The Workers Party of Britain (WPB) or Workers Party is a minor political party in the United Kingdom with a socialist and socially conservative platform. It was founded in December 2019 and is led by the veteran politician George Galloway.

The party gained its first and only parliamentary representation when Galloway won the Rochdale by-election in February 2024, a seat he lost five months later in the 2024 general election.

The WPB describes itself as economically radical and committed to class politics. It combines this with a socially conservative stance on cultural issues and a strong critique of UK foreign policy.

House of Commons representation: The WPB won zero seats and 0.7% of the vote at the 2024 general election. Galloway was unseated in Rochdale.

Devolved assemblies representation: The party has no representation in the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Senedd, or Northern Ireland Assembly.

Local government representation: The WPB won four council seats in the May 2024 local elections.

George Galloway: WPB leader

The current and founding leader of the Workers Party of Britain is George Galloway.

Galloway was reelected as WPB leader at the party’s congress in December 2023.

The party currently lists three deputy leaders. Among them is Chris Williamson, a former Labour MP who was suspended from the party in 2019 following comments he made about the party’s handling of antisemitism allegations. Williamson was the Labour MP for Derby North from 2010 to 2015 and 2017 to 2019.

Andy Hudd, an Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF) member and former soldier, also serves as deputy leader.

Peter Ford, former British ambassador to Bahrain (1999-2003) and Syria (2003-2006), is another WPB deputy leader.

The party’s central leadership structures include a National Members Council (NMC), made up of elected members. The council reportedly meets regularly. Among its members is Gayatri Galloway, George’s wife, who is described as a “presenter of numerous television programmes”.

What does the Workers Party stand for?

The Workers Party of Britain was founded in response to the Labour Party’s 2019 general election defeat and the subsequent resignation of Jeremy Corbyn as leader.

The party’s platform, as outlined in its 10-point programme and its 2024 general election manifesto, combines socialist economics with social conservatism and a non-interventionist foreign policy.

On its official website, the WPB says it defends “the achievements of the USSR, China, Cuba etc, not least the debt owed by humanity to the Soviet Union and Red Army in their war of liberation against German fascism.”

The WPB’s 10-point plan calls for “withdrawal from” Nato and an end to “imperialist wars and financial domination.” Its programme also calls for rebuilding industry to provide “useful, secure jobs for all in decent conditions, with living wages, paid holidays, sick leave [and] maternity leave”.

The party endorses the principle of “free and comprehensive healthcare with no waiting lists.”

The WPB also proposes the installation of public “high quality laundries, crèches and dining facilities that enable women to take part in work and public life without prejudice or physical barriers.”

Galloway’s party, as part of its 10-point programme, promotes a government that “prioritises giving resources to the solving of urgent problems such as the need to live sustainably and protect our natural environment, putting science at the service of the people.”

The party’s platform is also centred around support for Palestinian rights and anti-Zionism. The WPB manifesto for the 2024 general election made “no apology for our support for Palestine and the people of Gaza during the current brutal onslaught which has been enabled by Labour and Tories alike.”

It added: “We call for a single state in which all those born in Palestine-Israel can live in peace with equal rights.”

The WPB manifesto for the 2024 general election said the party would “declare war on ultra-processed food, improve the standard of school meals and invest in health education.”

Galloway and the party he leads are eurosceptic. Galloway supported leaving the European Union in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

In its 2024 manifesto, the party also proposed increasing the tax-free allowance from £12,570 to £21,200 for the “poorest paid workers”.

The WPB is critical of what it calls “green hysteria” and has expressed support for a referendum on net zero.

What is the WPB membership?

The party reported a total of 7,469 members for January 2025.

Upon its founding in December 2019, the party had 290 members – which rose to 4,480 in December 2020. The party’s membership declined from 5,877 to 2,962 from December 2021 to November 2023.

History of the Workers Party of Britain

George Galloway’s frontline political career began when he was first elected as the Labour MP for Glasgow Hillhead in 1987. He was expelled from the Labour Party in October 2003 over his outspoken opposition to the Iraq War and comments made about the actions of the government, led by Tony Blair as prime minister.

After war was declared, Galloway urged British troops not to obey “illegal orders” and asked: “Why don’t Arabs do something for the Iraqis? Where are the Arab armies? We wonder when the Arab leaders wake up? When are they going to stand by the Iraqi people?”

Upon his suspension, Galloway became a leading figure in the newly formed Respect Party. In a Guardian article, published 30 October 2003, Galloway said he wanted to “unify the red, green, anti-war, Muslim and other social constituencies radicalised by the war, in a referendum on Tony Blair”.

In April 2004, following the establishment of the party, Galloway said: “Respect. It’s a young word. It’s a black word. It’s the first postmodern name for an electoral political movement; most are one or other arrangement of the words ‘the’, ‘something’, and ‘party’. With Respect, we’re different.”

At the 2005 general election, Galloway won the Bethnal Green and Bow seat, securing an 823-vote majority over Labour incumbent Oona King.

In his victory speech, Galloway told the Bethnal Green and Bow count: “Mr Blair, this defeat is for Iraq and the other defeats that New Labour has received this evening are for Iraq.

“All the people you have killed and all the loss of life have come back to haunt you and the best thing that the Labour Party can do is sack you tomorrow morning.”

The 2005 election was the first time that a party to the left of Labour had won a seat in the House of Commons since 1951.

In 2007, Respect suffered a formal schism. Members of the Socialist Workers Party claimed that there was a “witch hunt” against socialists in the party. Galloway and senior party figure Salma Yaqoob led the rival faction, referring to themselves as Respect Renewal.

Respect was defeated in Bethnal Green and Bow at the 2010 election. Galloway stood in Poplar and Limehouse, finishing third on 8,160 votes (17.5%).

On 29 March 2012, Galloway and Respect won a spectacular by-election victory in Bradford West, overturning a large Labour majority. Galloway secured 18,341 votes (56%); the Labour candidate, Imran Hussein, finished second with 8,201 votes (25%). Labour’s vote share fell by 20 points.

In his victory speech, Galloway hailed the result as “the most sensational victory in British by-election history” and the “Bradford Spring”.

Ed Miliband, the Labour Party leader, responded: “We should have won this by-election and I am very disappointed we did not.

“I think this was to do with local factors that were particular to the constituency and we have got to understand those lessons.”

Galloway was unseated in Bradford West at the 2015 general election. The Labour candidate, Naz Shah, won 19,977 votes (49.6%). Galloway placed second with 8,557 votes (21.2%).

Galloway stood as the Respect candidate in the 2016 London mayoral election, finishing seventh with 37,007 votes (1.4%).

Plagued by intra-party fighting and splits, Respect was formally deregistered on 18 August 2016.

Galloway founded the Workers Party of Britain in December 2019. Its formation was supported by the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist), and a vice-chair of that party, Joti Brar, was elected as a WPB deputy leader at its founding congress.

Ahead of the 2021 Scottish Parliament elections, Galloway set up the new All for Unity (A4U) Party. According to its website at the time, the party was seeking “to form a government of ‘national unity’ in favour of the Union”.

However, in the 2021 Scottish Parliament elections, Galloway’s ‘All for Unity’ did not find favour with voters, polling poorly across Scotland. Galloway himself, standing as a lead candidate on the South Scotland regional list, received 5,521 votes, an insufficient total.

The A4U party was subsequently wound down as Galloway focused on the WPB.

The WPB’s first notable electoral contest was the 2021 Batley and Spen by-election, where Galloway came in third place with 8,264 votes (21.9%) of the vote. Kim Leadbeater, the Labour candidate, placed first with 13,296 votes (35.3%).

On 29 February 2024, Galloway secured a dramatic return to parliament, winning the Rochdale by-election by a landslide. The WPB victory came after the Labour Party’s campaign imploded. The contest was triggered by the death of the sitting Labour MP, Sir Tony Lloyd, who had won the Rochdale constituency with a 9,668-vote majority at the 2019 general election.

The campaign descended into chaos after audio recordings emerged of the Labour candidate, Azhar Ali, suggesting that Israel had deliberately “allowed” the 7 October massacre to go ahead. After initially defending him, the Labour leadership was ultimately forced to withdraw all support. This decision came after the Daily Mail newspaper published a fuller recording, allegedly of Ali, which blamed “people in the media from certain Jewish quarters” for the suspension of left-wing MP Andy McDonald from the Labour Party.

McDonald, a former frontbencher, was suspended after declaring at a pro-Palestinian rally: “We will not rest until we have justice. Until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea, can live in peaceful liberty.”

However, as the deadline to replace Ali had passed, he remained on the ballot as the official Labour candidate.

This unprecedented situation allowed Galloway, a long-standing and vocal pro-Palestinian advocate, to dominate the campaign. He directly targeted Rochdale’s large Muslim population, framing the vote as a referendum on Keir Starmer’s leadership and Labour’s stance on Gaza. As Galloway had done in successful campaigns in the past, he focused on a “differential turnout” strategy – ensuring that Asian voters made up a disproportionate number of those who voted at the by-election.

Galloway won with 12,335 votes, representing 39.7% of the vote share and a majority of 5,697. In his victory speech, he directly addressed the Labour leader, declaring: “Keir Starmer, this is for Gaza.”

Galloway added: “You [Starmer] will pay a high price for the role that you have played in enabling, encouraging and covering for the catastrophe presently going on in occupied Gaza, in the Gaza Strip.”

Rochdale became the fourth parliamentary constituency Galloway had represented in a long and storied political career.

The result was a profound embarrassment for the Labour Party, exposing fissures within its traditional electoral coalition over foreign policy.

Galloway went on to lose his seat to Labour’s Paul Waugh at the 2024 general election. Waugh, a former lobby journalist, had featured on the initial shortlist of potential Labour candidates drawn up by the party ahead of the Rochdale by-election.

Waugh ultimately won 13,027 votes (32.8%). Galloway placed second with 11,587 votes (29.2%).

Galloway, after all, was only the MP for Rochdale for 92 days.

Speaking at the WPB election campaign launch, Galloway said the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, had “blood on his hands” over his position on Gaza.

During the 2024 general election campaign, the WPB deselected several candidates. Hassan Chahine was dropped in Putney for sharing antisemitic material, and Kamran Khan in Poplar and Limehouse was reported to have shared posts mocking Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Keith Mason, a retired rugby league footballer, was deselected as the WPB candidate for Wakefield and Rothwell over “anti-Islamic” tweets.

Former England cricketer Monty Panesar stood down as the WPB candidate for the Ealing constituency after a series of unfortunate media interviews. Panesar suggested that withdrawing from Nato would reduce “illegal migration”.

In a statement announcing his intention to stand down as a candidate, Panesar said: “I’m a proud Brit who has had the honour to represent my country at the highest level of cricket.

“I now want to do my bit to help others but I recognise I am at the beginning of my journey and still learning about how politics can help people.

“So today I am withdrawing as a general election candidate for The Workers Party. I realise I need more time to listen, learn and find my political home, one that aligns with my personal and political values.”

In total, the WPB stood 152 candidates, winning 210,194 votes (0.7%).

The party came close to unseating a series of high profile Labour incumbents. Jess Phillips, the incumbent MP for Birmingham Yardley, was reelected with a majority of 693 votes over the WPB candidate, Jody McIntyre. Phillips won a 10,659-vote majority at the 2019 general election.

In Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North, the incumbent Labour MP, Liam Byrne, won a 1,566-vote majority over the WPB candidate, James Giles.