By Mary Robertson, SOAS Student Respect

I went to Bradford a week before polling day intending to stay for a day or two to help with the campaign. A week later, I still hadn’t been able to bring myself to leave and Respect had secured the most dramatic by-election result since 1945.

Despite the shock that Galloway’s victory caused to the media and political establishment, it was obvious to anyone on the ground in Bradford West that something extraordinary was happening.

You could see it in the growing army of volunteers appearing at campaign HQ each day, ready, not just to lend a hand, but to take weeks off work and dedicate themselves to working round the clock on the campaign. You could see it in the palpable enthusiasm with which Galloway was greeted on streets across the constituency – his reception was usually more befitting of a rock star than a politician. You could see it in the electric atmosphere created at every meeting Galloway spoke at, as crowds of deeply frustrated local people at last sensed the possibility for real change. You could see it too in the levels of activity on the campaign Facebook group, which became a hive of debate and planning among campaigners.

Respect’s anti-austerity platform resonated widely in a city that many of its inhabitants feel to be sinking. Bradford’s JSA claimant rate is almost double the national average, whilst wage levels are well-below. The city’s schools rank tenth from bottom across the country. The sense of neglect is symbolised by a huge hole in city centre – a space created for a shopping centre that was promised but never built.

Frustration with the coalition government at the national level, and the Labour party at the local level, was reflected in the fact that only four out of ten voters voted for one of the three main parties. For Bradford’s inhabitants, its establishment politicians are at best nobodies and at worst corrupt and self-serving. Yet until last week, the lack of any credible alternative meant that these politicians were able to take the votes of their constituents for granted.

Desire for an alternative was evident in the hordes of young people who, galvanised early on by Galloway’s opposition to the war and support for Palestine, flocked to his campaign and gave it so much early momentum. It was evident in the teams of women, many engaging in politics for the first time, who became central to the campaign. It was evident in older first-time voters, often in their 40s, who had for most of their life shunned politics because they lacked faith in the three main parties. And it was evident in the fervour with which increasing numbers of people broke with their previous party allegiances, and often with their families too, to vote Respect.

Galloway’s candidacy rested on a platform that opposed the war in Afghanistan, favoured the abolition of tuition fees and argued for investment not cuts; it offered the voters of Bradford West a real alternative. This alternative was all the more appealing because it came from outside a political mainstream that has been discredited by years of arrogance, complacency and disregard for the needs of ordinary voters.

This election wasn’t just about George’s personality or celebrity. As a lowly campaigner I too met huge amounts of warmth and enthusiasm on door-steps across Bradford West as a desire for an alternative politics bubbled to the surface. A city has seized its chance for a change it so badly needs.

Student Respect wholeheartedly congratulates George Galloway MP on his stunning victory in the Bradford West by-election on Thursday 29 March.

Galloway’s stomping majority of 10,000 votes provides a serious mandate for Respect, securing more votes than all the other parties standing in the election put together:

George Galloway, Respect: 18,341 (55.9%)

Imran Hussain, Labour: 8,201 (25%)

Jackie Whiteley, Conservative: 2,746 (8.4%)

Jeanette Sunderland, Lib Dem: 1,505 (4.6%)

Other: 2,021 (6.2%)

Turnout: 50.8%

Young people, who flocked to Galloway's campaign in their thousands, were central to this historic election victory.

Respect won in Bradford because Galloway inspired a whole new generation of people to get involved in politics in a way they have never done before.

Young people and students now have a voice in Parliament that will stand up for us. Galloway will fight for an alternative to Tory education cuts, soaring student debt and the joblessness that is blighting the lives of over 1 million young people in Britain today. He will also give a strong voice in Parliament to the overwhelming majority of young people who oppose Britain's involvement in brutal and futile wars overseas.

All students that want to fight alongside Galloway for free education and against cuts, for equality and against racism and all discrimination, and for international justice and peace should sign up to Student Respect today and build the alternative to the Tories.

Join the Respect Party online today. Join the fight-back.

p>BY Madeleine Bunting
(First appeared in the Guardian on Saturday 24th April)

Drums, loudhailers, chanting slogans. It is a very old-fashioned kind of politics that can be heard on the high street in Kings Heath, Birmingham.

But Salma Yaqoob, the prospective parliament candidate at the centre of the hubbub, represents a quiet revolution. "Bankers bailed out, people sold out," she shouts into the loudhailer outside the banks. The passing cars sound their horns in support.

<

She is the most prominent Muslim woman in British public life. She wears a headscarf, a powerful symbol of a faith she has accommodated with her passionate leftwing politics. She is standing as a candidate for the tiny and fractured Respect party.

In some streets around the new constituency of Hall Green, her poster is on every window. Since her narrow defeat for Westminster in 2005, she has built up support through her work as a local councillor, as well as building a national profile through her appearances on BBC's Question Time.

She might just topple Labour from a seat in an area which, in 1997, it counted as one of its safest. Boundary changes have brought much of the old Sparkbrook and Small Heath constituency (Labour majority: 19,526) into the new Hall Green.

Yaqoob is one of a small group who has a good chance of making history as one of the first British Muslim women MPs. Her result is looking close, while across Birmingham, Shabana Mahmood is fighting Clare Short's old seat, Ladywood. In Bolton South, Yasmin Qureshi inherits a big Labour majority, and Rushanara Ali could well take the Bethnal Green seat back for Labour. Yaqoob's headscarf at Westminster may prompt a few headlines – both here and abroad – but few will fully grasp the small revolution these women are spearheading in these communities, and how they are introducing to British electoral politics a constituency of Muslim women, many of whom don't speak English and were in previous elections confined to the backroom, the private family areas of the house, whenever canvassers or candidates came to the doorstep.

Back on the high street in Kings Heath, the noisy protesters crowding around the diminutive figure of Yaqoob are furious. Gurt Singh has been running a steel and timber yard all his life, but he has had to put his 10 staff on a three-day week to avoid redundancies. "I reckon I have only a few months left. I can't get credit from the bank."

Essa Altaf is equally outraged. A property developer, he has had to lay off eight men. "I don't want to lay off any more, I have morals. I know redundancy affects a whole family and then the whole community. Why do I have morals, and the banks don't?"

By now I am surrounded by men who all run small businesses in the building industry all telling a bitter story of the recession. The boom in this area of Birmingham has always been fragile and the recession hit quickly and hard. Jobs are the biggest subject on the doorstep, says Yaqoob. She knows well that the issues, even at national elections, are local: jobs, schools, antisocial behaviour, police, housing. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars rarely come up, she says – the surge in anti-war sentiment, which helped her in 2005, is unlikely to feature this time round. Constituents' economic security is far more pressing.

What will help Yaqoob is that her Labour opponent, Roger Godsiff, who has held the seat since 1992, has been badly damaged by the expenses scandal. His second-home claims were among the highest in England, and despite charging £163,885 to the taxpayer in 2007-08, last year he spoke in only five debates and voted in 56% of divisions.

Yaqoob was wooed by Labour after 2005.She acknowledges that "My values are traditional Labour, but New Labour has gone to the right". She was even courted by the Liberal Democrats and the Tories, a tribute to her rare capacity for fair-minded plain speaking, most evident in her Question Time appearance earlier this year, at Wootton Bassett, when she earned respect for her handling of questions about British soldiers killed in Afghanistan, a war she opposes.

But she has stuck with Respect, despite its internal disputes, since 2005, and is probably now better known than her party. She is accused by prominent Labour and Liberal Democrat Muslims of "leading the community into a "cul-de-sac" but defends her politics vigorously.

"I couldn't speak like I do if I was in Labour. I'm not here as a career politician, but because I want to offer an alternative to the neo-liberal model, which is patently failing. I now punch above my weight, working with other parties and influencing them. I want to try and open the space for discussion and debate, which is crucial right now, and nudge Labour into a more principled position."

She says she won't "make a tactic into a principle", clearly indicating that she would come back to Labour on the right terms. In the meantime, her gamble to be her own woman and to speak her mind without having to submit to party discipline is surviving against all the odds. A recent independent assessment argued that she is among Birmingham's three most influential councillors.

Ironically, her toughest battles are probably within the Muslim community. Contrary to assumptions that this is where the core of her support lies, she has had to pick her way very carefully through the sensitivities of conservatives within her community. The old Sparkbrook and Small Heath had the highest number of Muslim votes of any constituency in the country, and many of them are now in Yaqoob's patch.

"I've had death threats and criticism that I support gays – because I have a clear anti-discrimination position – and there have been claims that it is haram [forbidden in Islam] to vote for women. People say to me, 'Have you no shame?' and they accuse me of immodesty and ask my husband why he lets me speak in public. It's still an uphill struggle."

But she has been winning even her fiercest critics round. "Some people who made out fatwas against voting for a woman have now been saying that I'm the right candidate. I have been invited into mosques – some of which don't even have facilities for women to pray – to give the Friday sermons."

Yaqoob is well aware that she is a challenge to traditional Muslim political culture – not just because she is a woman, but because she is not afraid to speak her mind. She has openly criticised the way the postal vote has been misused in Birmingham to strengthen the traditional biraderi – clan affiliations. In practice, what this means is that a community fixer will offer a party hundreds of votes in return for favours.

She recognises that many non-Muslim voters can feel threatened by her as a Muslim. "I'm between a rock and a hard place," she says. "I have to jump hurdles because of the way I look. Firstly, I have to make it clear that I don't support terrorism, secondly, that I'm British, thirdly, that I don't just lobby for Muslims and lastly, that I'm not a Trojan horse for sinister Islamist plots.

"People still question me about the hijab as a symbol of oppression. I try to stay patient and build a relationship of trust. For a real discussion, people have to be able to hear each other: someone has to pull the barriers down. People have a genuine fear, and you need to deal with it or you are dehumanising them – it won't just go away."

Her training as a psychotherapist clearly influences how she understands political conflict and how she is still able to deal patiently with questions faced since she first went to university more than 20 years ago. It makes her voice distinctive in public life – and it's easy to see why she's clocked up five appearances on Question Time, the showcase for aspiring politicians.

The key factor benefiting Yaqoob is the decline of the close bond between Muslims and Labour, which has defined the politics of the Muslim community for two generations. Disillusion with foreign policy, most notably in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as on domestic economic issues, is likely to slash the Muslim votes in Birmingham.

While Labour's successes in Birmingham in the past 13 years are evident in the city centre – the newly redeveloped Bullring shopping centre with its iconic architecture, for example – it's a model of urban regeneration, which hasn't percolated through to the neighbouring Victorian terraced streets, where shops and businesses are closing down.

A younger generation of educated Muslims no longer demonstrates the expected deference to the "village elders", who once directed the family and delivered a bloc vote for Labour. Some are impressed by the Conservatives' emphasis on family values, hard work and responsibility – it is a message that has appealed to successful immigrant communities in the past. This election will almost certainly see the arrival of the first Conservative Muslim MPs: men have been selected for Bromsgrove and Stratford-upon-Avon, two safe Conservative seats in the West Midlands.

Even in Ladywood, the Conservatives smell the possibility of giving Labour a run for their money. David Cameron made an appearance in the constituency last weekend. The Conservative candidate, Nusrat Ghani, also a Muslim, and Mahmood both grew up in this area of Birmingham. Both can call on the family connections vital to winning votes. Mahmood's father is the chair of the Birmingham Labour party.

Both are able to get beyond the "front room campaigning" of previous elections; candidates and canvassers sit in family sitting rooms and are served delicious tea spiced with green cardamom, while the conversations run on in Urdu or Mirpuri. The questions here are about family and which village the candidate is "from" back in Pakistan. There is no mistaking the pride and delight among these women to see a female candidate.

"My generation had a much more traditional life and you listened to your husband on who to vote for, but my daughters have a completely different outlook," says Maqsood Bibi through a translator. "It's a good thing for women to come forward so that it is not just men in politics. As a Muslim, I believe God gives you, as a woman, the same rights as he gives to the men. So why shouldn't you become an MP?"

Along the street, Gulshan Begum was even more forthright. "My generation of women are often illiterate and we need women in power to support us."

Their generation has waited a long time for the moment when this may finally come true.

With the General Election just around the corner, Respect Party leader Salma Yaqoob has launched a blogsite where she will be discussing current affairs and making the case for global peace, justice and equality. The site is updated daily and can be found at www.salmayaqoob.com.

It is also the place to find out the latest on Salma's campaign to be the first Respect MP in Birmingham.

Student Respect urges progressive students from across the country to join our General Election campaign in Birmingham and East London where we are fighting to win 3 Parliamentary seats.

Salma’s general election campaign is well under way. She needs all the support she can get. If you would like to volunteer your help in any way, or make a financial donation online, please ring her on 078 121 72885 or email Salma at campaign@salmayaqoob.com.

The timing of a conference this weekend outlining policies and action to bring about a more progressive London could scarcely be better. This week the official figures confirm what those of us in east London can see with our own eyes: that class inequality has increased to Victorian levels even as tens of billions of pounds of public money has gone into banks which remain in private hands.

The result is gold-dripping Croesus characters in Canary Wharf and the City eyeing every council estate and bit of spare land in the East End as a possible development or pied-a-terre, with the current inhabitants an encumbrance to be uprooted and dumped further east. This class gulf is combined with racial inequalities, poor health and other forms of deprivation into a toxic cocktail.

It is set to get worse – and much, much worse if the Old Etonians of the Tory party are to get the chance, as they did in the early 1980s, to unleash their Thatcherite dogmas. And no one should forget – as one representative after another of Blair's war camarilla is hauled before the Iraq inquiry – that Cameron and the Tories backed each and every one of those bloody adventures.

Yet despite the deadening consensus in parliament, on many issues there is a progressive majority – particularly in London. At one point there appeared to be flickers of realisation in the Brown circle that this is so. They flirted with the idea of fighting an election contrasting Tory cuts to necessary public investment. But a peashooter across the bows from the Blairites in the New Year put paid to that.

Now we are to face an election with the three parties pushing various permutations of cuts that threaten to plunge the economy into a second slump even as it flatlines from the first. My party, Respect, will be standing in carefully targeted seats in opposition to that. And we will be working with those who also seek to promote a progressive answer to class inequality, war and racism. If we can win in the three seats where we are best placed – Poplar & Limehouse and Bethnal Green & Bow in east London, and Hall Green in Birmingham – we believe we can make a major contribution to shifting the terms of political debate.

We know, of course, that that will not be enough. That's why we are engaging across the board with those who want to defend traditional Labour values. The argument is overwhelming. We are told that the state needs to be cut back. But it is only thanks to the largest ever state peacetime state intervention in the economy that the world has avoided a greater slump than the 1930s, at least for now.

We are told by one general after another that we will have to be in Afghanistan for five, 10, or even 15 years. Yet scepticism about the war has grown and is set, along with Iraq, to provide a backdrop to this year's general election as it did in 2005. The shrill cries of racism, bigotry and Islamophobia are amplified by the media and all too many politicians, giving credence to the hate-mongers of the BNP. Yet more and more people are living and mixing alongside one another in council wards, schools and workplaces across Britain.

The London elections in 2008 saw a progressive coalition emerge. But it was defeated, not because it was too radical, but because it was dragged down by the failure of New Labour in office. As I said to those on the left who appeared indifferent, or even hostile, as to whether Ken Livingstone would remain mayor of London, quoting Joni Mitchell, "You don't know what you've got 'till it's gone." How many people must now bitterly realise that now that Boris Johnson is busy paving, if not paradise, then certainly over one poor community after another in the capital.

The same should not be allowed to happen now nationally. Those who want a fairer and more just society need to band together and stand on principle. We can do that it movements for peace, social justice and against racism. But we should do it where we can at the ballot box too.

• George Galloway is speaking at the Progressive London conference on 30 January at Congress House, Great Russell Street WC1H, 10am-5:30pm. To register in advance go to www.progressivelondon.org.uk

This article first appeared on The Guardian’s Comment is free on Friday 29th January.

Respect Party MP George Galloway will join Ken Livingstone and a wide range of leading writers, commentators, campaigners and politicians at a conference to discuss 'A Progressive Agenda to Stop the Right in 2010'.

The conference on 30 January in London will bring together leading figures to discuss the most important issues for progressive politics in 2010, nationally, internationally and in London.

Other speakers include Professor Tariq Ramadan, Anas Altikriti of the British Muslim Initiative, Speech Debelle, Jon McClure of Reverend and the Makers, Dr Karma Nabulsi, Nizam Uddin (President of the University of London Union), Bellavia Ribeiro-Addy (NUS Black Students’ Officer), Daf Adley (NUS LGBT Officer) and Samuel Moncada the Venezuelan Ambassador to Britain.

Sessions include:

Young People and the Economic Crisis

Gaza 1 Year On

One Society, Many Cultures

Investment not Cuts

Stopping the BNP – no concessions to the far right

There is no progressive imperialism

Other discussions will include culture, climate change, women’s liberation, LGBT rights and defending public services.

Announcing the conference Ken Livingstone said:
“Progressive political forces must seize back the agenda by offering policies that ensure that the majority of people are not made to pay for a crisis they did not create.

The Progressive London conference will look at how we resist cuts to public services, pensions and pay that would hamper economic revival, work together to continue to achieve social progress, take radical steps to protect the planet from climate change and halt the BNP in its tracks by ending the self-defeating cycle of concessions to the far right.”

A progressive agenda to stop the right in 2010
Saturday 30 January
10am–5.30pm Registration from 9am
Congress House, Great Russell St
London WC1 (nearest tube Tottenham Court Road)
To register for the event visit: www.progressivelondon.org.uk

Salma Yaqoob, leader of Respect, appeared on Question Time (10th December) and made a compelling case against the war in Afghanistan.

Salma defended British soliders and innocent Afghan civilians against a war which has been irresponsibly and badly managed, leaving our troops with little protection, security and safety; and which seems to have no end in sight. Visit Birmingham Respect's website (http://birminghamrespect.wordpress.com) for more.

Respect Party leader Salma Yaqoob will be a panelist on this week's Question Time, which will focus on the continuing occupation of Afghanistan. Salma, who chairs Birmingham Stop the War Coalition, will be joined on the panel by three of the major proponents of the war: Armed Forces Minister Bill Rammell, shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague and former army chief General Sir Richard Dannatt. The fifth panelist will be journalist Piers Morgan whose brother has fought in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

The BBC has been criticised for selecting a panel who do not represent public opinion on this issue. A recent Independent on Sunday poll revealed that almost three quarters of Britons support full withdrawal within a year or so. By only inviting one panelist out of five who oppose this war, the BBC are guilty once again of stifling anti-war voices and allowing the warmongers to escape proper challenge.

The case for ending the occupation of Afghanistan has never been clearer. Over 30,000 civilians have been killed and more than 230,000 have been displaced by eight years of fighting. The 100th dead British soldier has just returned from Afghanistan in the bloodiest year yet. Public opposition to the war has steadily been growing as people realise that far from making Britain a safer place, the occupation has fuelled hatred and helped terrorists in their recruitment as well as wasted around £12 billion. Despite this, politicians are not planning to withdraw from Afghanistan. President Obama has just announced the deployment of a further 37,000 US troops and Britain are expected to contribute 500 soldiers to the "surge". This can only result in more misery for the Afghan population as the occupying forces seek to establish a pro-Western state in the strategic central Asian region at any cost.

It is time the politicians listened to the public and brought an end to this expensive mistake. Although the BBC will not allow anti-war leaders to properly put the case on Question Time, the Stop the War Coalition, the Respect Party and the wider anti-war movement will continue to demand an immediate end to the occupation of Afghanistan.