I'll back Labour if I win Scottish parliament seat, says George Galloway

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/mar/24/george-galloway-scottish-parliament-back-labour




Former Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow is standing for Holyrood as lead candidate for regional list seat in Glasgow




George Galloway holds a press conference to launch his campaign for the Scottish parliament elections. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
The former MP George Galloway will back Labour in the Scottish parliament if he wins a seat, despite being thrown out of the party by Tony Blair after repeated disputes over policy.

Galloway is standing for Holyrood as the lead candidate for a regional list seat in Glasgow after forming a leftwing coalition of trade union activists, student activists and members of the hard left Solidarity party.

The former Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, in east London, has been out of mainstream politics after failing to be re-elected in 2010, but will stand again under his current party's name in a coalition called Respect (George Galloway) – Coalition Against Cuts.

Senior figures in the major parties, including Labour, believe it is likely that Galloway would win a list seat, which would need him to get only about 6% of the second vote in Glasgow on 5 May.

Six years after last serving as a Labour MP in Glasgow, Galloway claimed he would vigorously oppose spending cuts at Holyrood and speak out against foreign wars.

He said the coalition's eight candidates "will be singing a song which never went out of fashion, especially here in Glasgow. And that song is for economic justice and against war, and for resistance to those who practice both economic injustice and war".

He added: "If you don't fight, you don't get. It's the squeaky wheel which gets the grease."

Galloway, 56, also attacked Holyrood, accusing its members of being inadequate. "We know the Scottish parliament is too small, too small-minded, too small in its horizons," he said. "And that the great majority of the people in it are quintessentially small politicians."

Brian Smith, the branch secretary of the public sector union Unison in Glasgow council, which has 10,000 members, said: "We should get George Galloway elected so he's a voice which stands up for people in this city. He will stand against the cuts."

Galloway confirmed there were divisions inside the coalition on the issue of Scottish independence – a policy supported by Solidarity. He said they would "agree to disagree" if there was a referendum on independence in the next parliament.

It was unlikely there would be other policy differences within the coalition, he said, adding: "Of course we will have ideological differences on a deeper level, but I don't think those ideological differences will be shown up on the floor of the parliament."

Galloway helped set up Respect after being expelled from Labour in 2003. His expulsion ended 18 years as a Labour MP in Glasgow.

But Galloway insisted he was still a "Labour man in my heart." He denounced the Scottish National party for its ties to major business leaders such as the Stagecoach founder, Brian Souter, and its lack of connections with the trade union and labour movements.

"If they're depending on my vote – and, looking at the polls, they might do – who knows, then the first people we will talk to will be Labour. We will have conditions, and those conditions will be in the interests of people of Glasgow," he said.

Senior and long-standing Labour MPs in the west of Scotland are still bitter critics of Galloway, who they blame for causing the party significant damage. Officially, Labour is likely to ignore Galloway's candidacy in Glasgow in the election campaign.

Officials point out that Galloway has not lived in Glasgow for some years, a criticism he accepted. But he said he would live in the city again if elected.