LONDON, 24 October 2003 — You might think the last thing Tony Blair needs right now is the ritual purge of a prominent Labour MP for speaking out against the US-British invasion of Iraq. This is, after all, a prime minister who faces a potentially job-threatening judgment on the conflict’s aftermath from Lord Hutton, increasingly grim news from occupied Iraq itself, and an electorate who mostly believe the war was wrong and that Blair lied about it. But expulsion seems to be what is being prepared for the party’s leading anti-war campaigner, George Galloway, arraigned before New Labour’s own star chamber on Wednesday on charges of bringing the party into disrepute.
If the MP is indeed thrown out, it would be unprecedented in Labour’s history and cast an ominous shadow over all MPs’ rights to speak freely in times of national crisis. For the accusations against Galloway, already suspended from the party for five months, relate not to anything he has done, but only to what he is alleged to have said. Every previous spasm of party discipline against Labour MPs — from the anti-Communist expulsions of the 1940s to the drive against Militant in the 1980s — has, by contrast, targeted their organizational links with groups regarded as beyond the pale.
But since the party rules specify that no member can be disciplined for the “mere holding or expression of opinions”, New Labour apparatchiks have conjured up a new category of opinions so inflammatory they go beyond “mere expression”. Top of the charge sheet are claims that Galloway “incited” Arab armies to fight British troops on Abu Dhabi TV (while damning Blair and Bush as “wolves”), called on troops not to obey illegal orders and suggested he might stand as an independent if Labour members were “cheated” of their right to reselect him.
Examination of the TV transcript shows Galloway in fact ruled out Arab military resistance, but floated an oil embargo instead. And of course illegal orders have, since Nuremberg, to be disobeyed as a matter of law. So Labour officials later came up with two extra charges: That Galloway warned MPs they could lose votes if they backed the war and congratulated a councilor elected to Preston council on an anti-war ticket.
In the tangle of contested transcripts and interpretations, none of this really stands up to the cold light of day six months on. Nor is it clear why such remarks are less acceptable than those of MPs who, say, described the prime minister as a “war criminal”. The uproar at Galloway’s “wolves” comment was in any case entirely confected — a government minister gave the TV transcript to the Sun, which then campaigned for the left-winger’s expulsion as a traitor. Blair subsequently signaled his determination to act against Galloway — in an interview in the Sun.
Perhaps Labour leaders were more concerned, when they embarked on this course, about the much more serious allegations against Galloway published in the Daily Telegraph — that he had been paid 375,000 pounds a year by Saddam Hussein — on the basis of documents supposedly found in burned-out offices in Baghdad. If so, they should note that the Telegraph defense against Galloway’s current libel action doesn’t claim that the cash allegations are actually true, but simply pleads its right to report the documents in the public interest. Meanwhile, the US-owned Christian Science Monitor has been forced to apologize now its own story of multimillion Iraqi payments to Galloway turns out to have been based on forged documents and is expected to end up with a substantial bill for damages.
Such smears apart, New Labour leaders regard Galloway as an isolated figure whose high-octane rhetoric has limited appeal, despite opposition to his suspension across Labour’s spectrum, from Frank Field to Michael Foot. But, as anyone who attended the anti-war demonstrations will know, the MP has a following that extends well beyond the left — in Britain’s Muslim communities in particular, as well as in what has been the largest protest movement in British history. The government no longer has enough political credit to risk further alienating any of these constituencies with authoritarian gestures.
But the move against Galloway has wider implications. Given the way Parliament works, such a sweeping use of party discipline is effectively an attack on MPs’ freedom of speech. It also reflects a self-defeating restriction of Labour’s political base. Under a first-past-the-post electoral system, the main parties have to be political coalitions or they fail to represent the breadth of public opinion.
But New Labour doesn’t seem to get it. Instead, ministers have been putting it about that Glenda Jackson could be next to face discipline for her attacks on the prime minister over Iraq. Even now, New Labour could pull back from expelling Galloway — or further suspending him, which would come to the same thing. The panel of three party members currently hearing his case might well respond to compelling arguments. But if the high command insists on pressing ahead, it may find that the fallout goes a lot further than the fate of one MP.
