‘Joy to behold!’ George Galloway boasts Westminster has ‘lost its mind’ over his ‘crushing’ by-election win

Reacting to the victory, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said Galloway had only won "because Labour didn't stand a candidate".

He added: "We will put a first class candidate, a unifier, before the voters in Rochdale at the general election."

Discussing the fallout of the by-election result, Galloway told GB News that he is happy Westminster has "lost its mind" over his return to politics.

Galloway added that he plans to make an impact at the next general election after "a brief interlude of nine years".

In conversation with Neil Oliver, the GB News host told Rochdale's latest MP that he's "put the wind up Westminster" with his win.

Galloway claimed the reaction has been nothing less of a "joy to behold".

Galloway told Neil Oliver: "Not just in Westminster, but their coterie, their echo chamber in the legacy media have temporarily lost their minds."

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Galloway continued: "The Prime Minister erected a lectern on a presumably big platform outside 10 Downing Street at the state's expense, for an entirely party political broadcast, to which there was no reply.

"Not even at Prime Minister's Questions, where I failed to catch the Speaker's eye."

Galloway added that he "no longer opens Google Alerts" of right wing commentators, as they are now "spewing hate speech at me, over me, and about me."

He told Neil: "I'm not sure what I did to deserve it, but hey, it's a question of dogs barking and the caravan moving on."

Neil asked Galloway what is "gut reaction" was to the response to his by-election win, quoting Prime Minister's Rishi Sunak's speech where he branded the victory "alarming".

Galloway responded: "I don't mind it. I'm only perplexed when it comes from unexpected quarters - but the expected usual suspects, I relish their angst.

"I'm an experienced short sword fighter, as you said for more than 50 years in politics, so you know I'm well able to handle it.

"Not only did I win a crushing victory over all three big parties of the state, but they didn't even come in second, a point which they all tried to erase between me and a totally unknown, independent outside Rochdale. We got almost two thirds of the votes, leaving the big three big four parties of the state to share the other third."