I received the following message today from George Galloway:

As your leader in exile I today intimate my readiness to return as your prime minister. My Workers Party government is ready and willing to co-operate with patriotic and right thinking people in the national interest to save Britain from its downward spiral towards oblivion.

We stand for common sense socialism of a kind once familiar in our islands. We reject extremism of all kinds. Our five year economic plan would begin the rebuilding of our national manufacturing base, relief for our farmers and fisherfolk a sharp turn towards vocational training and apprenticeships. We reject net zero apocalypse policies and woke identity politics. The only identity that matters to us is class and country. We believe the current Chinese model of a mixed economy with the state playing a guiding role as the guarantor of the national interest is the best model as China’s unprecedented success illustrates.

We would take Britain into the rising world of the BRICS and the SCO.

We reject war and the mindless preparations for it which make war much more likely. We oppose British membership of NATO and the authoritarian European Union currently destroying European identity.

We reject globalism. We WANT to be British, English, Scottish and Welsh, not an anywhere branch of globalised capitalism.

We would return to the Scottish and Welsh people their inalienable right to self-determination.

We would take immediate steps to facilitate the reunification of Ireland.

We would repeal all authoritarian laws bans and proscriptions and return a revitalised police force to policing crime not political dissent.

Our Ten Point Plan is our lodestar: socialism in British characteristics.

Check us out. I await your call.

George Galloway

Leader

@WorkersPartyGB

As a libertarian, I have no enthusiasm for socialism. The word still brings to mind politicians explaining why shortages are really a sign of social progress. Had I read a document like this thirty years ago, I would have dismissed it without further consideration. The difficulty is that thirty years ago we lived in a different country.

The debate until the end of the last century was whether Britain should become more statist or less statist. The debate now is what to do with a State that has already expanded beyond anything previously contemplated outside wartime. In 2023, government spending exceeded £1.1 trillion. The State consumes close to half of national income. Every aspect of life is regulated, licensed, monitored, taxed, subsidised, or otherwise supervised. We have speech laws, surveillance laws, financial reporting laws, anti-money laundering laws, hate crime laws, equality laws and emergency powers that never come to an end with the emergencies that got them into the statute books.

There is therefore something unreal about modern libertarian discussions that proceed as if Britain were still a relatively free society under threat from future encroachments. The encroachments have already happened. The fortress has already fallen. The bureaucrats are living in the drawing room and helping themselves to the sherry. The practical political question is no longer whether the State should exist. It exists already, and on a colossal scale. The question is who controls it, whose interests it serves, against whom it is directed.

This is why Galloway’s message deserves more attention than many libertarians might care to give it. The Workers Party manifesto is explicitly socialist. It speaks without embarrassment about redistribution and public ownership. Yet much of its analysis concerns matters that should trouble anyone who values liberty. It attacks censorship, political policing, financial coercion, perpetual warfare and the destruction of productive industry. It opposes Net Zero, mass surveillance and the transfer of political authority to unaccountable international institutions. It recognises that modern Britain is not governed in the interests of ordinary people. Whether its remedies are correct is another matter. Before considering them, however, we should first acknowledge that many of its diagnoses are accurate.

The most important section concerns foreign policy. This is hardly surprising. Foreign policy is where the consensus of the British governing class is strongest and where its dishonesty is most visible. For thirty years, British governments have explained military intervention in the language of morality. Iraq was about democracy. Afghanistan was about security. Libya was about human rights. Syria was about freedom. Ukraine is about defending civilisation itself. The slogans vary according to circumstance. The structure remains unchanged.

Every intervention enriches defence contractors and the financial interests that orbit them. Every intervention expands executive power. Every intervention leaves Britain poorer and less free. The Workers Party manifesto cuts through this rhetoric with unusual bluntness. It dismisses the language of ethical foreign policy and points instead to the interests of financiers and arms manufacturers. This is not an especially radical observation. It is merely one that respectable politicians are forbidden to make.

You need not share Galloway’s admiration for Russia, China or Iran to recognise that Britain’s present position is absurd. We have become a power whose foreign policy is largely determined elsewhere. British governments may occasionally object to details, but the broad strategic direction is fixed in Washington. Our role is to provide diplomatic support, intelligence assistance, military facilities and occasionally soldiers.

The manifesto therefore proposes withdrawal from NATO and a reorientation of foreign policy towards neutrality and national interest. This will horrify many readers. Yet it is worth noting that the horror increasingly sounds ritualistic rather than sincere. The promise of NATO membership was that it would keep Britain safe. Instead, it has involved Britain in a succession of foreign entanglements while making us a potential target in conflicts that have nothing to do with our own defence.

My own preference remains strict non-intervention. I have no desire to exchange dependence on Washington for dependence on Beijing. Even so, there is an important distinction between disagreement and dismissal. The question of whether Britain benefits from NATO membership is legitimate. The fact that so few mainstream politicians are willing even to discuss it tells us much about the limits of acceptable opinion.

Economic policy raises similar questions. Galloway promises the rebuilding of manufacturing industry, support for farmers, vocational education and apprenticeships. Again, the socialist remedies may be open to criticism. The diagnosis is not. For half a century Britain has systematically dismantled its productive economy. We once mined coal, made steel, built ships and manufactured machinery. We now produce regulations, compliance officers and PowerPoint presentations. Entire regions have been converted into museums of former prosperity. Their inhabitants are expected to survive on insecure service-sector employment or simply on welfare.

The standard explanation is that globalisation made this inevitable. It did nothing of the sort. Industrial decline was encouraged by deliberate policy choices. High interest rates, financial deregulation, tax structures favouring speculation over production and an almost religious hostility to industrial protection all contributed to the outcome. Productive industries were sacrificed while finance and administration flourished. This destruction was celebrated as economic modernisation. In reality, it represented the triumph of one class interest over another. Independent workers became dependent clients. Communities capable of organising themselves became populations administered by officials. A productive society became a managerial society.

The attraction of Galloway’s programme lies partly in its recognition that this process has gone too far. Whether socialism is the answer is doubtful. Whether deindustrialisation has been a disaster seems increasingly difficult to deny.

There is another reason why Galloway’s appeal has broadened beyond the traditional socialist left. It concerns censorship. The Workers Party manifesto describes modern Britain as a system of what it calls “buro-fascism,” meaning rule through regulation, lawfare, administrative pressure and the selective enforcement of vague legal principles. The term is inelegant, but the phenomenon is real enough. We do not live under the censorship systems familiar from the twentieth century. No Ministry of Truth reviews every newspaper before publication. No official censor sits with a blue pencil striking out forbidden paragraphs. The modern system is subtler and, in some respects, more effective. People are not usually imprisoned for their opinions. They are investigated, debanked, suspended, sacked, denied promotion, subjected to police attention, or made examples of in the media. The purpose is not always punishment. Often, it is deterrence. The ideal dissident is not imprisoned. He is frightened into silence.

The result has been a narrowing of public discussion so severe that many important questions cannot be raised without professional risk. Immigration, crime, foreign policy, transgender ideology, climate policy, policing and race relations all exist within carefully patrolled boundaries. The boundaries shift from year to year, but they remain boundaries nonetheless.

The Workers Party promises to reverse this process. It speaks of restoring freedom of speech and returning the police to the investigation of actual crime rather than ideological deviation. You may reasonably doubt whether any future government would entirely fulfil such promises. Political parties have a tendency to discover the usefulness of censorship once they gain access to the machinery of government. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Galloway is one of the few national politicians willing even to describe the problem.

The same applies to Net Zero. This is perhaps the most bizarre policy ever imposed on a developed country in peacetime. Britain contributes a small fraction of global emissions. Even if every British citizen vanished tomorrow, the effect on global temperatures would be statistically insignificant. Yet we are expected to reorganise our entire economy around the pursuit of targets that make little practical difference while imposing enormous costs. Energy prices rise. Industrial competitiveness falls. Productive investment becomes less attractive. Ordinary people are told they must consume less, travel less and generally lower their expectations. Meanwhile, the wealthy continue much as before, secure in the knowledge that environmental restrictions always fall most heavily on those with the least political influence.

The Workers Party calls for a referendum on Net Zero. This seems a reasonable proposal. If the policy is as essential and beneficial as its supporters claim, they should welcome the opportunity to secure public endorsement. Their reluctance to do so suggests a suspicion that the public may have reached conclusions of its own.

Immigration presents a similar case. For years, discussion of immigration policy has been conducted within a framework designed to prevent meaningful disagreement. One may discuss administration, efficiency or integration. One may not question the underlying assumptions. Any attempt to do so risks immediate accusations of prejudice. Yet the practical consequences are increasingly difficult to conceal. Housing demand rises. Infrastructure strains. Labour markets are transformed. Schools and public services face growing pressures. Social trust declines. The country becomes less cohesive and more fragmented.

The beneficiaries are obvious. Large employers obtain access to cheaper labour. Landlords enjoy rising demand. Universities gain fee-paying students. The State acquires new client populations. The costs are distributed across the wider population. Galloway’s language here is revealing. He does not speak of diversity, multiculturalism or global citizenship. Instead, he speaks of wanting Britain to remain British, England to remain English, Scotland to remain Scottish and Wales to remain Welsh. This is not the language of the contemporary left. It is the language of a man who has noticed that nations exist and that many people prefer their continued existence.

The significance lies not in the observation itself. Such observations would once have been considered unremarkable. The significance lies in the fact that they now sound radical.

One of the most controversial passages in Galloway’s message concerns China. He writes:

“We believe the current Chinese model of a mixed economy with the state playing a guiding role as the guarantor of the national interest is the best model as China’s unprecedented success illustrates.”

As a libertarian, I disagree with this. The Chinese State exercises powers over economic and personal life that I would never wish to see replicated in Britain. It suppresses political opposition, restricts speech and maintains levels of surveillance that should alarm anyone concerned with individual liberty.

Even so, it is necessary to distinguish between China’s political system and its economic achievements. For forty years, Britain has been governed by people who spoke endlessly about modernisation while presiding over national decline. China spent the same period building factories, ports, railways, power stations and technological industries. Britain trained compliance officers. China trained engineers.

The comparison is uncomfortable because it reveals a truth our governing class prefers not to discuss. Productive capacity matters. Manufacturing matters. Energy security matters. Technical competence matters. Countries become rich by producing things that other people wish to buy. They do not become rich by endlessly expanding administrative structures or by inflating property prices. You need not endorse Chinese authoritarianism to recognise that China has understood certain economic realities more clearly than Britain has.

This brings us to the central weakness of the Galloway programme. Its remedies remain largely socialist. It trusts the State too much. It assumes that bureaucratic direction can solve problems that bureaucratic direction often created. It risks replacing one set of managers with another. The difficulty, however, is that modern Britain already suffers from excessive management. The existing system is not a free market. It is not even recognisably capitalist in the traditional sense. It is a corporatist arrangement in which large businesses, government departments, regulators, financial institutions and quasi-public organisations operate together for mutual advantage.

Or is this a weakness? The choice before us is not between laissez-faire and socialism. Laissez-faire is not presently available. The choice is between different methods of administering a system that has already become deeply statist. I am a libertarian. I do not want a big State. I do not want industrial planning. I do not want ministers directing investment decisions. At the same time, since this is what we have, we might as well have a socialist state that delivers a few of the services that socialists offer.

Returning to the main issue, I simply agree with the Galloway critique of the existing order. Britain has been dragged into wars that do not serve its interests. Its productive economy has been weakened. Its citizens are increasingly monitored and regulated. Freedom of speech has diminished. Immigration has reached levels that would once have seemed inconceivable. Net Zero policies threaten further economic decline. Political policing has become normalised.

These are real problems. The established parties either deny their existence or insist that they represent progress. Galloway, whatever his faults, does neither. This is why his growing appeal matters. If George Galloway increasingly sounds reasonable, the most important conclusion is not that George Galloway has changed. It is that the people who govern Britain have become so detached from reality that almost anyone standing outside their circles now appears more sensible than they do. That is not a tribute to George Galloway. It is an indictment of the regime against which he is reacting.