Liam redux

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Win £40 – answer two questions on Respect

Reaction to my decision to leave Respect has been roughly along the following lines. 1 You were wasting your time in Respect all along or since the first conference. You should have tried building the Bolshevik party, the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party or stuck with Labour. 2 You should have stayed in and…

Liam
4–7 minutes

Reaction to my decision to leave Respect has been roughly along the following lines.

1 You were wasting your time in Respect all along or since the first conference. You should have tried building the Bolshevik party, the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party or stuck with Labour.

2 You should have stayed in and waited for developments.

3 It’s a lack of political confidence.

Let’s deal with them in reverse order. If it really had been a lack of political confidence in what SR was trying to do the time to walk out would have been after the 2005 conference. That was a very public attempt by the majority of Respect’s leadership to drive out the remaining non-SWP socialist currents. We didn’t go. We did the opposite and persuaded several non-SR supporting delegates that they should remain in and organise around the Respect Party Platform. They would have left if we hadn’t done that. Now we are in a situation where several branches that I’m aware of sent delegations half of whom were SWP members. That tells me that in those branches there are not major numbers of Respect members who are clamouring to be elected as conference delegates. In a broad formation like Respect one of the measures of its success is an active, independent membership. The Marxist currents should aim to be in the minority so that the party reflects the real moods of the class and the debates inside the working class vanguard take place inside the party. I was part of a small minority when I was in the Labour Party too. Why should that bother anyone in a non-revolutionary situation? The difference there was that it had a sufficiently large and politically diverse membership which allowed you to score occasional victories on some questions and engage in real debates. If the national headquarters tried to intervene the membership used to be politically confident enough to tell them to get stuffed. Can anyone familiar with Respect, and especially Respect conferences, see that as a possibility?

Some of the more off the wall discussion around my career in Respect on another blog has singled out my hostility to religion. The supporting quotes are taken from a short review of the Dawkins book The god delusion. I did the usual leafleting outside mosques. I never once discussed atheism as a requirement for supporting Respect. I’ll give £20 to anyone who can make a cogent case why Socialist Resistance shouldn’t carry favourable reviews of an atheist handbook especially when that review criticises Dawkins for not explaining why religion is now a major form of political and cultural expression.

Waiting for developments

Unhappily I think the developments have happened. Or not happened. Leaving Respect is an expression of a double political defeat. The more trivial one is my failure to build a current inside the organisation locally around the views I expressed. In the last couple of days I’ve been variously told by comrades who chose to stay in Tower Hamlets Respect that I was “a counterweight to a lot of the nonsense that was flying around” and a “strong political opposition”. The infinitely more serious defeat is the fact that we had the most favourable possible circumstances to begin building a small but significant party to the left of Labour. I share Andy’s conviction “that building such parties still remains the task of the present historical period”. The adamant refusal of Labour and union lefts to engage with Respect, despite its successes, shows how severe the failure is. Last night I went to the London meeting on Oaxcaca. It had 30-40 mostly young people who wanted to throw themselves into solidarity work with the Latin American revolutionary processes. They should have felt that Respect is their party but, at the moment, wouldn’t dream of joining it. There’s another £20 for the supporter of the Respect leadership’s line who can satisfactorily explain why people like this are not attracted by Respect. In Socialist Resistance we have screamed from the rooftops that there is a big contradiction between Respect’s spectacular electoral successes and its shrinking membership. Denying that this is a problem is wilful deception and I’ve just about managed to suppress the smirks when it’s been explained to me that simply using membership figures to determine how well a party is doing is bureaucratic thinking.

In much the same way that I would re-join Labour tomorrow if was became a place where large numbers of class struggle militants were to be found I’d re-join Respect just as quickly.

You should have…

The John Mc Donnell campaign will be over by the spring. Re-joining Labour is not a strategic option and heartily though I support John I’ll do it from outside the Labour Party.

Most of the other options are even less serious. If the Socialist Party hadn’t flounced out of the Socialist Alliance or had joined Respect the political situation on the left would be utterly transformed. The European experience demonstrates that the new mass formations always start by regrouping the existing left, or the same old faces, as some in Respect call them. In any case while it is more acquainted with the norms of working class democracy the SP too has been known to yield to the temptation to keep a tight grip on its front organisations.

As for the Greens around here they have no implantation or profile. I’ve voted for individual Green candidates in the past and will probably do so again. But from a strategic point of view I think the future lies in the development of a party in which Green socialists are an essential component. The SR ecosocialism day school is one step on the road towards that.

There is no conflict between building a Marxist current and operating in broader party organisations. It gives the Marxists a chance to put their ideas into practice rather than only talking them. Very crudely the motivation behind SR’s participation in organisations like Respect is that they will provide mass political leadership and train class struggle fighters. When the class struggle intensifies these organisations will polarise between the left and the right and that’s when the revolutionaries fight for leadership. This is a rather different approach from those who want to recruit in ones and twos.

Back to the drawing board

15 responses to “Win £40 – answer two questions on Respect”

  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Liam – I agree with a lot of your analysis ont he other options. BUT Respect also fails some of those criteria and had a bizarre premise combined with a terrible inevitability. Yes, I think you were wasting your time. But I can hardly throw stones as I was inactive for the last 2 years apart from anti-fascist leafleting during the elections and trying in vain to save Jon Cryer’s Hornchurch seat at the last GE (before I joined LP!). And, quite frankly, neither of these things are overtly revolutionary activity.The problem is there is no cohesive project for all the left to engage in. The anti-fascist stuff, which you’d think we all agree on, is the same (few) old faces. When the SWP killed off Socialist Alliance they did far more damage than we ever realised at the time.Respect was/is not the answer. But what is? I’ve come to the conclusion we just plug away at the campaigns that drive us and hope to find common ground with others.Sandra

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  2. AN Avatar
    AN

    Well – I think you are the only one who can judge whether you were wasting your time or not. One importnat question is whether what impact the expereince of Respect, and the other socialists operating in Respoect, has had on the SWP’s membership – which it seems to me is generally more sectarian, and ultra-left than it was three years ago.However, there is a different question of whether there should be some reflection on the part of SR of the rather cock-sure approach SR had to other socialists who drew the conclusion earlier that there was no profit to be made from working in respect. – which was almost certibly the case in most parts of England outside of East London some years ago.This feeds in to what we can do now. Which is partly to defend the principle of broad parties, such as the SSP or the Australian SA. BUt also to promote a debate about how we got into this mess – which is in large part due to a developing crisis of the vanguardist paradigm.Also – just to point out that in addition to your correct point that elsewhere building broad parties has included realignment of the existing left – this has also usually included parts of the “official” communist left. there does need to be some discussion in England about the degree to which various trot-nonsense is perpetuated that has no life in the peculiar culture of our own labour movement, and which is ahistorically applied. So if “building a Marxist current” means building a trot current, then that will be part of the problem, not part of the solution.

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  3. Jim Jay Avatar
    Jim Jay

    AN “SWP’s membership – which it seems to me is generally more sectarian, and ultra-left than it was three years ago.”Curious, seeing as everyone else seems to think the SWP is moving to the right why do you think it’s become more ultra-left? They use the argument of keeping things broad so let’s not vote for anything too radical more now than they did three years ago and their concerns are not about revolutionary purism but specific alliances with those outside of those traditionally seen as on the left that they hope will reap rewards.How would you fit wanting to remove the word socialist from Solidarity’s name into this description of them as more ultra left?

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  4. AN Avatar
    AN

    Yeaj JImI know it is counter intuitive to say the SWP are moving to the left – but neverthless i think that is the case.Firts of all – set programmatic pragamitism to one side, which has always been a feature of the SWP. The fact that they are prepared to not fight for cerian position in resepct, does not mean that the SWP has abandoned those positions themselves. Their current trajectory as least three specifically ultra-left components, in particular a shift to the left from their best period in the SAi) Respect has been a victory for that trajectory of the SWP towards unwillingness to recognise the expereince and value of other socialists outside their organisation, and a reinforcing of the position of those most hostile to any left regroupment.ii) The model of the SWP as the only valid socialist organisation, operating in a front organisation is a typical toy town bolshevik modus operandi, and is a retreat away from the pluralistic model of the SA, that was at some times and in some places accepted by the SWP. Specifically the SWP has excluded from respect, or made it an impossible atmosphere to work in, the social democratic left. Respect is outwith the organistaional traditions of the British labour movement, and seeks to build from scratch an alternative to Labour based upon new faces. This is ultra left, as any oragnisation that grows organiscally out of the prcatice and experience of the british Labour movement will have to include establisehed activists, with their own (possible non-Marxist) perspectives.iii) The electation of the war over all other issues is specifically ultra left, alongside the assumption that opposition to the war is much more radical than it is. This is an ultra left misunderstanding of the current situation in the labour movement in Britain, which is much less “angry” (the word they use all the time), combative or radicalised than they think it is. Theri ultra leftism is therefore three pronged:a utopian project to build a boslshevik party – a project that can never succeed in briatin, and which the CP correctly abandoned 60 years ago! This is ultra left beacsue it is not realting to the actual conditions of the movememnt.organisational sectraianism – whioch is a form of ultra-leftism.basing themsellves on a politicall perspective that the Iraq war, opposition to the war, and Islamist “anti-imperialsism” poses a much more immediate threat to capitalist stablity than it really is.

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  5. AN Avatar
    AN

    Generally, to coin a Cliffism.Ultra leftism and programmatic opportunism are diallectically linked as twin sides of the same coin.

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  6. Mark P Avatar
    Mark P

    AN’s post above mangles the term “ultra-left” until it has no meaning. Taking the the three ways in which he thinks that the SWP have become more ultra-left in order:1) A commitment to building what they imagine to be a “Bolshevik Party” has been a feature of their politics for decades. If anything this has been somewhat downgraded in recent years. So letting pass for a moment AN’s tendentious claim that this is “ultra-left” at all, it certainly doesn’t reflect movement in that direction.2) It is perfectly possible for even the most reformist grouping to be politically sectarian. Sectarianism and ultra-leftism may often be related, but they are two distinct phenomena. And for that matter, the SWP was always at least as sectarian as it is now, except in the minds of a few fantasists.3) They do indeed have a wildly overblown perspective, but in fact that perspective leads them to opportunist rather than ultra-leftist mistakes. Because they think that things like the anti-war movement pose a greater threat to capitalism than they actually do, this leads them to think it is unnecessary or even harmful to argue for distinct socialist politics within those movements.Anyway, moving back to the original point of this thread, I am a bit baffled as to where this all leaves the ISG/SR. It’s central leader, Alan Thornett is still advocating staying in Respect, while Liam is openly leaving. The ISG has just lost its Scottish membership over the SSP/SSSM dispute. What are the odds of another split in Engla

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  7. AN Avatar
    AN

    MarkThere is a contradiction between histroical IS politics and the actually existing SWP – in so far as there is still an undigested commitment to building a R&F movement in the unions, the original IS concept of the R&F was that it would “grow over” into a revoltionarary party through the logic of class struggle, and thus represented an organisational form of transituional politics.Counterposed to this was the Cliff “Bolshevisation” of the IS – and it becoming the SWP.Becasue there has always been a tension within the SWP of its incompatiible goals of building a Bolshevik party, and also building a class struggle tendency within the traditions of the British moovement (with serious workk in the unions towards R&F) then it is not true that the SWP is unchanged over the decades. There is a contradictory process at work – that you clearly fail to understand. Ac I have expplained many times, Respect represented an organisational compromise that satisfied both the SWP’s sectarians and those sympathetic to regroupment, but in terms that saw the former subsume the latter.The SWP does change over time. There was an explict turn to the left in the mid 1970s, and a further acceleration of the leftist turn during the “downturn” folly during the 1980s, and failure of the SWP to join the Labour party wen they should have. But a significnat number of established SWP members do have some traditions of the IS, and in their bones know that the party is not healthy, and needs to relate much more serioulsy and modestly to other activists. the relative weight of that layer of established, experienced and non-secatarian activists has been diminished by the turn from the SA to the Respect. To beleive that there is no tension between the SWP’s sectarianism (which is inevitable consequnce of “Bolshivism” in a British context BTW) and its work in the unions and its small layer of militants shows that you either don’t have much experience of the SWP, or you have never thought about it. The small but real toe hold that the SWP has in the movement is diminished over the last few years, but it does have its own dynamic, and the realtive weight of the SWP ” party builders”, and those committed to serious patient work in the movement has had an infleunce over the years of how sectarian or otherwise the SWP is in practice.I repeat, programatic opportunism is dialecticaly linked with ultra-leftism, because the programatic abandonment of key political positions is borne of a certain desperation to position themselves at the head of a militant movement that only exists in their own heads. So if you like this is a sublimated ultra-leftism, where they are seeking to build based upon political positions to the left of the bulk of class, and which are impatient of the living historicall development of politics within the actually existing working class (clear ultra-leftism), but rather than adopt a programme that reflects their actual understanding of the current tasks of the period (we might call classic ultra leftism) they seek to fudge the difference between their own positions and the positions of their target audience – defelcted ultra-leftism.This is not a shift to the right, ebacse the SWPO is not actually shifting its strategic understanding, nor is it actually abandoning its own leftist positions, it is merely disguising them.

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  8. Jim Jay Avatar
    Jim Jay

    On AN’s point 1 and 2 I think I agree with Mark in that confusing sectarianism and ultra leftism is very unhelpful and all I see there are arguments for why you think the SWP are becoming increasingly sectarian nothing about how its ultra left to do so.As far as I can see (without inside knowledge) the Blairite and Brownite camps are both sectarian but I don’t see any organic link between that and any ultra leftism on their part – although it might be fun to try to argue that case.On 3 I think this is much more interesting – and thanks for taking the time to expand on this.I’m not sure I’m convinced, but I do think this is a much stronger argument. Could it not be argued though that just as Militant went native in the poll tax campaign (to their short term gain and long term destruction) this is more to do with the SWP successfully placing itself at the head of the anti-war movement and therefore saying this is the most important – nay only – political struggle of any significance today. The one they happen to be best placed in.I just feel a lot of this is to do with organisational requirements rather than ultra leftism. But opportunism is not an exclusive preserve of the ultra left nor is the SWP’s trade mark ultra optimism and selective amnesia.

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  9. AN Avatar
    AN

    yeah and no Jim.It is an intersting debate.With regard to sectarianism, I do advance a rather different position on the roots of sectarianism than most people. I don’t see it as just being nasty to people, or organisational self interst, but rather as the inevitable outcome of seeking to build discrete “Marxist” currents around startegic diffrences: see my expanded argument on this here: http://socialistunity.blogspot.com/2006/10/philosophical-self-indulgence-from-me.htmlPersonally I find this approach to sectarianism useful, as it locates sectarianism in actually existing historical circumstances. But it does mean that the practice of all left groups that are not pluralist organisations aspiring to broad mass membership is sectarian. well I think the evidence bears me out there!And, i do not think it is possible for the Labour party or the Greens to be sectarian – they are different animals altogether.That leaves my argument that a policy of beleiving that a “revolutionary party” can be built by any one of the existing left groups getting larger is not only sectarian, but also ultra-left. As it is an orgnisational recipe that has no purchase on the existing consciousness or traditions of the workig class in late capitalist societies. And as such is a strategic objective not only in advance of the working class, but counterproductive.In my view the whole argument counterposing “revolutionary” socialism to “reformism” is ultra-left. That is not to say that socialism is not a revolutionary process, but that the cargo-cult approach to revolution: that history will repeat the forms of 100 years ago is a false polarisation in the absense of either a revolutionary situation or an actually existing reformist party!When the SWP wer einvolved in the SA – or SSP – there was an acceptance of them for the need to build a broad mass socialist organisation. Which is a less ultra-left position than their current one, whiehc is to buid an electoral coalition that will hep them build a “revolutionary” party. this is not just sectariansim, but also increased ultra-leftism, as they are now giving greater weight to the significance of building a revolutionary group, rather than promoting the broader movement.

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  10. AN Avatar
    AN

    And JimYour analogy with the MIlitant and the poll tax does have some merit. Clealy to some degree that is what is going on.BUt the SWP have built this into a bigger story than the MIllies did – with some theorisation about the progressive role of Islamism, and an exaggerated undertsnadiing of how iportnat Iraq is to the stability of the capitalist system.So I sorta agree with you, and at the same time I think your insight is complementary to what i am saying.

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  11. Jim Jay Avatar
    Jim Jay

    “In my view the whole argument counterposing “revolutionary” socialism to “reformism” is ultra-left.”Well I sympathise with this – but I think I’d be more likely to characterise it as wrong.The problem with terms like ultra left and sectarian is they are so unretrievably pejorative it’s very difficult to use them in their technical sense (which we don’t seem to agree on, but perhaps linguistic debates are not worth too much discussion)

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  12. Liam Mac Uaid Avatar
    Liam Mac Uaid

    From my point of view it was the strategic conceptions that the SWP brought to Respect that finally made it uninhabitable in my part of the world. Andy summarises them very accurately. Yet for a couple of years the situation was very fluid. It looked for a while that there was a debate taking place inside that organisation about how to locate itself at the centre of a socialist realignment in British politics. To use a couple of military analogies of the sort favoured by some of Respect’s leaders, in the beginning SR was conducting an offensive. We were trying to argue for a pluralistic democratic functioning which would be familiar to Labour Movement activists and draw them in. This has never been part of the SW’s intellectual baggage. I saw that very clearly when we were discussing how the Bethnal Green MP would relate to the party. I was in a minority of two on the branch committee in insisting on Labour Party type reporting procedures.SR supporters remaining in Respect are now conducting a rearguard action. Reinforcements might arrive, inspired by the TU conference but I doubt it. Nevertheless it is right that they stay in until we make a collective decision about choices and perspectives.

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  13. Dave Riley Avatar
    Dave Riley

    I’m glad I came upon this site — thanks JimJay(via Daily (maybe)). Am looking forward to watching the vids.I have sympathy with the condition of the pro regroupment left in England and have always been interested in its activities and analysis.I have to say from my POV in Australia that a bird in the hand is worth a lot compared to any number of maybes and grand scenarios others may try to throw at you. But whether Respect is that bird and has a significant regroupment trajectory….? I don’t know as I’m here and not there.However in our case, there’s an interesting summing up of the Alliance experience here in Australia:Socialist Alliance – looking towards 2007.Obviously the split in the SSP has been a setback this year because it tells us how uninterested (even hostile)outfits like the SWP and the CWI are in regard to left unity. That’s the core tragedy I think…and long term that’s the major obstacle we’re up against.But my feeling is that it’s an evolutionary process such that we can look forward to two phenomena unfolding: (1) standalone groupuscule left outfits with a rigid and programatic version of party building will come under increasing pressure as much movement activity by-passes them and they are left flat footed without an orientation to relate to many openings that may occur. (2) New exercises and experiments in regroupment and “unity”will inevitably arise as people seek routes to deal with the present political space. The challenge is to ensure that socialist politics and such key elements as “cadre-isation’ are preserved and flourish in these new environments.So there is an immediate role for an ideological offensive around the prospect of regroupment and — a carefully considered analysis of both Respect and the SSP experience. In that regard looking to Latin America can be an excuse I think to talk up the advantages of unified activity based on flexible reach out strategies that also harness the assets the socialist left has already accumulated. In this regard the New Zealand exercise with the Workers Charter is well worth monitoring.They’re staring “cold” and in the wake of umpteen failed regroupment attempts all failing, I think, primarily because they were too electoralist and didn’t consolidate a working core of activists to consciously drive these projects forward.

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  14. John Mullen Avatar
    John Mullen

    “Theorization on the progressive role of islamism” by the swp. Can we have a precise reference ?

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  15. Phil Avatar
    Phil

    Militant went native in the poll tax campaign (to their short term gain and long term destruction)Why was Scotland different? (Sure, the SP looks healthier than the ex-SSPs now, but that certainly wasn’t the case a few years ago.) The Assembly electoral system helped the SSP, but that cuts both ways – if the SSP’s success was just down to the electoral system, can we really say that the Mils in England destroyed themselves? I’m not making a point here, I’m genuinely curious about this.

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