A YORK peace group has had a call to arms to kick out Labour MP Hugh Bayley at the next General Election.

MP George Galloway, leader of the Respect Coalition, told a meeting of the coalition's York branch at the Priory Street Centre, off Micklegate, York, last night that Mr Bayley would pay the price at the ballot box for voting for war in Iraq.

Mr Galloway, who was thrown out of the Labour Party for his opposition to the invasion of Iraq, accused Mr Bayley and other MPs who voted for the invasion of having British soldiers' blood on his hands.

He said members should "give notice on Mr Bayley that his number is up" and warned the MP to start "counting the days to his electoral defeat".

About 35 people attended the meeting and they were due to hear from Rose Gentle, a Glasgow mother whose 19-year-old Fusilier son, Gordon, died in a roadside blast in Basra after two months in active service.

However, Mrs Gentle was unable to attend through illness and Mr Galloway shared the platform with Chris Fuller from York Against The War.

Mr Fuller said it was the "challenge" of the party's campaigners in York to channel all their action and enthusiasm and "point it sharply at Hugh Bayley at the next General Election."

He said Mr Bayley's majority was cut by 10,000 to 14,000 at the last General Election the same size as Labour's majority in Hartlepool which was last week slashed to just 2,000.

Mr Galloway said: "It's feasible to blame Tony Blair for the War, but I blame Hugh Bayley and all those MPs who voted for this.

"In the case of Bayley, he did so in defiance of a promise that he would not go to war until there was a second UN resolution, and we intend to punish him at the next election."

Alex Doherty, 22, a student from Heslington Road, York, who was in the audience and listened to Mr Galloway's speech, said he agreed largely with his point of view, but doubted whether he'd vote for Respect.

Frank Ormston, of York Respect, said the party had yet to decide on a candidate to stand in York at the next General Election.

Today Mr Bayley said he did not say he would refuse to vote against war in Iraq, but that he urged that Britain should go back to the UN Security Council.

He said: "There would be more hostages like Kenneth Bigley, more aid workers like the Italian women captured and more UN officials murdered by terrorists if we were to pull our troops out of Iraq now."

Updated: 10:03 Wednesday, October 06, 2004