Since everyone else with an interest in these things is discussing last Tuesday’s AGM of Tower Hamlets Respect I’ll add my opinion.

The outgoing officers submitted a slate of candidates for the new committee. As is their right some members submitted an alternative slate. This slate aimed to replace some SWP members, chair Glyn Robbins and me. This would have been unproblematical had it not been for the fact that the candidate for chair had submitted application forms and paid the membership subs of forty-five new members.

The officers judged that some of the new membership applications could not be accepted due to insufficient information. This caused an uproar which lead to the members of the alternative slate and their supporters refusing to enter the meeting.

My resolution proposing that the meeting endorse an attempt to find a compromise and move to vote on the slate was accepted. A helpful amendment instructing the officers to resolve the matter was also passed.

The real issue was the political conception of what Respect should be. In my view the alternative slate represented an attempt to limit the organisation to a pressure group in Tower Hamlets. The slate of which I was a part has some idea of the organisation developing into a national mass party. The differences between my views and those of the SWP are rather murky to the challengers.

At the meeting George Galloway saw his function as being to articulate the feelings (opinions is too strong a word) of the challengers who refused to discuss the issues. This brought him into comradely but clear disagreement with the SWP members who argued principled positions about the probity of packing meetings and buying votes.

My judgement is that Tuesday is what happens when political organisations avoid discussing politics and insist on consensus. The level of political debate is still relatively low and there has never been a formal opportunity to clarify what the opposing views are or to have an educative dialogue. I’m told that there will be a debate on these themes at Marxism on Sunday which is good. I might make the radical suggestion that we have something similar inside Respect.