George Galloway was today deported from Egypt after plainclothes police officers refused him re-entry into the Gaza Strip and bundled him on to a plane for London.

The Respect MP Galloway, declared "persona non grata" by the Egyptian foreign ministry, arrived back in the UK at around 1pm.

He had spent the past month travelling from London to deliver 198 truckloads of aid and supplies to Gaza in a challenge to Israel's economic blockade of the territory.

The supplies made it through to Rafah, but when Galloway and Ron McKay, his aide, arrived at the crossing from Gaza to Egypt, they were confronted by police officers.

On arriving at Heathrow airport, Galloway told the al-Jazeera television channel: "It's always been a badge of honour to be deported by a tinpot dictator, and that's what happened this morning.

"Having crossed the border from Gaza into Egypt, my friend and I were bundled into a car ... 25 officers, accepting no dissuasion, drove us straight to the airport, basically forced us on to the plane."

Galloway has in the past called for the overthrow of the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, accusing him of being complicit in Israel's Gaza offensive, which began at the end of 2008, and calling him a "criminal".

He was also vocal in his criticism of Mubarak for the country's initial refusal to allow the convoy through the Rafah crossing on Tuesday, which prompted clashes in which an Egyptian border guard was killed.

Zuber Hatia, a member of the convoy, said the Egyptian authorities could have been angered by a speech Galloway made to the Palestinian legislative council yesterday, in which he said Egypt deserved a leader like the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Mckay said none of the Egyptians who had detained the pair spoke any English, so they did not know they were police officers and had initially feared they were being kidnapped.

They eventually clarified the situation after using their mobile phones to contact friends who spoke Arabic and could communicate with the officers.

An hour into the journey from the border to Cairo, they asked to return to the border after hearing reports that seven members of the Viva Palestina convoy had been arrested following Tuesday'sclashes.

However, they were refused permission and McKay said that, when they reached Cairo airport, plain clothes officers "followed us everywhere – to the toilet, airside, to the BA lounge".

He added: "Finally, after we queued to get on the plane, the first person to speak English to us identified himself as being from the Foreign Office and said: 'You are being deported.'"

The Egyptian foreign ministry said: "George Galloway is considered persona non grata and will not be allowed to enter into Egypt again."

A police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, claimed the Respect MP had been escorted away for his own protection.

"It was to protect him from the Egyptian people's anger," he said. "He was told that he is a troublemaker and his behaviour is undermining Egyptian security."

The seven members of the convoy reported to have been arrested were believed to be the same individuals detained in the aftermath of Tuesday's clashes on the Gaza border but then supposed to have been released after a "peace deal" negotiated by Galloway and Turkish MPs with the Egyptian authorities.

"They reneged: the words weren't worth the paper they were written on," McKay said.

Fifteen Palestinians were also injured in the violence after the convoy was delayed entering the strip.

The convoy, consisting of 550 people from 17 countries, blamed the trouble on "heavy-handed policing". Viva Palestina said 55 of its members had been injured.

• This article was amended on 12 January 2010. We said Hosni Mubarak was the prime minister of Egypt when he is the president. This has now been corrected.