I am an opponent of Saddam Hussein, but an opponent also, of the sanctions that have killed a million Iraqi children and an opponent of the United States' apparent desire to plunge the Middle East into a new and devastating war.

Labour Party organiser
Galloway joined the Labour Party at 13 years old and within five years was secretary of the Dundee West Constituency Labour Party. Ingram asserted that Galloway's text which stated that Ingram "played the flute in a sectarian anti-Catholic Protestant-supremacist Orange Order band" was in bad faith and defamatory although Ingram's lawyers conceded that for a year as a teenager he had been a member of a junior Orange Lodge in Barlanark Glasgow and had attended three parades. Long-time Gay Rights activist Peter Tatchell also writing in The Guardian accused Galloway of spouting "Iranian Propaganda" continuing: "His claim that lesbian and gay people are not at risk of execution in Iran is refuted by every reputable human rights organisation including Amnesty International Human Rights Watch the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and the International Lesbian and Gay Association.

He became a founding member of the left-wing Respect in 2004 and was elected as the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow at the general election the following year. " He has always stated that he was addressing the Iraqi people in the speech. In 2010 Galloway unsuccessfully contested the seat of Poplar and Limehouse and in 2011 he unsuccessfully contested the Glasgow list for the Scottish Parliament before being returning as a Westminster MP at the 2012 Bradford West by-election.