Timothy Peace: May elections promise tough test for George Galloway

IF THE “Bradford Spring” is to last beyond this summer, George Galloway and his Respect Party will need to capitalise on the momentum achieved from last Thursday’s stunning by-election result. Lessons will also need to be learned from their previous electoral exploits in East London and Birmingham.

The first test will be the forthcoming local elections on 3 May. At his victory rally on Sunday, Mr Galloway announced that Respect will have candidates in every ward in Bradford. He will be hoping that the party can draw support from across the city, just as he did when he polled 56 per cent of the vote last week.

The issue of the “Muslim vote” is one of the most fascinating aspects of the Respect Party’s success. Its candidates have only been elected in areas with sizeable Muslim populations, and these candidates themselves are invariably Muslim. At the same time, though, a large Muslim community has been no guarantee for success. Respect has had very little impact in Greater Manchester. The same could also have been said about Yorkshire until recent events in Bradford.

Part of the reason behind this is the limited human resources at Respect’s disposal. At the last general election, for example, activists were encouraged to concentrate their efforts on getting party leader Salma Yaqoob elected in Birmingham. A more targeted campaign in Bradford over the last few weeks, with a particular focus on getting out the youth vote, reaped its rewards.

It appears that many young people in Bradford went against the wishes of their parents or the community elders to vote for Mr Galloway as a form of protest against biraderi politics. The biraderi is the extended family or clan system which dominates candidate selection and voting patterns in many British Pakistani communities. In a strange twist of fate, the tragic death of Respect activist Abu-bakr Rauf also gave a spur to the campaign. Just 28 years old, he was leafleting with Mr Galloway when he suffered a fatal heart attack the week before the vote took place. Some people used their vote to pay tribute to his memory.

Mobilising young voters and activists was the hallmark of Respect’s previous successes in East London and Birmingham. When Mr Galloway was elected as MP for Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005 and during the local elections one year later, it was the canvassing by enthusiastic young supporters that made the difference. Following the local elections of 2006, Respect had 12 councillors in the London borough of Tower Hamlets, making it the official opposition to Labour. Mr Galloway would surely love to repeat that kind of success next month, and after his landslide win may even dare to dream of taking control of Bradford Council. Labour will, of course, be much better prepared this time around, and Ed Miliband will be desperate to avoid another humiliating defeat at the hands of “Gorgeous George”.

Another set of elections that Respect will be taking particular interest in on 3 May are the mayoral referendums in 11 English cities, including Birmingham and Bradford. Residents will be asked to decide whether they want to introduce the position of a directly elected mayor. Respect was actually the driving force behind the “yes” vote in the referendum in Tower Hamlets in 2010. Mr Galloway was even considering standing as candidate for mayor at the subsequent election, but the party decided to support eventual winner Lutfur Rahman, who stood as an independent after his deselection by Labour. The shift to an elected mayor has certainly played into the hands of Respect, as it has taken power away from the Labour Party in Tower Hamlets.

If the proposal for a directly elected mayor is approved in Birmingham, this would provide an ideal opportunity for Respect Party leader Salma Yaqoob to throw her hat into the ring. She gained a reputation as a hard-working councillor in the deprived ward of Sparkbrook and is admired across the city. Such was her popularity that when she was first elected to Birmingham City Council in 2006 she received 49 per cent of the vote. Given that she was born in Bradford, a run for mayor in that city could also be on the cards.

What does this all mean for Scotland? In truth, very little. Mr Galloway had a hard time during the Scottish Parliament elections last year, with the Dundonian picking up just 3.3 per cent in Glasgow. Respect has no existing base in Scotland, and this lack of activists severely hindered his campaign. The anti-war message is also not as effective here, considering that the SNP also opposed the invasion of Iraq and backed calls for troops to return home from Afghanistan.

Respect will want to consolidate its position in Bradford and its other former strongholds before even considering a return north of the Border. It is therefore highly unlikely that the party will put forward candidates for the Scottish local elections, also to be held on 3 May.

The Bradford result does pose some interesting questions about Muslim participation in the political process in Scotland, a topic that will be debated at a public event at the Scottish Parliament on 20 April. Indeed, it is interesting to note that two of the candidates who beat Mr Galloway to a seat in Holyrood on the Glasgow regional list last year were Muslims.

Next month’s local elections will tell us whether the Respect Party is back for good or whether the Bradford West by-election was just a one-off. If Mr Galloway and Ms Yaqoob can get their supporters to campaign with the same fervour as we recently witnessed, there could be a real shake-up in the local politics of Bradford and Birmingham. Expanding outside of such areas, where an anti-war message is not as effective, will be a much sterner test.

• Timothy Peace is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Edinburgh’s Alwaleed Centre