British Labour MP Shah Rips Galloway ‘Pathetic’ Plans to Overturn Election Loss: ‘I Just Pity Him’
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by Eliezer Sherman
Bradford West Labour MP Naz Shah (L). Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Firebrand former British Parliament member George Galloway’s plans to overturn last Thursday’s election results in Bradford West, which saw his rapid demise, are “pathetic,” said victor Labour Party MP Naseem Shah.
“It’s a pathetic attempt from someone who doesn’t accept defeat. I have got a job to do,” said Shah, who began her first day at work serving Bradford West on Monday.
Galloway said over the weekend that he was launching legal proceedings to challenge the results of last Thursday’s election, in which Shah trounced the socialist Respect Party leader by a majority of 11,000 votes, after publicly conceding his defeat to the “racists, the vile and Zionists.”
Galloway said he had proof of “malpractice” in postal voting.
“We are in the process of compiling the information which will form part of our petition to have the result set aside,” he said on Sunday.
The Respect Party leader, who last summer publicly declared Bradford an “Israel-free zone,” had gone after Shah in the run-up to elections by attacking an open letter she had written documenting her past of having overcome poverty and a forced marriage.
Galloway contested the age she alleged she was when she was forced to marry, saying she was 16-and-a-half and not 15, and adding that her statements amounted to “slander” of the Pakistani community. He also claimed she had lied about him on Urdu-language television.
Some estimates put Bradford West’s Pakistani population at 16%, while the official census says at least 26% of the population is Asian or Asian British.
Shah complained that she had confronted the “dirtiest campaign … the worst in this country and the worst this democracy has ever seen.”
Today, Shah’s attitude toward her losing adversary is rather clear: “I just pity him. I don’t have any anger towards him, I’ll be honest with you. I pity him for having to stoop to that kind of level and being that desperate. That desperation was quite evident,” she said in comments to the UK’s Daily Telegraph.
