George Galloway

As the election enters its final week, All For Unity has come under sustained attack from people on Twitter, led by Tory party activists, who, scared of losing list seats, have briefed candidates to launch personal attacks on George Galloway. 

To be honest, I was initially sceptical about George too. However, I had been awestruck by his debating skills in the US Senate, his passion in 2014 on the pro-UK side, and his commitment now to strategies that could beat the SNP and beat back the ugly and tiresome Nationalism that has brought Scotland to its knees. All of that is what got me talking with him about a new party to help break the stalemate.

They say, with penetrating accuracy, that once you become a parent you are only as happy as your least happy child. And, sad to say, since we got the Alliance for Unity going last year it has been like having an extra child. The party’s triumphs and disasters have produced the same reaction in me as my children’s and I find myself worrying like a parent about our progress. 

The anxiety to start with was not finding enough people of sufficient calibre to join us; then it was that the Electoral Commission would find excuses to keep turning down our application to be a political party until beyond polling day; then it was that we would simply be ignored by everyone; then it was that we would never feature in any polls. So the Sunday Times poll putting A4U on 4%, one percent behind the Liberal Democrats, is a bit like seeing one of the children winning their first egg and spoon race: It is heartening and frustrating at the same time. 

“A week is a long time in politics” is a trite opening sentence but it has been true this week, as Salmond’s forced entry into the race has left things ‘all changed, changed utterly’ as WB Yeats wrote 105 years ago in a rather similar context. It is what we have feared all along: the formation of a ‘Nationalist Front’ and a creeping Ulsterisation of Scottish politics with Salmond already talking about ‘street protests’ as part of their campaign for secession. The big question is: will a nationalist monster with two heads be harder to slay, or will those heads devour each other? 

George Galloway and I launch our campaign by filming a ‘Potemkin rally’ in the pub carpark – all that we can do during lockdown.

We are met by the village loudmouth, ostentatiously masked by a black scarf against the Covid on the cold March breeze. “What’s going on here? Did you no see the saltires as you drove in? We don’t want you and your Union here.” He patrols the one street in the village while we are filming, just in case any ‘Yoons’ think about joining in.

In his weekly broadcast, George Galloway, leader of the fledgling Alliance For Unity Party, covers many of the issues in Scottish politics today. We have transcribed the best parts for you.

#1  Significant Labour figure to join Alliance For Unity 

We are building a stable of parliamentary candidates that are really thoroughbreds and I can't tell you who right now, but I have been talking for the last day or two to a very prominent twice Labour party parliamentary candidate about joining us on the lists for the Holyrood elections in May.