The local elections next May are widely considered to a crucial electoral test before the 2029 general election. In Rochdale they may take on an added significance, becoming once again a testing ground for George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain.

The party currently holds two seats on the council, and will be looking to build on that. But it faces difficult questions on two fronts: its elevation once again of the far-right “anti-grooming gang” campaigner Billy Howarth, and George Galloway’s decision to do a runner from the UK and base himself in Malaysia.

Together, these choices expose serious tensions between the party’s stated values and its real-world tactics.

Rapid departure

For a party whose political identity is wrapped up in anti-racism and anti-imperialism, both decisions expose curious contradictions.

In early 2024, the party was celebrating overturning Labour’s nearly 10,000-vote majority in the Rochdale parliamentary by-election.

Galloway’s campaign was dominated by a fierce pro-Palestinian message, framed as a “referendum on Gaza”, which resonated strongly in a borough with a large Muslim population unhappy with Labour’s stance on the Israel-Gaza conflict. Galloway captured nearly 12,400 votes (39.7 %).

But that victory was as much about Labour’s self-inflicted chaos as WPGB’s organisational strength. Labour withdrew support from its own candidate, Azhar Ali, after controversial remarks on Israel emerged in leaked recordings, a decision that all but collapsed its campaign in the constituency.

Seismic shift

Galloway celebrated the result as a seismic shift: “Keir Starmer, this is for Gaza,” he declared in his victory speech. However, his win was short-lived. In the general election just a few months later, he lost the seat to Labour’s Paul Waugh, and didn’t even bother to show up at the count.

Against this volatile backdrop, the Workers Party’s recent decision to again embrace Billy Howarth as a local activist (and possibly a council candidate in May) is troubling.

Searchlight has reported previously on Billy Howarth’s political journey from independent “anti-grooming gang” activist to a figure courted by Galloway’s Workers Party, and the serious questions this raises about WPGB’s tactical alliances.

Howarth stood as an independent candidate against Galloway in the 2024 parliamentary by election, focussed almost entirely on “Pakistani grooming gangs”, and based on his own long-running project, Parents Against Grooming UK.

Dumping ground

He had also described Rochdale as a ”dumping ground for immigrants from all over the world.” This was not some alleged eavesdropping. It was a completely public assertion; part of ’pitch’ written by Howarth as Galloway’s opponent in 2024.

And he assiduously spread the highly misleading claim that 82% of grooming gang offenders are south Asian men.

Nevertheless, only weeks later, he was warmly welcomed into the Workers Party to fight a council seat in the local elections, polling 395 votes (19.3%) in the Balderstone & Kirkholt ward. He didn’t win the seat, but WPGB did take two other wards.

More sinister

Campaigning against child grooming is one thing, but Howarth had an altogether more sinister, far-right pedigree, which should have set off warning bells with WPGB.

He had previously been involved with numerous far right conspiracy theory groups. And he had attended ‘Patriots of Britain’ events in London.

When Searchlight pointed all this out back in 2024 we got only one response from the Workers’ Party: George Galloway denounced us as “dodgy liberals”.

But Howarth’s subsequent involvement with Galloway did little to temper his enthusiasm for far-right politics: in April last year we photographed him addressing a UKIP/Patriots for Britain rally in Manchester alongside figures like UKIP leader Nick Tenconi.

But then, in December, he was back with in the Workers Party fold: its social media channels began pushing a video attack on Rochdale Council leader Neil Emmott making very serious allegations of personal misconduct. The video was fronted by Billy Howarth.

Howarth’s prominent involvement with the Workers’ Party goes to the heart of what the party claims to stand for, suggesting that short-term electoral calculation, mobilising any and all anti-Labour sentiment, trumps principled opposition to racism and fascism.

Compounding the party’s credibility crisis is George Galloway’s recent relocation to Malaysia.

After a heated episode at Heathrow Airport, where he and his wife were detained and questioned over his political views, an incident Galloway has characterised as “political policing”, he announced he could no longer safely return to the UK.

Now broadcasting his twice-weekly “Mother of All Talk Shows” from abroad, Galloway insists this enhances his voice as a dissident political figure.

But while leaders of smaller parties often have to balance media presence with constituency work, Galloway’s focus is now on global audiences rather that actual grassroots organising.

Rampant ego

Even so, Galloway could not shed his overweening, rampant egotism. Two days ago he posted that:

“If there’s a by-election in Britain where we’re strong, I’ll stand. The parliamentary route is the only way back.

“Plenty of leaders in exile have returned in triumph”.

In fact, history suggests that most exiles return in triumph only in their own imagination.