Ex-England cricketer among hundreds to stand for George Galloway’s party

The former England cricketer Monty Panesar and a former Ukip MEP are among hundreds of candidates who will run under the banner of George Galloway’s Workers party at the general election.

Photograph: David Rogers/Getty ImagesGalloway is hoping to replicate his victory in the Rochdale byelection when he won almost 40% of the vote after a contest that was dominated by the conflict in Gaza.

While the Workers party is not regarded as being in a position to win any other Westminster seats – and Galloway faces a battle to hold on to his own – it could peel vital support from Labour.

The party also unveiled Khalil Ahmed, a Labour candidate from 2019, who is to stand in Wycombe; the former Ukip MEP Amjad Bashir, who defected to the Conservatives in 2015 and will stand in Pudsey; two former British ambassadors, Peter Ford and Craig Murray, and a number of Labour councillors who have defected; and Amrit Mann, a former Houslow mayor who will run for Feltham and Heston.

The South Northamptonshire candidate, Mick Stott, is a former soldier who tried to recruit “ common-law constables ” to outnumber the police, who he believed were acting unlawfully during lockdown.

Violent threats about the chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, were voiced on a Telegram channel for the group set up by Stott, who dissociated himself from the language and blamed “infiltrators”.