George Galloway promised to give unused funds from his general election campaign to ‘local food banks’ but no evidence of a donation has been found
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George Galloway’s promise to donate unused funds from his 2019 UK general election campaign to “local food banks” has been called into question after an investigation by Insider found no evidence any money had ever been transferred.
The former member of parliament, who is standing to win next week’s Batley and Spen by-election, set up a GoFundMe crowdfunding page in July 2019 for his then attempt to win a seat in West Bromwich East.
Galloway told potential supporters of the crowdfunding campaign that “all unspent monies [from the crowdfund] will be distributed to local food banks.” He had raised more than £24,000 by the end of 2019.
Galloway’s spending returns, obtained by Insider, show he spent just £8,749 during the election campaign, suggesting a potential surplus of up to £15,000 from the crowdfunding campaign.
However, the coordinator of the West Bromwich Food Bank, Keith Turner, told Insider that they had not received any money from the former MP, saying: “The West Brom food bank has never received a donation of any amount from Mr Galloway.”
In an interview with Insider, Galloway insisted that “we spent most of the money we raised in the West Bromwich election.”
However, pushed on whether he had donated any remaining surplus to local food banks he said that “I don’t know what happened in West Brom.”
Galloway did not respond to any further questions about his promise to donate any surplus funds to local food banks prior to publication.
Labour accused Galloway of trying to “take people for fools.”
“George Galloway cannot be trusted,” Anneliese Dodds, chair of the Labour Party told Insider.
“This just shows his priority is trying to take people for fools and trying to raise money to boost his ego wherever he can.”
A Conservative source told Insider: “He pops up thinking he can expose and deepen community divisions, loses badly and then repeats. At least voters now know where they stand with him.”