Pro-Palestinian politician George Galloway, won a landslide victory in the by-election for the Bradford West parliamentary seat in the U.K. on Thursday night. Galloway, a former Labour MP who was banished from the party after he called the Iraqi resistance to kill British soldiers in the country, celebrated his victory, tweeting to supporters, “Long live Iraq. Long live Palestine, free, Arab, dignified. George Galloway MP.”

The Bradford West constituency has been held by the Labour party for 37 years and was regarded a “safe seat” for Labour (party leader Ed Miliband, who had scheduled a victory visit to Bradford Friday morning, hastily cancelled) until Galloway’s Respect Party targeted it in the by-election called last month following the previous MP’s serious illness. Galloway exploited tensions within the local Labor party branch and targeted Bradford’s large Asian-Muslim community (estimated at around 38 percent of the voters) using campaign literature specifically aimed at Muslim concerns. One of his campaign leaflets said ““God KNOWS who is a Muslim. And he KNOWS who is not. Instinctively, so do you. Let me point out to all the Muslim brothers and sisters what I stand for: I, George Galloway, do not drink alcohol and never have. Ask yourself if you believe the other candidate in this election can say that truthfully.”

On Galloway’s main rival Labour candidate the leaflet said – “Thirsty Imran Hussain (hic) likes his refreshments; and campaigning in this unseasonably good weather is thirsty work indeed.”

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