George Galloway has returned to the British parliament

[muriel_volestrangler]

There's a by-election just taken place, and they're counting the votes now (by hand, for those fans). Surprisingly, his party, Respect, is claiming they've managed to take the seat from Labour:

The by-election was triggered by the resignation of former Labour MP Marsha Singh on health grounds.

He held the seat in the 2010 general election with a majority of 5,763.

However, Respect Party candidate George Galloway, who was expelled from the Labour Party in 2003, has tweeted that "we have won the most sensational victory in British political history".

Respect leader Salma Yaqoob also told the Press Association she had heard Labour had conceded victory, but there has been no confirmation of this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17549388

I had thought the internal arguments in Respect had got so bad they wouldn't have a success again (they were locking each other out of the offices at one stage), but it must have been resolved.

Not sure when counting will finish (if it's close, they have to do a recount, and that can also happen if someone gets just under the 5% threshold which means they get their cash deposit back), so it could be the middle of the night here (pretty much already is ...). There's a good chance the BBC will update the article at that link with the result.

Update: he won. More than 10,000 majority.

http://news.sky.com/home/politics/article/16199081

BBC says over half of the votes cast - which is pretty high, and almost unheard of for a "4th party" candidate in England.