Would George Galloway really be allowed to rejoin Labour?

George Galloway intends to rejoin the Labour Party if Jeremy Corbyn wins the leadership election, 12 years after being expelled. However, it is far from certain that he would be allowed to do so.

Speaking on LBC Radio, Galloway told Iain Dale that he would “definitely” join Labour “pretty damn quick” if Corbyn became leader – but the leadership candidate has been less than complimentary about the former Glasgow, Bethnal Green and Bradford MP. In an interview with the New Statesman editor Jason Cowley this week, Corbyn said he was “shocked” by the tactics used by Galloway in his Bradford West defeat in May:

“No doubt George and I will come across each other somewhere . . . I thought the tactics he used against our candidate [Naz Shah, who won Bradford West back for Labour in May] were appalling. I was quite shocked; it was appalling.”

Galloway has come under criticism for the nature of his Bradford West campaign in May, in which he accused Labour candidate Naz Shah of lying about her forced marriage. Shah won with a majority of more than 11,000 votes, a humiliating defeat that Galloway said he would contest in the courts – but didn’t. He also lost much of what support he still had in 2012, when he said that rape allegations levelled at Julian Assange amounted to little more than “bad sexual etiquette”. These controversies mean that a Galloway return would likely be unpopular in the party.

Galloway is also running as the Respect Party candidate in next year’s Mayor of London election. Labour will select their candidate for that race on September 11th, one day before the announcement of the new leader. This means that Galloway would have to pull out of the race before he could even be considered for membership, as standing against Labour contravenes party rules.

As we have already seen with Derek Hatton this summer, joining Labour is not as easy as just wanting to – Labour’s general secretary Iain McNicol personally intervened to block Hatton’s membership, and would probably come under pressure to do the same with Galloway.