Galloway to stand against Jack Straw?

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Galloway may stand against Straw in Blackburn

Matthew Tempest, political correspondent
Wednesday June 20, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

The maverick anti-war MP George Galloway is threatening to stand against former foreign secretary Jack Straw in Blackburn at the next general election. Mr Galloway, a former Labour MP, ran against, and beat, Oona King in Bethnal Green & Bow in one of the shock results of the 2005 election. But he promised then to only serve one term and is now looking at "a number of possibilities" at where to fight the likely 2009 election on his Respect ticket. At a meeting in London last week he at first refused to say where he was hunting for a winnable constituency, before admitting: "I have been seen in the Blackburn area quite a lot recently."

Mr Straw, who is now the leader of the Commons, was foreign secretary at the time of the Iraq war in 2003. He was sacked as foreign secretary by Tony Blair in 2006, with speculation that his tour of his constituency with the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, which saw large anti-war protests dog their steps, had sent jitters through the US administration.

At the 2005 election, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray stood as an anit-war independent against Mr Straw but came a distant fourth - behind the British National party. However, although he retained the seat, Mr Straw lost more than 5,000 votes. An MP for Blackburn since 1979, Mr Straw is famous for conducting "soapbox" question-and-answer sessions in the centre of the Lancashire town.

Mr Galloway's Respect party has established a foothold in Tower Hamlets council with 11 councillors, but has no one on Blackburn council. Mr Galloway stressed he had not yet made a definite decision, adding "I'm keeping [it] under my hat at the moment." He also confirmed he would run for the European parliament in 2009 on the London list. He was speaking at the Frontline Club of foreign correspondents in London.

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