Respect Breakthrough in Preston – the full story

I’ve been offered this as a guest posting from a reader in Preston. Let’s call her or him “Nicky”. It looks at the extent of Michael Lavalette’s victory, the part the SWP played in achieving it, the limitations of the electoral strategy adopted, how daft the Greens were and asserts that there is a little…

Liam

May 8, 2007

5–8 minutes

Respect

Preston Respect Councillor Michael Lavalette won his seat in Preston Town Centre ward by a landslide in the local elections in May. After Respect candidate Mukhtar Master lost by only seven votes in the ward in 2006, Lavalette turned this around winning over 50% of the vote this year with a margin of over 400 votes over his Labour Party opponent. Turnout increased to over 50%, a level virtually unheard in urban areas in Britain for local elections. He first won the seat four years ago as ‘Socialist Alliance against the War’ against a pro-war muslim Labour Party incumbent and many critics claimed that Respect could not repeat this result. In fact Respect more than exceeded it, as Lavalette’s personal vote more than doubled despite his opponent having a strong muslim background and living in the ward. There were several keys to the success – systematic work over four years within the ward around local issues, a broadening of Respect from just an ‘anti-war muslim party of protest’, the endorsement of several key figures from Labour (and also environmental campaigners) including former Labour council leader Valerie Wise, and the mobilisation of an army of supporters from across the country. Canvassing was done more systematically than previously and Respect spoke to over 75% of the total electorate, with a degree of electoral organisation not previously seen by the far left outside the Labour Party.

Cost

However, Lavalette’s victory came at a cost to Respect in broadening out its appeal beyond Preston Town Centre ward. No canvassing was organised in the other two neighbouring winnable wards that were contested – St Matthews and Riversway. Here, the Respect vote also increased, by around 2%, to hold second place, but the Labour candidates took the wards comfortably. The margin of Lavalette’s victory was more than enough to win either ward from Labour. Respect did poorly in the University ward winning only 37 votes, with most of the student protest vote going to the Liberal Democrats. Respect did not defend the seat held by former Labour councillor Steven Brooks who defected to Respect in 2005, meaning that Respect only has a solitary councillor on Preston City Council compared to two previously. However, the Respect vote in both Town Centre and Riversway was sufficient to win the seat on Lancashire County Council made up on these two wards that will be up for election in 2009.

Across North West England, a region with a larger population than Scotland, Respect stood outside of Preston in just one ward in Manchester, where there was a slight fall back in votes compared to 2006, as North West Respect supporters moved into Preston Town Centre ward en masse. Respect declined to stand candidates in either Blackburn or Liverpool, both of which had modest but successful scores of over 10% in local elections in 2006 and had produced promising scores for Respect in the 2004 Euro elections. Undoubtedly, the Socialist Workers Party, of which Lavalette is a leading member, played a major role in both limiting the campaign and mobilising support to Preston Town Centre ward. In an earlier phase of the campaign, SWP members actually opposed standing in Riversway ward, despite it being Respect’s second best Preston results, for fear of diverting resources from Lavalette’s ward. To a certain extent Lavalette felt the weight of the expectation of the entire SWP on his shoulders. The SWP moved a full timer into Preston some months ago, though it was made clear that that was so long as Lavalette remained on the council.

By contrast to the North West, in Yorkshire and the Midlands, Respect stood a wider range of candidates than previously and was rewarded with a new seat in Bolsover, and good results in newly contested wards in Birmingham, Halifax, Sheffield and Leicester.

Confused

There were also confused messages for Respect supporters in other Preston wards. At a public meeting in the city in a speech broadcast on the internet, George Galloway denounced anyone who voted Labour anywhere in Preston in apocalyptic terms, despite the fact that most local Respect members had little choice but to vote Labour as there were so few Respect candidates. In fact, there is still the remnants of a left wing within the Preston Labour Party and a few of the councillors and candidates are principled left wingers, supporters of John McDonnell, who risk being alienated from Respect by this sectarian broadside.

The Greens stood a solitary candidate in Preston against Lavalette in what was seen as an orchestrated sectarian intervention. Their vote fell back as most Green sympathisers were won over by Lavalette’s campaigning record on environmental issues such as transport. Given that Respect stood against a sitting Green councillor in Sheffield, there is a strong case for Respect renewing the attempt at negotiation and discussion over electoral tactics with the Green Party.

Challenge

There will be further challenges for Respect in the forthcoming Preston local elections in May 2008. The key target will be to aim for winning another seat in Preston Town Centre ward when the weaker of the Labour councillors will be defending his seat. Mukhtar Master will undoubtedly be a strong challenger for Respect and a victory would be a significant consolidation and step forward. However there will be four further winnable seats up for election and a strong Respect challenge in one or more is also necessary, if Respect is not to be ghettoised as a party of protest constrained to just one ward. Beyond that lies the County and European elections in 2009 and the general election. Valerie Wise is currently considering declaring a candidacy for the Preston parliamentary constituency, against Blairite MP, Mark Hendrick, though whether she will stand as a Respect candidate remains to be seen as she is not believed to be a member. Whether it is Wise or Lavalette who stands in the general election, it is necessary to stand Respect candidates more widely and develop more sophisticated local organisation to maximise support. The breakthrough of winning over more Labour councillors in the North West, claimed by Galloway as imminent at the 2006 Respect conference, will only be credible if Respect has a broader appeal to those currently still supporting the Labour Party. This requires the leading forces in Respect, particularly Galloway and the SWP, to change their orientation towards standing candidates, to professionalise Respect and make it function more as an organised and democratic party, rather than a stage army that can be moved at whim to wherever the next campaign demands. This may seem harsh criticism after such a significant victory, but learning lessons of the campaign is crucial to further progress for Respect.

Elsewhere

Elsewhere in the North West, the Green Party in Lancaster made significant advances despite its coalition with Labour and Liberal Democrats. The Greens also won a seat for the first time in Liverpool, with a defector from the Liberal Democrats. The Community Action Party, a breakaway from the Labour Party in Wigan, managed to hold several seats and in Preston itself, ‘Labour Independent’ Joyce Cartwright successfully held on to her Deepdale seat.

12 responses to “Respect Breakthrough in Preston – the full story”

Muon

May 8, 2007 at 5:12 pm

Oh the clarity of hindsight.. If Lavallette hadn’t got in, and we hadn’t had the unexpected Bolsover Shirebrook bonus, Respect would have won in just one seat, the one that Salma Yaqoob represents. Everyone (including most of the swp i reckon) would have said that the whole thing was dead, kaput, absolutely and without question. As it is, it looks remarkably lively.. Respect will have to show that it can win without subordinating everywhere in a region to one ward, sure, but in the absence of crystal balls, focussing on getting the minimum necessary for the whole thing to continue was dead right this year.

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Jim Jay

May 9, 2007 at 12:00 am

I discussed some of this a little while before the election here which i hope is useful rather than a shameless plug.Without wanting to be overly pedantic it isn’t true that “most Green sympathisers were won over” because the greens barely had any supporters in the first place… which does make standing there rather pointless – so i agree with the main point being made.The other main thing about the green advances were that both norwich and brighton made gains and it is actually posible that one of these places elects a green mp at the next general election… particularly as in norwich the greens got more votes than anyone else.

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Anonymous

May 9, 2007 at 6:38 am

It is nonsense to say that the Green Party “barely had any supporters in the first place”. In the Preston by-election in 2000 the votes included:Cartwright Socialist Alliance 1,210 5.7%,Merrick Green Party 441 2.1%So the Green Party had a hard core of support, even where there was a Socialist candidate to choose.In the General Election of 2001 there was no Socialist Alliance candidate in Preston and the Green vote was:Merrick Green Party 1,019 2.8%So a part of the Socialist vote went to the Green Party when there was no socialist candidate.The Green Party did not stand any candidates between 2001 and 2006 and Merrick signed Respect candidate Lavalette’s nomination paper for the 2005 general election (he lived in Riversway ward).“I have known Michael for a number of years.He is committed to environmental issues and has shown that commitment in Preston council. I urge all Green supporters locally to vote for him at this election.”Richard Merrick,Green Party election candidate in Preston 2001http://www.respectcoalition.org/pdf/f351.pdfhttp://www.election.demon.co.uk/1997EB2.html

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Anonymous

May 9, 2007 at 6:49 am

In respect of muon’s comments about crystal balls – you don’t use these in elections. You do canvassing and work out from the canvas returns how well your vote is doing and then adjust your tactics accordingly. The SWP’s 25 years of abstention from election means they have no understanding of how elections should be organised. It was obvious that a relatively unknown candidate (Master) standing against a sitting councillor and ex-MP would not do as well as Lavalette. Lavalette was heading towards 750 promises three weeks before the election, but the SWP had no concept of how to take their foot off the accelerator and divert resources elsewhere – Lavalette was their man and they were going to get him re-elected no matter what damage it did elsewhere.

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Anonymous

May 9, 2007 at 7:21 am

Euro elections 2004, Preston District (nb bigger area than Preston constituency):GREEN PARTY 1934 4.7%RESPECT 2455 6.0%http://www.respectnorthwest.org/resources/NW%20RESULTS.htmA sizeable Green vote even where there was also a Respect candidate, however much of this will have come from the Rural/suburbs area. In the May 2006 local elections, the Green Party’s best result was Rural North ward, where they beat the Labour Party:Ashworth Margaret Green Party 169 7.7%http://www.preston.gov.uk/elections/ElectionWard.asp?ward=66Yet the Green Party did not stand in this ward in 2007.

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AN

May 9, 2007 at 9:16 am

Having leafleted for a friend of mine, and indeed my forer Socialist Alliance election agent, who was standing for the Greens in a ward previoulsy contexted by the socialist alliance, my observation is that there is a significnat core of Greens voters who do not see themselves on the left at all, and although there may be a convergence of views between some green activists and socialists, this is not true of the wider electorate.

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Muon

May 9, 2007 at 9:30 am

In reply to anonymous: It is true that the swp has little experience of elections compared to others, though we have now been taking part in them for 8 years (since the ‘West Midlands socialist alliance’ in the euro-poll in ’99 for example). But I’d still say that ‘moving towards 750 promises 3 weeks before the election’ still ain’t enough to ‘take the foot off the accelerator’. The experiences of Labour in ’92, or the Greens in Scotland now (to pick just two examples) shows how far more experience electoral operators can end up in the merde, when they thought it was in the bag. In ‘our flag stays red’ Phil Piriatin describes how the CP deliberately aimed to have DOUBLE the number of pledges needed to get an MP, a good rule of thumb in my view. In Preston that would have meant, what, 1200 to be certain? The foot was kept on the accelerator with good reason.

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Anonymous

May 9, 2007 at 9:44 am

Muon – so what is the SWP’s strategy for breaking out of one ward? By contrast with your tactics in Preston, in Birmingham, where you had no member as a candidate, you divided your forces between different wards, rather than concentrate solely on winning Sparkbrook. In Preston 2008 you will have to decide whether to follow the same tactics as 2007 in Town Centre ward or work other wards. In 2008 this will be a much harder choice a) because Mukhtar is not as well known as Lavalette b) Cole is a sitting councillor c) St George’s and Fishwick will also be up as well as Riversway and St Matts(though not University).I would also be interested in knowing why the SWP did not choose to contest Hall Green ward in Birmingham having failed to get any candidates selected in the more winnable wards? It is just as capable as producing a good Respect vote as Moseley and Kings Heath, and is vital to Salma Yaqoob being returned as MP for the new Hall Green parliamentary constituency. Or is it another example of naivety in electoral tactics?

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Jim Jay

May 9, 2007 at 2:20 pm

Anon: You can’t compare the parliamentary constituency with the local ward you muppet!Last year’s results in this ward wereRonald Atkins, Labour 654 Mukhtar Master Respect 647 Ronald Smith Conservative 235 Liam Pennington Lib Dems 122 Robert Douglas Green 82This yearMichael Lavalette, Respect, 1,179Salim Desai, Labour, 717Helen Greaves, Liberal Democrats, 206Susan Horn, Conservative, 87Vincent Wadsworth, Green, 63Going from 82 votes to 63 cannot *meaningfully* be described as “most green sympathisers” being won over to Respect. Who knows where those 19 votes went… maybe they stayed at home, maybe they all voted Respect – but most of even a tiny number they aint.

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Anonymous

May 9, 2007 at 5:10 pm

The problem for the Green Party is that they only managed to hold on to 63 votes in a District where they got nearly 5%, 2,000 votes, in the Euro elections and over 1,000 votes in the parliamentary constituency. The reason for this is they only stood in one ward and that was the one Respect was pulling out all the stops to hold.The only “muppets” here are the Preston Green Party, who definitely alienated some of their supporters by standing against Lavalette, and failed to build any support anywhere else.Jim Jay is saying in his article the Preston branch of the Green Party is stupid rather than malign(to paraphrase). Well it’s his Party and he’s welcome to it! He does however make clear that the national Green Party wanted the local party to stand against Lavalette – so it’s no wonder there’s some suspicion.But it’s also why the sensible thing would be to sit round a table and for each party to say this is where they are thinking of standing and discuss it. No-one is suggesting a coalition or formal pact, just a bit of common sense.

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Liam Mac Uaid

May 9, 2007 at 10:55 pm

Jim, I don’t like the use of words like “muppet”. Polemical but comradely please.

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Bill

May 10, 2007 at 12:43 pm

Re Starngers into Citizens marchI would add 1) The great significance was the relatively large numbers of migrants taking to the streets – a big advance, and easily the biggest demonstration by migrants in the UK (even if still small compared with half a million in the US last year). 2) Jack Dromey spoke, but the platform looked like a line of CofE clerics at the back, there were few if any powerful migrant voices, the chair was a RC nun. 3) There were some Unison banners and I think one or two TGWU banners but no TCs that I saw. The TGWU Regional Secretary was there and of course Justice for Cleaners in numbers. 3) The October 7th Network mobilising group (for last Octobers action day for migrant rights) (which is a bit wider than No One Is Illegal and No Borders) distributed hundreds maybe over 1,000 copies of an 8-page publication entitled’Papers for All / For Freedom of Movement and the Freedom to Stay.’ Contents: Amnesty: Good or Bad for Migrants; Spanish Amnesty; Victims of Trafficking? ; Global Apartheid; Detention and Asylum in the UK (written by a BWB committee ex detainee member); All African Women; English for All; Environmental refugees; Cleaning the London Underground; The Points Based System.Weaknesses of this publication include the fact that the words ‘Trade Union’ do not occur (even in the penultimate article) and only one of these pieces is by a recent migrant. But the publication did give a useful critical approach to the Strangers Into Citizens amnesty proposal.The ‘Contacts for Associated organisations’ list on page 2 includes:Congo Research Project; London No Borders; No One Is Illegal; Campaign to Close Canpsfield; Barbed Wire Britain Network to End Refugee and Migrant Detention; A World to Win.

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Liam redux