George Galloway to go to the courts over thumping election defeat

George Galloway, the erstwhile MP for Bradford West, has launched a legal challenge over his defeat in the constituency. The Respect leader tweeted yesterday says he has “begun legal proceedings” to have the election “set aside”:

We’ve begun legal proceedings seeking to have result of the Bfd West election set aside. I cannot therefor discuss my own election for now.

— George Galloway (@georgegalloway) May 10, 2015

Galloway polled just 8,557 votes, more than 11,000 fewer than Labour’s Naz Shah, who had been the candidate for only a matter of weeks. In the 2012 Bradford West by-election where he was elected, Galloway had received more than 18,000 votes.

The Guardian reports today that he announced his legal case saying:

“It has come to my notice that there has been widespread malpractice in this election, particularly over postal voting. We are in the process of compiling the information which will form part of our petition to have the result set aside.”

In a more surprising move this morning, Galloway has also suggested that electoral malpractice took place in Thanet South to stop UKIP’s Nigel Farage from being elected. The hashtag #Thanetrigged has trended on Twitter over previous days, with UKIP supporters suggesting that Farage’s defeat in the constituency was down to some sort of electoral fraud.

I must say the Nigel Farage @Nigel_Farage UKIP Thanet result looks well suspicious…

— George Galloway (@georgegalloway) May 11, 2015