George Galloway was held briefly at Gatwick Airport under the Terrorism Act on his return from Russia on Saturday, his Workers Party of Britain said.
Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command officers detained the 71-year-old ex-MP and his wife. The police have confirmed an incident, but won’t state that Galloway was the arrested man.
“We can confirm that on Saturday, 27 September counter-terrorism officers at Gatwick Airport intercepted a man in his 70s and a woman in her 40s under Schedule 3 of the Counter Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019. Neither were arrested and they were let on their way,” said a Met spokesperson.
The Workers Party of Britain confirmed in an X post that their leader and his wife were held, labeling the occurrence a “politically motivated intimidation” attempt. The party stated that it got no immediate “information on charges or alleged offences.”
Schedule 3, which the police reference, permits border officials to detain, question and stop individuals entering the nation for the mere reason of establishing if they have been involved in “hostile activity” of any kind.
As soon as Galloway was released, his party reinforced their claims by terming the event an “attempt to intimidate those who pursue amity instead of enmity with the world at large” for Britain.
We were prevented from giving legal assistance and the course of the affair has been planned to deter political critics of the rush to war with Russia and China,” the party said in a statement, vowing to give the “full account” tomorrow.
A veteran of British politics and ex-host of an RT show, Galloway was an MP for almost 30 years. In 2019, he founded the Workers Party, and with a social-conservative agenda, he won the 2024 Rochdale by-election. Only five months after this, he lost his seat to Labour in the general election, which he had been in since the decades preceding the early 2000s.
