Galloway cuts off interview after question about gay relationships comments

George Galloway has cut off a broadcast interview after being asked about remarks in which he suggested he did not think gay relationships were equal to heterosexual relationships.

The Workers Party of Britain leader and Rochdale MP hung up the phone when asked by LBC’s Sunday With Lewis Goodall about the remarks he made in the interview with Novara Media.

Mr Galloway’s party hopes to act as a challenger to Labour at the general election, and has claimed it will field candidates to stand against the Opposition’s key figures.

In an interview with LBC, Mr Galloway was asked about his comments to Novara.

“This is a clip of a clip. It is an edited clip of an edited clip,” Mr Galloway said, as he suggested a wider point he had made about gender identity had been lost.

He also claimed that the radio station was “ambushing” him, adding: “I have got a simple answer. Listen to the whole thing tonight.”

Mr Galloway then stated he was going to hang up the phone, telling LBC: “More fool me thinking that your request that I come on and talk about the elections was genuine.”

In a clip from an interview with Novara Media, the Rochdale MP had said: “I don’t want my children prematurely sexualised at all, I don’t want them taught that some things are normal when their parents don’t believe that they’re normal.

“Now there’s lots of things not normal, doesn’t mean you have to hate something that isn’t normal. But if my children are taught that there’s – whatever the current vogue number is – 76 or 97 or whatever the number of purported genders that exist, I don’t want my children taught that.”

Mr Galloway leads the Workers Party of Britain and became the MP for Rochdale in February, gaining almost 40% of the vote in a contest mired in chaos and controversy and dominated by the Gaza conflict.

Mr Galloway said he did not want children to be taught “that gay relationships are exactly the same and as normal as a mum, a dad and kids”.

He added: “I want my children to be taught that the normal thing in Britain, in society across the world, is a mother, a father and a family.

“I want them to be taught that there are gay people in the world and that they must be treated with respect and affection, as I treat my own gay friends and colleagues with respect and affection but I don’t want my children to be taught that these things are equal because I don’t believe them to be equal.”

Mr Galloway has previously represented seats in Glasgow, east London and Bradford in the Commons, for Labour and later the Respect Party.