George Galloway: activist, iconoclast, Mummy's cat

The controversial former British MP might be his own worst enemy, but is he a threat to Canadian security?

George Galloway has his supporters in Canada, but apparently none of them write for newspapers. The former British MP arrived in Toronto this weekend on an antiwar speaking tour and said he plans to sue Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, who banned him from entering the country in 2009 because of his cash donation to Hamas. The op-ed pages are divided on whether or not he’s a threat to security, but are unanimous on the point that he is a supreme fool.

It is indeed hard to take Galloway seriously if you’ve seen this hilarious clip of the then British MP pretending to be "Mummy's cat" on an episode of Big Brother. Thanks to the National Post’s John Ivison for directing our attention to what must surely be one of the low points in British Parliament’s illustrious history. Galloway says Kenney ruined his political career by banning him, but Ivison argues that surely “licking the hands of an aging actress, while pretending to be a cat on live television, contributed more to his slide … than anything Mr. Kenney might have said.” Ivison does defend Galloway however, saying he was "clearly banned because of political bias."

“We just hope that Galloway … lives up to his promise and sues the federal government for libel,” says a Calgary Herald editorial. “It would be a slam-dunk case for Canada.” To prove that he had been libeled, Galloway would have to prove he had not funded an organization Canada has deemed a terrorist group, which would be pretty difficult to do because of this. The Herald says Galloway was “rightly barred” in 2009 and Kenney was “upholding a law that doesn't allow those who break our laws into our country.”

Sure, Galloway is a buffoon, writes Sun Media’s Ezra Levant, but “clowns can be scary too.” He reminds readers of another infamous Galloway clip, this one more sinister than his cat impression. “Galloway’s odious political views aren’t illegal,” Levant writes, “but fundraising for Hamas is. So why was Galloway, bankroller of Hamas, let in?”