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On the Respect front

I had hoped to be able to provide readers with a summary of the local Respect branch’s analysis of the election results. For example, I was very wrong about the extent to which the Labour vote in Tower Hamlets had collapsed. It’s true that Respect has begun to make serious inroads into it. However I was certain, based on canvassing, meetings and the national political situation that we would trounce Labour in this ward. We gave them a good run for their money and are well placed for next time. It would have been politically useful to have discussed this sort of thing in the local leadership. However yesterday’s officers’ meeting was virtually entirely business. I won’t point out the obvious deficiencies with this approach and you can draw your own conclusions about why things happen this way.

A leap forward was taken in terms of structure. Officers’ meeting will now take place weekly and the councillors will report to the officers. On top of that two officers will sit in on meetings of the councillors’ group. This is something that some of us have been arguing for all along with regard to all elected officials. So we now have what looks like a labour movement structure for dealing with the councillors.

It’s slightly flattering to see that in his column in the Morning Star on Saturday, George Galloway referred to the work that has been on my estate as an example of the progress that Respect has made in working class areas. I hope this means that at this year’s Respect conference supporters of Socialist Resistance aren’t denounced as Islamophobe Hitlero-Trotskyites again. Hope springs eternal.

Chavez in London

The Venezuelan president decided to reciprocate my visit to Caracas by coming to London for a couple of days. Unlike most visiting presidents, thousands of people were keen to see him. He’s different from the others too in that he’s popular enough to be able to walk up to people waiting to see him and talk to them. Comrade Tami strengthened Socialist Resistance’s links with the Bolivarian revolution by kissing the president, making her the only member of our editorial board to have kissed Chávez and Joe Strummer.

Jeremy Dear of the NUJ made the point that the meeting should have been in a much bigger venue. I’m sure he could have filled Trafalgar Square. The support for the Venezuelan revolution has mobilised the British left again. My guess is that much of the audience was from a Labour, union and Communist background, exactly the sort of people who would enormously strengthen Respect. The applause wasn’t so rapturous when Chávez made a couple of critical points about the Soviet Union, which I thought was a bit of a clue. However he was very firm on the idea that socialism has to be pluralistic, democratic and welcoming of different points of view. This is not an opinion which is frequently heard in some of the British left. He referred several times to his Christianity, something I hadn’t known about but it doesn’t seem to have affected him adversely.

Having got into the hall at about half three I looked at the number of people on the platform, Salma Yaqoob, Richard Gott and a dozen others and thought “Christ, this won’t be over till about six.” I was wrong. I left at eight and Chávez was still going strong after three hours. That’s just daft. He’s a witty, clear speaker but no one takes in very much after about twenty minutes. Nevertheless I’m convinced that the processes that are taking place in Latin America are going to help re-shape the British left. What excited people yesterday was a militant anti-imperialism, an ecological awareness and a commitment to revolutionary democracy.