GEORGE GALLOWAY has declared that he is to contest the forthcoming Holborn and St Pancras by-election on behalf of the Workers Party which he leads.

Doubtless this will cause controversy across the left. However, he will at least be doing a service by prioritising the dangers of the Ukraine war and British involvement in it, an issue on which other candidates all sing from the same pro-war sheet.

Galloway has been living outside Britain for the last year following his detention with his wife by the security services at Gatwick airport for nine hours as they tried to re-enter the country.

He is now demanding government guarantees that if he seeks to return to contest the by-election he will not be again harassed. He has every right to seeks such a guarantee and the Home Office should give it forthwith.

To block him would be to deny democracy. Voters deserve to see and hear their candidates in person. 

Galloway, who has served seven terms as an MP, has been charged with no crime, and his treatment is of a piece with the broader state crackdown on dissent, in relation to campaigning on international affairs in particular. 

Whether or not people in Camden or elsewhere choose to support the Workers Party is neither here nor there. This paper is sometimes the butt of frankly childish attacks by that party on social media.

But electors have the right to have their candidates in front of them when they decide. Let Galloway return.