GEORGE GALLOWAY’S “emphatic” victory in the Rochdale by-election is a warning to Labour, Britain’s communists say.

The Communist Party’s international secretary Kevan Nelson reminded its political committee earlier this week that the Workers Party candidate had overturned a 10,000 Labour majority.

He argued that Mr Galloway’s campaign “had combined internationalist support for the Palestinian people of Gaza with serious class politics,” calling for the return of A&E and maternity services and town centre regeneration. 

Such a campaign had appealed not only to the constituency’s Muslim minority — fewer than one-third of the population — but also to many of its non-Muslim majority, Mr Nelson said.

He remarked that time will tell whether the new MP’s election represents what Mr Galloway claims is a “shifting of the tectonic plates.”

But he noted that the ruling class response to the result had been one of shock and outrage.

“We are likely to witness a level of character assassination, ostracism and smears of an elected MP not seen since the well-documented state harassment and surveillance of Communist MP Phil Piratin between 1945 and 1950,” Mr Nelson said.

But he also doubted whether Mr Galloway’s victory would help overcome political disunity on the left.

He highlighted the Rochdale MP’s “reactionary views” on abortion rights and his opposition to a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

But he acknowledged that greater campaigning unity was needed more than ever in the face of Tory government attacks on the right to protest and on local jobs and services.