Galloway Is No Friend Of The Left

The left has a bit of a problem with George Galloway. On the one hand, he is a successful politican for the hard-left - he's been elected on a broadly anti-capitalist stance, both in the Labour party itself, and as an independent and as leader of his Respect party. He's a showman, someone to get the bored public talking about politcs again. On the subject of the Labour party, he clashed with the right-wing New Labour movement, again endearing himself to the left of the party.

But he's also a problem. He is perhaps too much of a showman, in politics for the attention and not to actually do good. Plus, any support he does get tends to evaporate pretty quickly. He's been tossed around consituencies across Britain, waiting to be brought back in for another few years before he's on his way again.

This argument was settled today as Galloway waded into the Julian Assange row - the British left can no longer welcome Galloway with open arms.

During a recent edition of his creepily-named Goodnight With George Galloway broadcast, he gave his opinion of the rape allegations made against Assange, he said:

"Let me tell you, I think that Julian Assange's personal sexual behaviour is something sordid, disgusting, and I condemn it. But even taken at its worst, the allegations made against him by the two women – and I'm not even going into their political connections, I'm going to leave that for others and for another day. I'm going to leave the fact that one, maybe both, of his accusers have the strangest of links to the strangest of people, organisations and states, I'm going to leave that entirely aside.

Even taken at its worst, if the allegations made by these two women were true, 100 per cent true, and even if a camera in the room captured them, they don't constitute rape. At least not rape as anyone with any sense can possibly recognise it. And somebody has to say this.

Let's take woman A. Woman A met Julian Assange, invited him back to her flat, gave him dinner, went to bed with him, had consensual sex with him. Claims that she woke up to him having sex with her again. This is something which can happen, you know.

I mean not everybody needs to be asked prior to each insertion. Some people believe that when you go to bed with somebody, take off your clothes, and have sex with them and then fall asleep, you're already in the sex game with them.

It might be really bad manners not to have tapped her on the shoulder and said, "do you mind if I do it again?". It might be really sordid and bad sexual etiquette, but whatever else it is, it is not rape or you bankrupt the term rape of all meaning. . .

I don't believe either of those women, I don't believe either of these stories."

George Galloway, condoning and then dening rape. The comments he makes are too vague and general to be specifically about the Assange case itself (although his spiel does use this as a jumping off point). To try and bat around different definitions of the word rape is pointless - contrary to what Galloway claims, people do need to be asked before you have sex with them. Asking gains consent, and without consent - rape.

Reading between the lines, and another belief of Galloway's emerges - once a man has had sex with a woman once (in his words, they are 'in the sex game') he is entitled to have sex with her again, any time he wants - implying some sort of ownership.

Galloway's old-fashioned approach to relationships and feminism makes him part of the identity of the left which it should strive to leave behind. People on the right use the phrase 'dinosaur socialism' to refer to what they believe to be an outdated form of politics, but the real dinosaur socialism is the kind practised by Galloway - politics for the working man, emphasis on man. How are left wing movements going to build up a strong base of support if it intends to continue to welcome views like that of Galloway? Patriarchy is implicit in capitalism, but the equality of socialism means equality not just for men, but for women too.