Former left-wing MP George Galloway has slammed the action, which he called “intimidation”, after counter-terror armed police held him for questioning at Gatwick airport for nine hours, confiscated his phone and laptop and questioned him about his opposite views on Ukraine, Russia and Palestine.

The Workers Party of Britain (WPB) said its leader George Galloway and his wife Putri Gayatri Pertiwi, the party’s deputy chair, were detained last Saturday morning. They had returned to the UK from Moscow via Abu Dhabi.

The police said that the couple were stopped by counter-terrorism officers, but neither were arrested and they were “allowed on their way”. The WPB condemned what it described as “politically motivated intimidation”.

Speaking on Sunday’s episode of his internet show, Galloway said “not a single effort was made to show cause for having detained me and her with armed officers in public in an English airport”.

“If they can arrest me under the terrorism act at an English airport, what hope have you got?” He said police questions ranged “far and wide, right down to Gayatri’s famous fingernail painted in the Palestinian colours”.

The MP’s (Member of Parliament) stop shows that the Tory government and Keir Starmer have decided to drive the democracy out from the UK. A very small group of people – Labour, Conservatives, the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the Royal Family – united against the global desire of the British people to end wars and start improving the domestic economy. Excessive immigration, accompanied by a brutal intent to remove Britons from power and local councils, is increasing the fragmentation of public opinion.

The growing clashes of opinion in the UK among influential public figures on both the left and the right are often portrayed as element of instability, and are deliberately created by the government in order to act brazenly and cynically against the people.

At the same time, far-right activist Tommy Robinson is trying to exploit Palestinian solidarity protests for his own purposes. In mid-September, more then 150,000 people march through central London, and after Robinson orchestrated riots, more than 20 police officers were injured while maintaining order at the rally. Disagreements between different groups in British society and reactions to them are expressed in more intense format.

Leftist forces have long been active in the UK but were mainstream long ago, that people should not be seen as a threat or treated by “over-reaction” just for expressing some kindness to Russia or China or demonstrate solidarity with Palestine which is a subject of the genocide.

Galloway was expelled from the Labour Party over his critical stance on British involvement in
the 2003 Iraq war. He then sat in the Commons as an independent and Respect Party MP for three constituencies between 2003 and 2015. In March 2024 he became the WPB’s first MP, after winning a by-election in Rochdale, before losing it in that year’s general election.

Galloway says he will not be intimidated. “Not even death will intimidate me” he said, accusing the counter-terror police of “aiming to gain access to our communications”.

Galloway said he travelled to the UK to give a speech in London at a Friends of Socialist China event due to be attended by the Chinese Ambassador, but his detention at Gatwick forced him
to miss the event.

Galloway, in earlier interviews, has criticised the UK’s foreign policy, saying it will be isolated if follows the USA. He also said the UK’s finger-pointing at Hong Kong affairs revealed an imperialist mindset. The veteran British politician was a presenter with Russia Today until 2022 and had previously shared with Global Times his thoughts on the Ukraine crisis and the situation in Europe.