George Galloway MP accuses UK of being involved in Moscow terror attack

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Newly elected MP George Galloway has accused the UK of being involved in last week’s Moscow terror attack in comments seized upon by a Kremlin-linked newspaper.

The Rochdale MP accused the US and the UK of lying about the involvement of Isis in the attack, which killed at least 139 people and injured around 360, on his talk show on YouTube.

In the month after his return to parliament, described as a “dark day” for Britain’s Jewish community, Mr Galloway espoused conspiracy theories about the Princess of Wales being dead and likened Israel to Nazi Germany.

MPs criticised his latest intervention as irresponsible, reckless and playing into the Kremlin’s hands. The foreign secretary, David Cameron, also described claims that the West and Ukraine were involved in the Crocus City Hall attack as “utter nonsense” in a post on Twitter/X.

In a recent episode of his YouTube chat show, Mr Galloway said: “When the US, UK and others quickly tried to assure me that it was only Isis (banned in the Russian Federation) that committed this massacre in Moscow, I automatically realised that they were lying.

“And this is what I discovered: first of all, no one has explained the unannounced visit of former president Barack Obama to meet British politicians and security officials in Downing Street three days before this terrorist crime was committed.

“Researching even further, I discovered that Victoria Nuland [former senior US diplomat], this harbinger of death, this angel of death, who, if she approaches you, you can be sure that civil war is coming in your country. And she promised the Russians some unpleasant surprises in the coming weeks and months.”

The comments were quickly picked up by Rossiyskaya Gazeta, a newspaper published by the Russian government, which cited him as an expert discussing the attack.

Mr Galloway said he had “four pieces of evidence that lead me to believe that the United States, its Nato allies, and their puppet stump state Ukraine are, in fact, responsible for this massacre”.

Mr Galloway told The Independent he had never heard of the Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

The new MP’s reported comments align with Russian president Vladimir Putin’s spurious claims that Ukraine is somehow responsible for the attack, despite there being no evidence to suggest this.

Western analysts have warned that Putin has a history of using terrorist attacks to justify wars of aggression, and is likely planning to do the same for the latest Moscow incident.

The remarks prompted a series of criticism from MPs.

Tobias Ellwood, the former chair of parliament’s defence committee, said the claims were irresponsible and reckless: “Whilst his words will be quickly dismissed as a typically far-fetched, factually incorrect rant, Moscow will exploit this to spin its own domestic narrative that Nato is to blame.

“Galloway’s words are not only irresponsible but reckless.”

Conservative Bob Seely, who sits on the foreign affairs committee, said he “completely disagreed” with Mr Galloway’s claims. He added: “There is absolutely no evidence that the US or the UK or Ukraine or Nato were in any way responsible, and sadly this sort of wild speculation plays into the hands of the Kremlin and will be used to support this absolute fiction of a claim.”

Senior Tory MP Henry Smith added that it was outrageous for a British MP to “wave the flag for Russia by claiming this was a Nato act”.

On Tuesday night, Mr Galloway replied directly to Lord Cameron’s statement on Twitter/X describing claims of British involvement in the attack as “utter nonsense” by writing: “Of course you do.”

Despite trying to pin the blame on Ukraine, two days after the attack Mr Putin admitted that radical Islamist terrorists were responsible for the killings, but added: “Now we want to know who ordered it.”

In the article including Mr Galloway’s claims were quotes from Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s security council, and Federal Security Service (FSB) director Alexander Bortnikov, attempting to link Ukraine to the attack. Mr Bortnikov has gone as far as making the bizarre claim that the US and UK were behind the attack alongside Ukraine.

The article led with a response from Mr Patrushev to a question of whether Isis or Ukraine was responsible for the Moscow attack. “Of course, Ukraine,” said Mr Patrushev, without providing evidence. The article then runs quotes from FSB director Mr Bortnikov claiming that Ukrainian special…