Veteran left-wing political maverick George Galloway won a vote to become the new lawmaker for the English town of Rochdale on Friday, vowing to be a thorn in the side for the opposition Labour Party before a national election it is tipped to win.

After running a pro-Palestinian campaign, Galloway won over many of Rochdale’s Muslim community by attacking both Labour and Britain’s governing Conservatives for supporting Israel in its war against Hamas, making a foreign conflict the major issue - unusual in a by-election when local concerns usually dominate.

Elected to parliament for the seventh time, Galloway will be an irritant to Labour, a party he once belonged to before being ejected for criticising then-prime minister Tony Blair over the Iraq war.