{"id":282968,"date":"2024-03-05T08:25:18","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T08:25:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=282968"},"modified":"2024-03-07T07:59:39","modified_gmt":"2024-03-07T07:59:39","slug":"galloways-rochdale-victory-is-an-establishment-trap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=282968","title":{"rendered":"Galloway\u2019s Rochdale Victory is an Establishment Trap"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Kit Knightly \u2013 Off-Guardian March 4, 2024<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>The UK\u2019s Parliamentary constituency of Rochdale held a bye-election on Friday, and George Galloway won.<\/p>\n<p>First I want to say we agree with GG about a lot of things, not least his unwavering support for Palestine and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=QVdYp2GDC-4\">opposition to US Imperialism<\/a>. He deserves much credit for that and we have very vocally supported him in the past.<\/p>\n<p>But then \u201ccovid\u201d happened and a lot of things changed irrevocably and are still changing. Many idols showed us their feet of clay. And GG was one of them.<\/p>\n<p>When Covid hit, George took to Twitter to block dozens of Covid sceptics who had previously supported and defended him, and called them \u201cflat-earthers\u201d to boot<\/p>\n<p>He maintained, and still maintains, that Covid was real and called people who thought otherwise \u201ctinfoil hat deniers\u201d:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">TINFOIL HAT DENIERS | Do you remember when they used to say Covid was a hoax? And \u2018do you know anyone who died from it?\u2019 Well they\u2019re not saying that now are they! <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/MOATS?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#MOATS<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/coronavirus?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#coronavirus<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/WW11?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#WW11<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/vaccine?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#vaccine<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/NHS?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#NHS<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Tea4rRzUmG\">pic.twitter.com\/Tea4rRzUmG<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; George Galloway MP (@georgegalloway) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/georgegalloway\/status\/1352285836444921857?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 21, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>He <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/georgegalloway\/status\/1260510412442939392\">supported lockdowns<\/a>, and \u2013 inevitably \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/georgegalloway\/status\/1361435597878022147\">took and promoted the vaccine<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Sure, he may have begun to oppose the lockdowns eventually, he may have opposed vaccine mandates, and he may have made token efforts to walk back his support for authoritarianism in 2023 (when it was too late), but he was very much on the Covid train, to begin with.<\/p>\n<p>The point being that when the chips were down, and it really mattered, George spat out the establishment line as readily as any other political insider.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s not forget that.<\/p>\n<p>But this article isn\u2019t about George, it\u2019s about the con trick he\u2019s just been a (probably unknowing) part of.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s about the sleight-of-hand routine designed to prop up the idea the system works.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s face facts:<\/p>\n<p>What we call \u201cdemocracy\u201d is not really democracy. Elections are rigged, we have enough evidence, enough concrete examples, to make it a reasonable assumption across the board, though of course there may be exceptions.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re at the point where a vote gets no presumption of innocence, they are all assumed fixed until proven otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>Even if not controlled down to the level of every single vote, there is more than one way to rig an election.<\/p>\n<p>And while Galloway may well be popular in his new constituency, that doesn\u2019t change the fact the system could have denied him his seat <em>if it wanted to.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Please note also that almost half of the votes cast in Rochdale \u2013 43.7% \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/news\/politics\/1872818\/nigel-farage-george-galloway-rochdale-postal-voting\">were postal votes<\/a>. Postal votes have been known to <a href=\"https:\/\/off-guardian.org\/2020\/05\/29\/donald-trump-is-completely-right-about-mail-in-ballots\/\">be potentially corrupt for years<\/a>\u00a0and were prominently demonstrated to be so by both the 2019 General Election in the UK and the 2020 US Presidential Election.<\/p>\n<p>We also have the fact that the Labour Party\u2019s candidate was barred from running after his party suspended him following a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/uk\/politics\/labour-rochdale-israel-azhar-ali-election-b2495351.html\">\u201cleaked\u201d audio where he called the October 7th attack a false flag.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Green Party candidate was also suspended, this time for \u201canti-Palestinian remarks\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Thereby removing<em> both<\/em> the other leftwing candidates from the running (including the likely favourite) and \u201cdiscrediting\u201d <em>both<\/em> parties on the Israel\/Palestine issue.<\/p>\n<p>If the establishment wanted an outspoken \u00a0left-wing candidate with a solid pro-Palestine position \u2013 well, fate helped them achieve it.<\/p>\n<p>Enter George Galloway.<\/p>\n<p>Galloway wins, and the doors are opened wide for a new \u201cmoral panic\u201d. \u00a0Suddenly Rishi Sunak is making an \u201cemergency address\u201d to the nation warning about \u201cIslamic extremists\u201d and \u201cthe far-right\u201d \u00a0(because, you know, everyone we don\u2019t like is \u201cfar-right\u201d now, even when they\u2019re quite \u201cfar left\u201d)<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/a8a3kEKPCr4?si=kr3KRIOJiW3POW_Y\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n&#8212;<\/div>\n<p>Suddenly articles appear all over the media talking about how <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/commentisfree\/2024\/mar\/03\/writing-off-george-galloway-ignores-his-dangerous-appeal-to-both-far-left-and-right\">\u201cdangerous\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0Galloway is. Tory talking heads are calling the election <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/watch\/?v=716774973938188\">\u201can appaling spectacle for our democracy\u201d<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Do you think this is a genuine, organic response? I don\u2019t. \u00a0I think it\u2019s a coordinated effort designed to make it <em>look<\/em> like Galloway\u2019s victory was a shock, \u00a0something scary. It\u2019s aimed at projecting the idea \u00a0some unexpected blow had been struck against the system.<\/p>\n<p>Nothing of the kind has happened of course \u2013 in my opinion.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s just \u00a0a very clever rhetorical trick.<\/p>\n<p>When politicians and the media attack the process by which Galloway is \u201celected\u201d, they are manipulating the critics of the system who have been pointing out how \u00a0rigged it is, into defending Galloway\u2019s \u201cvictory\u201d, <em>thereby tacitly undermining their own position.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The establishment mouthpieces<\/em>\u00a0attack their own fake \u201cdemocracy\u201d to trick <em>us<\/em> into defending it. You see?<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t have any reason to believe Galloway himself had any awareness of this. He\u2019s probably being played like the rest of us. Conned into celebrating a victory that is not really any such thing.<\/p>\n<p>I mean what has really changed?<\/p>\n<p>They have added a loud and eloquent anti-US, anti-Israel voice to the back benches of Parliament. Great in so far as it \u00a0goes, but in these post-covid globalist days I\u2019m not even sure how much that means any more.<\/p>\n<p>GG is ultimately a voice broadcasting the increasingly \u201cacceptable\u201d alternative whilst handily not being affiliated with any mainstream political party.<\/p>\n<p>One who will continue to ensure very vocal polarised debate of the topics we\u2019re encouraged to debate.<\/p>\n<p>And one who \u2013 we \u00a0<em>and they<\/em> know \u2013 will likely toe the line <em>again<\/em> when it really matters.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8212;<\/p>\n<p>Support Off-Guardian:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ko-fi.com\/offguardian\">Ko-fi<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.subscribestar.com\/offguardian\">Subscribestar<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.paypal.com\/donate\/?hosted_button_id=CKFB3MH8CGB9U\">PayPal<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/off-guardian.org\/2024\/03\/04\/galloways-rochdale-victory-is-an-establishment-trap\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Covid has changed everything. Nothing can be taken at face value anymore. Kit Knightly on why George Galloway&#8217;s by-election win may not be all it seems   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":282733,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-282968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Ersatz_Media_Activists"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=282968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":282969,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282968\/revisions\/282969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/282733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=282968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=282968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=282968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}