After an excellent campaign by the Bradford group United 4 Palestine, with some help of members from the PSCNorth group of branches, Terry Rooney, MP for Bradford East has been unseated. Rooney, a Bradford MP for 19 years, was a member of Labour Friends of Israel despite the fact that his electorate is largely Muslim. When he realised that we were campaigning against him he started signing pro-Palestinian EDMs in a desperate attempt to save his skin. He initially agreed to attend the United 4 Palestine hustings, but in the end he sent an acolite to check the meeting (there were abour 150 locals present) and when he was warned by phone about the mood of the meeting he failed to turn up.

The swing against Labour in Bradford East was 7.57% the largest in the city. Rooney has been replaced by Lib-Dem David Ward, an enthusiastic campaigner for Palestinian rights. We intend to contact all the constituency parties in the region draw their attention to what happened to Rooney and to ask them to add a question on the middle East when they are selecting candidates in the event of a further general election. We want the parties to know that there will be an electoral price to pay if they select candidates who endorse Israel’s war crimes.

The Zionist Terry Rooney was sponsored by two national Trade unions affiliated to PSC.

Written by a Palestine campaigner from York