George Galloway to mount legal challenge over election defeat
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Version 0 of 1. George Galloway has said that he has begun legal proceedings to overturn the election result in Bradford West, after he lost by more than 11,000 votes to the Labour candidate, Naz Shah. Labour called the former Respect MP “pathetic” after he said he was hoping to get Shah debarred as an MP. Galloway accused her of lying about him on Urdu television and of falsely claiming to have been forced into marriage at 15. Galloway also claims to have uncovered “widespread malpractice” in the battle for Bradford West, including postal voting fraud. The Bradford West contest was dogged by claims and counter-claims between Labour and Respect over a number of issues, especially relating to Shah’s family background. Shah – who won the seat on a 29.7% swing from Respect, polling 19,977 votes to Galloway’s 8,557 – has vowed to sue Galloway for calling the circumstances of her marriage into question. Related: George Galloway loses Bradford West seat to Labour's Naz Shah Announcing his legal bid to overturn the election result, Galloway said: “It has come to my notice that there has been widespread malpractice in this election, particularly over postal voting. We are in the process of compiling the information which will form part of our petition to have the result set aside.” Galloway has also added to a previous complaint he had made under section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, which concerns false statements made with the intention of affecting the result of an election. “An allegation made by Naz Shah in Urdu on a well-watched Asian TV show is both untrue and extremely serious,” he said. According to the Respect party, Shah alleged on the TV programme that Galloway had travelled to Pakistan and posed as her dead father to obtain her nikah, an Islamic wedding certificate. Before polling day, Galloway made a complaint to the director of public prosecutions about the authenticity of a nikah that Shah produced during the campaign to prove she was forced to marry her cousin in Pakistan when she was just 15. In a dramatic moment during hustings last month, Galloway produced a nikah which he claimed showed she actually married the cousin when she was 16. He later admitted he had sent an intermediary in Pakistan to obtain it. Related: George Galloway may have lost his seat – but this isn’t the last we’ll see of him In a personal piece widely shared on social media following her last-minute selection as Labour’s prospective parliamentary candidate in March, Shah referred to her “own forced marriage through emotional blackmail when I was just 15 years old whilst in Pakistan”. The Guardian understands the Respect party has spoken to one of Shah’s paternal uncles who said he was not at the Islamic wedding ceremony Shah claims to have had in Pakistan on 25 December 1988, when she was 15. He is said to be the only surviving witness listed on the 1988 nikah. Respect claims there are are “other discrepancies” on the 1988 document and says the Labour party was informed of this prior to the election. A Labour spokesman said of Galloway’s legal action: “This is pathetic and without any foundation. George Galloway should accept he was booted out by the people of Bradford West. They saw through his divisive politics and made a positive choice, by a majority of well over 11,000, to elect a brilliant new MP, Naz Shah.” Galloway was reported to police on Thursday after he sent a tweet about exit polls before voting closed, which is banned under election law. Conceding defeat in the early hours of Friday morning, Galloway said: “I don’t begrudge the Labour members here their moment of celebration, of course. “But there will be others who are already celebrating: the venal, the vile, the racists and the Zionists will all be celebrating. The hyena can bounce on the lion’s grave but it can never be a lion and in any case, I’m not in my grave. As a matter of fact, I’m going off now to plan the next campaign.” Galloway claimed last week that he was going to sue a number of media organisations for defamation, along with his former parliamentary assistant, Aisha Ali-Khan, who was jailed for contempt last year. |