise they mean
influence over
bullying uh uh people in other countries
they mean influence us in making war
against other countries like Libya for
example uh which we and the EU and Obama
but he didn't want to but sarosi and
caman drove forward a project to totally
destroy Libya and look how that has
worked out so that kind of influence
actually I don't want I want us to use
our influence to make Britain better uh
secondly we'll of course still be a
country of some importance we have quite
a big population we have have a big
economy the fifth biggest in the world
nobody's going to want to stop selling
us things mercedesbenz and Audi are not
going to say well we're not going to
sell our cars to these British uh people
who want to buy them they'll still buy
from us we'll still buy from them we
won't be leaving Europe we'll just be
leaving the European Union which is as
you know a different thing and the way I
look at it will'll be leaving the
European Union and rejoining the world
and in particular will be re joining the
Commonwealth parts of which have done
extraordinarily well since we slammed
the door in their face back in
1973 India is one of the biggest and
most important uh economies in the world
the one country in the world don't like
anybody interfering in their Sovereign
countries United States yes uh now
Barack Obama is going to be coming to
our country next month wanting to tell
citizen of this country what we should
do and shouldn't do don't you think it's
bit Rich for a president of a country
who didn't allow anybody else to have
any say whatsoever want to come and say
uh to citizen of another sovereign
country what they should be doing well
it is extraordinary hypocrisy uh they
overthrew British rule because they
couldn't accept uh being influenced or
governed by a foreign power but they
want us to be governed by 28 uh foreign
powers cuz that's what we're talking
about 28 that will become soon 35 will
include countries like turkey which are
on fire which are ravaged right now by
War we be bringing the Middle East Wars
right into the European Union with
freedom of movement um so it is an
offense actually against democracy that
President Obama is going to come here
and lecture us all as to what our future
should be as you rightly point out he
would never accept it Americans would
never accept it from anyone else about
their Affairs they're in a a a free
trade area with Canada and Mexico and
I'm quite happy to trade freely with the
uh countries of the European Union but
they would never allow Canada and Mexico
to make decisions about uh American
policy uh neither should we uh be ready
to be out voted by Slovakia and Romania
yeah um we would never dream of uh
living United Nation or NATO why should
Britain leave uh Europe well as for NATO
uh I would leave it tomorrow I would
never have joined it NATO is the US
dominated War Machine uh that has
dragged us into a series of very
damaging uh confrontations recently I
mentioned one of them Libya uh but an
even more damaging one arguably is the
confrontation with Russia which is
completely unnecessary uh it's nothing
to do with us what happens in Ukraine
but it's everything to do with Russia
because 45% of the people of Ukraine are
Russians yes so they have a vital uh
stake in that we have no stake in it yet
we have sanctioned Russia we are
constantly talking about potential war
with Russia this is all absurd this
would mean the end of Humanity on the
planet if we went to war with Russia a
multiple nuclear armed power yet NATO is
moving its borders closer and closer and
closer to Russia and that's a very
damaging thing so I would leave NATO
tomorrow and I regret that labor which
uh once campaigned uh to review our
position in NATO has now apparently
dropped that as for the UN you know
there are many times when I would like
to leave the UN too I'm not proposing
that but the UN effectively is uh is a
play thing of the of the big powers and
uh worse than that it exercises complete
double standards so Iraq for example is
broken on the wheel of United Nations
sanctions then invaded and occupied and
look how that turned out whilst Israel
which has nuclear weap weapons hundreds
of them has biological weapons has
chemical weapons has regularly invaded
and occupied its neighbors and is is
repressing the Palestinian people day
and daily in front of our eyes if we
care to open them not only do they not
suffer any United Nations sanctions the
red carpet is rolled out in front of
their leaders while the Palestinians are
described as terrorists no I think it's
a very um crucial point I think for our
viewers when it comes to Palestinian
because a lot of people look up to um
United Nation and to see what steps or
action they will take against uh Israel
but there seems to be no action
whatsoever and as you quite rightly
pointed out that they roll red carpets
and I think people sometime wonder what
is the purpose of having United Nation
when they're not going to be they're
supposed to be impartial but they
dominated by they big players of the
world and they often are not seem to be
impartial and they seems to be taking
sides I think that's right uh if it
weren't for the existence of some worthy
United Nations organs like the the
refugee uh relief and works Agency for
example without which the Palestinian
refugees could not eat or their children
could not be taught I would Advocate
leaving the United Nations if only to
provide the shock value that people have
completely lost confidence in this uh
organization Israel has broken more
United Nations resolutions than all the
other countries in the world put
together and yet no hint of sanction or
punishment has there ever been uh to
punish them for that whilst other
countries Iraq for example which
actually as it turned out was not in
breach of any United Nations resolutions
it had no weapons of mass destruction
was broken into pieces and we're all
paying the price now the Iraqis have
paid a gigantic price but the rest of us
are now starting to pay a very big price
for that too half of uh everything that
we sell to rest of the world uh we sell
uh to Europe we rais significant
revenues of millions and billions of uh
pound uh every year if we were to leave
Europe wouldn't uh Britain be
economically more
uh at L than uh actually we're paying
them not them paying us we pay them 50
50 million every day now as I walk
around here around Tower hamlets just
one day of the money we give to the
European Union could transform the
landscape here a week we could make this
uh Las Vegas we can make this Beverly
Hills so we're paying that uh the net uh
deficit from us to them is 50 million
every single day that's £350 million
every single week uh we'll still sell to
them and they'll still sell to us and
they wouldn't dream of putting tariffs
on our manufactured goods because we
would put tariff on theirs and we're a
very big and quite uh prosperous market
so that will not happen we continue to
trade with them as Switzerland and other
countries who are not in the EU trade
with them the one thing uh that isn't
spoken but which is the one area in
which we would be at a disadvantage is
that the city of London the square mile
just a few hundred yards from here would
not have the strangle hold the dominant
position in the European Union that it
has now well tough luck uh I I won't any
tears if Britain's financial sector has
to readjust its role in the world
actually most of them ought to be in
jail never mind uh lording it over the
European Union it's only in financial
services that we would suffer any kind
of economic penalty and uh as I believe
these bankers and financiers and hedge
fund managers and the rest are not
actually involved in economic activity
at all it's a kind of smoke and mirror
magic trick all of it it has actually
brought us down rather than build us up
it's made some people very very very
very very very very rich uh but those
living in its shadow here in to hamlets
as I always used to say uh looking up at
the gleaming spires of the city and
turning left and looking up at the
gleaming towers of canary Warf but in
between some of the poorest people in
England were trying to make a living the
one uh final thing I want to ask you
before before we move on to your
election for London mayor is that um
couple days ago there was an election
took place in Germany where the three
regional election um there been a huge
gain for anti-immigration uh parties for
supporting uh for refugees by the German
Chancellor um obviously this country has
been very reluctant to welcome refugees
you know Cameron said 20,000 over next
uh 5 years or four years um what would
your message be in terms of uh
supporting refugees and I know you have
a very good connection with places like
Syria and other Middle East countries
and you have done a lot of work for
those countries over the many years well
I think we have to unbundle or separate
the issues of migration and issues of
refugees every country has the right to
decide how many migrants it takes and
from where it takes them as I said I
want to take them from Bangladesh from
India from Pakistan from uh the
Caribbean because they speak our
language we have a common history with
them uh and we owe them big time uh
that's a separate matter every country
has an absolute duty to take refugees
and the only way it can be done is to
take them fairly uh and David Cameron's
policy is not fair Anga merel has taken
aill
refugees into Germany and David Cameron
as you rightly say is taking so few that
you can almost not measure them once
they're distributed around the country
that's unfair it's unjust especially if
you're a member of a so-called European
union and now the German political uh
parties or at least the government are
paying a price at The Ballot Box for uh
the fact that they have behaved fairly
it is important to keep this in
perspective the right-wing far right did
gain but the parties which remain in
power in those three regions are people
who support Angela merkel's policy or
more uh the social Democrats remain in
power in one the green party remain in
power in the second and Angela Merkel
remains in power in the third so it was
a disturbing rise but we should keep it
in that uh perspective Germany is not
about to become some kind of new Nazi uh
country not at all um but the real issue
over the refugees is why they're being
forced to come here and leave their own
homes in the first place and as you well
know uh I have opposed these wars which
are driving this Refugee crisis 90% of
the refugees are from three countries
Afghanistan Iraq and Syria you don't
have to be Einstein to work out what
these three countries have in common two
of them have been invaded and occupied
by NATO and by countries like ours and
the third Syria has been devastated by a
western sponsored War uh paid for by our
pet dictators in the Gulf um and so we
are responsible for these refugees we're
responsible for the fact that they had
to flee and we're responsible for the
fact that once they fled they have to
have a a roof over their heads until
they can go back home so the best thing
to do would be to end the wars in these
three countries of course we should
never have started the wars in the first
place but we need to move in the
direction of ending these wars rather
than keeping them going as I said you
also standing to be the mayor of London
on fifth of uh May uh this year uh it's
not very long now uh before the election
day uh comes um how are you different uh
from sikan or any other candidates and
why do you believe that real Labor uh
voters or Corin supporters uh should
vote for you well I'm standing to
support Jeremy Corbin's uh policies and
his approach and the labor candidate
takes every opportunity every day to
rubbish Jeremy Corbin and his policies
and often in the most unsavory places he
chooses the worst newspapers in which to
announce the most damaging attacks on
Jeremy Corbin so if you're a supporter
of Jeremy Corbin you definitely should
be supporting me I was uh his comrade in
Parliament sitting next to him most of
the time for almost 30 years I marched
next to him for almost 40 years and if
I'm elected as mayor I will work with
him to oppose David Cameron and all his
Works uh uh as it happens because of the
election rules you can vote for both you
can give me your first preference vote
if you want you can give sadik Khan your
second preference vote and if I go out
before sadik Khan then my the vote you
gave to me just gets transferred over so
there's no question of splitting the
vote letting the Tores in or any of that
uh that we normally face in elections
when we're standing from the left of
Labor that doesn't apply in this case so
I'm hoping that I will come ahead of
sadik Khan and if I do then uh I think
most people who vote for him will give
me their second preference and then I
could be the mayor of London and it
would be very different indeed from
Boris Johnson's era if I became the
mayor of London think Ken Livingston
plus Ken Livingston Plus the advances of
the of the last uh decade almost in
terms of new technology new ideas and so
on uh so it would be a London for all
that's my uh that's my slogan uh a
London for all not just those dripping
in Gold you know sadik KH keep saying
that he'll be the most Pro business
mayor in London's history well I won't
be I'll be the most Pro worker mayor in
London's history business doesn't
actually need a mayor on their side they
are already rich and Powerful it's small
businesses like the kind that
proliferate around here and workingclass
people who need a mayor on their side as
a counterbalance to the rich and
Powerful not uh a mayor who's actually
going to plant himself in the interests
of the Rich and powerful and some people
will say you are divisive you're toxic
uh your appeal is limited especially
when when it comes to T hamlets and
Bradford what would be your message to
those uh individuals or well uh as you
know I I won a pretty historic Victory
here in tar hamlets uh I defeated one of
Tony Blair's brightest stars here in
2005 and uh in 2012 I won the biggest
swing to the left in British political
history in the Bradford West byelection
uh of course if I wear these things no
one will vote for me in which case
nobody has anything to worry about what
they mean when they say that is that I
make a strong stand and if you make a
strong stand on something the people who
take a strong stand to the opposite are
going to hate you uh I apologize for
going back to the Palestine issue but if
you spent 40 years like me standing
absolutely solid with the Palestinians
those that love Israel are going to ha
you and those that love Israel are quite
powerful people actually a lot of them
they have uh money they have uh Media
power they have positions in many media
organizations and in the political class
and if they hate you they're going to
make sure everyone knows why they hate
you and they're going to distort and and
lie but these days as your program and
this television station proves the
so-called mainstream media is r rapidly
becoming the lam stream media I have 1
million followers on social media I can
now send a message from here to a
million people without going through a
single television
executive without going through a single
editor or a single
multi-millionaire uh media owner and
thus the balance is beginning to shift
um we're coming uh to end of the show uh
George um I just want to get what is
your priority
um and your ideas uh and how are you are
different from the other Mayo candidates
uh in this election well in detail
people can go to Galloway 2016. London
that's my new website which gives all of
my policies but in short uh the housing
crisis which people in Tower hamlets
know all about is my number one priority
I'm going to lead the drive to build
hundreds of thousands of council houses
Council houses are the best form of
housing you get to sack your landlord
every year in the council elections
Council housing in which I grew up
provides the best start for ordinary
people uh it's not that I'm against
people owning their homes but we have
the highest house prices and the highest
rents in the whole world here in London
and we have the highest tube fairs
actually so you get moved out of to
hamlets as far as the eye can see much
farther than the eye can see and then
you have to pay through the nose on the
world's most expensive tube to come back
here housing police I'm going to make
sure that the police looks like London
and is led by people who look like
London not looking like an occupation
force uh sent in by someone else and uh
on the subject of Transport this is a
big
one all students school students college
students and University students will
travel free on public transport if I'm
the mayor because their EMA was stolen
if they're at school they've had their
tuition fees tripled to £99,000 a year
if they're college or university
students I'm going to make sure London
gives back to our young people free
buses free tubes for all school children
and students that's quite a big offer
George thank you very much for coming to
our show no doubt we'll be speaking to
you more leading up to the election
finding out exactly what you standing
for and how you going to represent the
people of uh London look forward to Dear
viewers I hope uh you got uh ideas why
you should uh leave the Europe as
promised last week we did a show why you
should stay in you do your research uh
listen to both side of the argument and
you'll make your uh decision but on 5th
of May you'll be making a very important
uh decision as to how uh London should
be run and by whom and it is your uh
decision we have uh Mr Galloway here
today you heard from him why he's
standing what are his uh priorities and
what he's going to be uh doing we will
invite other candidates to also come and
put their arguments uh forwards as to
why uh they are standing again do your
research uh vote for somebody that you
feel will stand up for your community
and your neighbors and the future
generation of this country and put
across next to that individual name on
5th of May thank you for watching
welfare
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Clinic