George Galloway came to speak at Oxford town hall on Friday 16th May at an event organised by Oxford University Students’ Stop the War. Reports had been circulating, both on local anti-war e-mail lists and in the local press, that Galloway had been banned from speaking by the council. These reports proved to be untrue, and the event went on as planned. Despite the confusion, around 130 people attended, including around 10 members of Oxford University Conservative Association who had apparently coordinated their “first ever protest” against Galloway with the Daily Telegraph. The Telegraph is responsible for making allegations that George Galloway had links with Saddam Hussein’s regime and that he received funds from the regime amounting to something in the region of $15million. The documents used as “proof” of Galloway’s involvement with the Ba’athist regime have since been checked by independent experts and deemed “crude forgeries”. Galloway has since launched legal proceedings against The Telegraph, on whose board of directors, he told the audience, sit Richard Perle, Margaret Thatcher and Henry Kissinger.

Galloway spoke initially about some of the other local difficulties he has had since becoming heavily involved with the anti-war movement. Most recently, he has been expelled from the Labour party over the allegations made by The Telegraph. Petitions circulated during the meeting demanding that he be re-instated. Galloway is also facing a private prosecution for treason launched by the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, who contested the view of the anti-war movement that the war was illegal. Treason, until 1998, was still a capital offence in this country, but since then it has carried a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Galloway informed the audience that this private prosecution is being financed by Rupert Murdoch, owner of The Sun newspaper.

After discussing some of the issues surrounding The Telegraph’s allegations against him, Galloway turned to the effects of the disastrous effects of the UN sanctions after the first Gulf war, the latest war itself, the anti-war movement, and the internal affairs of the Labour party. He said that our personal, economic and cultural freedoms have been “grievously compromised” by the war as the Foreign Office issues more and more warnings about the safety of travel to Arab countries. He ended on a more positive note by suggesting that Tony Blair’s time at the top of the Labour Party may soon draw to a close. “The cracks are already beginning to show” he said, adding that whilst he believes that Blair probably is sincere in his stated commitment to the Palestinian peace process, this sincerity will come to naught given that Blair has always been, and will continue to be, subordinated to the aims of George Bush: “Blair is finding out the limits of the powers of an ambassador. An ambassador is a man who goes abroad to lie for his country. Blair goes abroad to lie for someone else’s country. […] But the tail never wags the dog; the dog always wags the tail”, warned Galloway.

Finally, when I managed to catch up with Galloway after the event, he gave a message of support to Oxford’s fledgling IMC: “We desperately need more independent sources of media, and I hope that Oxford Indymedia, which is now but a sapling, will one day be a tall and impressive tree.”