George Galloway has vowed to withdraw the UK from Nato and pledged to offer workers the option of retiring at 60 in a giveaway spree announced for voters as he launched his party’s vision for the UK.
Mr Galloway, leader of the Workers Party of Great Britain, presented his 34-page manifesto supported by a smattering of supporters and some of the 154 candidates standing for Westminster representing his party.
He committed to “all workers having the option of retiring at 60”, raising the tax-free allowance from £12,570 to £21,200 for two million low-paid workers, and boosting social housing in his voter giveaways.
Then, he warned the world is edging closer to nuclear “Armageddon”, but went on to pledge to scrap the UK’s nuclear weapons, and withdraw the country from Nato.
Described by Mr Galloway as a “very beautiful document” promising a brighter future, the manifesto includes chapters on redistribution, democratic reform and Palestine and referenced K-Pop and “creeping buro-fascism”.
The veteran politician spoke at the launch event at a hotel in Manchester, just a few miles south from Rochdale, where he became the town’s MP in February, following a by-election after the death of Labour incumbent Tony Lloyd.
He promised a “staggering” breakthrough at the General Election for his party, which he described as the “antidote” to both Labour, who he said they seek to replace, and Nigel Farage’s Reform Party.
“We are the spirit of Labour past or what it was supposed to be. Labour, long ago, lost its way, lost its purpose,” he said.
Mr Galloway described both Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Mr Starmer as “sub-prime performers” with “vacuous” programmes, but said that Mr Farage at least “has something to say” – even if he is wrong.
His ten-point party programme begins with a pledge to end “imperialist wars” and Nato withdrawal, a subject he returned to.
Mr Galloway said: “We are potentially headed to Armageddon and if we don’t get out of this death spiral, then none of this will have been worth arguing over at all.
“If Keir Starmer becomes the Prime Minister, within six months, Britain will be at war. I mean an actual war with British troops deployed.
“Don’t arm these dangerous people with a super-majority in Parliament.”
Mr Galloway claimed the BBC has been “working” for Keir Starmer and Labour had been “made safe” for “the establishment” and the “Deep State”.
He added: “The fact that Starmer is going to take us to disaster potentially, existential disaster, is a national emergency.”
Mr Galloway said Britain had suffered decades of subservience to the EU and the US, making it a “vassal” of Washington and a country, he said, being led by a “senile dementia patient”.
He claimed Royal Navy warships were in the Black Sea, the Red Sea and the South China Sea, “threatening others” rather than protecting their own coast.
And he described Nato as a “war machine” with the West led by leaders who want conflict while edging closer to a “game of nuclear bluff” with Russia, China and North Korea and only the “woke armies of the West” to defend itself.
Party pledges on cheap housing, free childcare, free adult education and public laundries would be paid for by scrapping UK’s nuclear weapons, which Mr Galloway said cost the country £12,000 every minute.
Last month he faced criticism for “blatant homophobia” after saying he doesn’t think that gay relationships are equal to heterosexual relationships.
Mr Galloway said he didn’t want children to be taught “that gay relationships are exactly the same and as normal as a mum, a dad and kids”.
In March he accused the UK of being involved in last week’s Moscow terror attack in comments seized upon by a Kremlin-linked newspaper.
The Rochdale MP accused the US and the UK of lying about the involvement of Isis in the attack, which killed at least 139 people and injured around 360, on his talk show on YouTube.
The comments were quickly picked up by Rossiyskaya Gazeta, a newspaper published by the Russian government, which cited him as an expert discussing the attack.
Mr Galloway told The Independent at the time he had never heard of the Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
He has also repeatedly been accused of spreading conspiracy theories, including recently speculating that the Princess of Wales was “dead” and that the April 2022 Russian massacre of civilians in Bucha, just north of Kyiv, was likely staged.
Voters go to the polls for the general election on 4 July.
