the RESPECT party

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Bradford City's dramatic and deserved win in the Capital One Cup has lifted the whole city, MP George Galloway said today.

"I'm still hoarse from shouting, and I was only watching on TV," Galloway said. "And I bet there were thousands of others who are similarly speechless. What a victory! The first time a team from the fourth tier has gone to Wembley in what we used to call the League Cup final. Absolutely remarkable, and the team was assembled for the cost of what a Premier League player would turn up his nose at as a day's wage. It's a tribute to the players, manager Phil Parkinson and the management of this great club.

The French government (with British logistical support – though the planes keep breaking down) has launched a military adventure in the former French colony of Mali. As with all the Western interventions of the last decade, this will destabilize the region and lead to greater conflict rather than less. It must be opposed in the strongest terms.

Mali has been subject to ‘Western help’ for the past 20 years and has imploded largely as a result of it. French intervention is to support a military government mired in corruption and every bit as brutal in its torture and murder as those being bombed. The rebels being bombed were given their battle training and weaponry in Libya by the very Western forces now seeking to crush them.

The British government is behaving shamefully in offering support in this dangerous adventure. There has been no public discussion or Parliamentary vote on British involvement. Instead, the British military are being dragged into an ethnic conflict that reaches back to the appalling mess made in Libya in 2011.

An extraordinary thing happened in Newham, East London during Christmas. More than 80 people turned up in the middle of the Xmas break to a meeting built by more or less one person in just ten days.

The meeting at the Harold Centre in the heart of Newham was to relaunch Newham Respect. The audience of young and old, men and women, black and white, Muslim and non-Muslim heard speeches from Yvonne Ridley, Lee Jasper and George Galloway who then answered questions and responded to contributions from the floor.

Yvonne, talked about her membership of the Labour Party and the way today’s New Labour had abandoned all the principles that had brought her into politics. Respect represented the values she had always supported and was the party that now represented the interests and aspirations of working people. Labour fears the rise of Respect, proved by the sight of MPs tramping to Rotherham for what should have been an easy election for Labour.

George Galloway, Respect MP for Bradford West, has been campaigning against the new Family Immigration rules that effectively put a price on marriage and children. The rules are highly discriminatory against those without wealth. Here is the motion that he has laid before Parliament:

That this House notes that the new family immigration rules impose a minimum earnings requirement of £18,600 (with an additional £3,800 for the first child and £2,400 for each additional child) in respect of partners (and children) from outside the European Union to join their partners (and parents) resident in the UK; further notes that the 'sponsoring' partner is subject to enforced separation in that s/he is required to work in the United Kingdom for at least six months before the application can be made; further notes that the new immigration rules are to be challenged in the Administrative Court in Birmingham from 5th to 8th February 2013; believes that the new immigration rules are irrational and discriminate against British citizens, those settled in the United Kingdom and or those with refugee or humanitarian protection leave on grounds including gender and race/ethnicity; that the new rules are preventing British and settled families on lower incomes from being reunited with and enjoying family life with their non-EEA family members contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights and other international instruments; calls on the government to immediately withdraw that aspect of the new family immigration rules which impose the minimum earnings requirement reverting back to the predecessor rule which adequately ensured that there was no recourse to public funds.

This government is out to drown the poor. In a sinking ship, the bankers and the millionaires seek safety and comfort while pushing everyone else out of the life boats or down the ladders. This is the 21st century that the Tories and the Liberal Democrats want for us.

They will not punish the bankers or the tax evading companies that produced this economic mess because these are their chums. They are hell bent on using the mess they created as an excuse to roll back the role of the state to help the poorest and turn it into a mere clearing house for profitable government contracts in health, education, transport, even prisons.

By 2020, the TUC estimates that living standards will have been cut for the majority by a further 15%. This comes on top of the most consistent fall in living standards since the 1930s. From 2005, living standards have fallen by an average of 1% per year. Last night, the House of Commons voted for a Welfare Bill that will make 7 million working families worse off and increase the despair and desperation of the unemployed. The government ministers laughed and joked as they did this, including the Prime Minister, whose family wealth was secured in tax avoidance schemes.

Ministers cannot assume that voters will continue to back them in their plans to cap welfare benefit rises, according to a new poll commissioned by the TUC from YouGov.

Voters least able to give accurate answers about benefits are the most likely to back the government's policy on cutting benefits. The poll shows that once people learn that the benefit up-rating cap will hit workers in low-paid jobs, support moves away from the government, with 40 per cent overall opposing the cap on low-paid worker benefits and only 30 per cent backing them.

The TUC's poll, carried out in the run-up to Christmas, found widespread ignorance about spending on welfare, the reality of unemployment, the generosity of benefits and the level of fraud.

As 2012 draws to an end some of us may wonder exactly what our MP’s have been upto, indeed some of you may have seen the Headline in the Telegraph & Argus on Christmas day

‘Bradford MPs reveal the things they believe will help give district a lift as we head into 2013’

followed by a ‘wish-list’ of all the things they want for Bradford but as we all know, politicians have plenty to say, but what have they been doing?

Without wishing to sound patronising, for those who aren’t aware, the Bradford District has 5 MP’s

David Ward, Lib Dem (Bradford East)
Gerry Sutcliffe, Labour (Bradford South)
Kris Hopkins, Conservative (Keighley)
George Galloway, Respect (Bradford West)
Phillip Davies, Conservative (Shipley).

To try and answer this question of what the MP’s have been doing I referred myself to this question found on the the Parliament website at http://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/members/mps/

Unemployment in Bradford West continues to rise, year-on-year, which shows that the coalition government's economic policies aren't working - like the 5,537 unemployed in the constituency, the MP George Galloway said today.

'There may be an infinitesimal drop from October, but the real comparison is year-on-year and the dismal statistic is that 526 more have joined the dole queue since November last year. Bradford West now has an unemployment rate getting on for twice the national average, at 13.3%, the seventh-highest in the country. Could there be a more damning indictment of this miserable government's failure to put right the economy?

The Bradford West MP George Galloway commented: 'Congratulations to the Bishop of Bradford Nick Baines for taking the lead in the church's condemnation of the ConDam government's welfare cuts. Shame on David Ward and Kris Hopkins for supporting the attack on the poorest members of society who are subsidising the benefits to the rich. But it's to be expected from them sadly.'

Galloway continued: 'A caring society has a duty to protect and support the most vulnerable members. The welfare budget is being slashed, billions cut from it, while the incomes of the better-off have ballooned. We have soaring unemployment in Bradford and a dearth of affordable homes. Housing benefit is being cut from the under-25s, there's to be a cap on benefits, it's clear that this contemptible government is attempting to dismantle the welfare state. The Right Reverend Nick Baines is right to refer to this as a scandal. He is a brave and compassionate churchman and I salute him and his colleagues who have authored this open letter to the closed mind of David Cameron.'