Peace, love and unity now reign in Respect following the National Council (NC) meeting on September 29. This is a very good thing and not something too many people were predicting a week ago. Meaningful 
opportunities to create mass, class struggle parties are very rare. Maybe they come along once in a generation, or less, and it would have been a serious responsibility on all involved if this chance were fouled up. Instead the settlement is very positive indeed and builds on the statement from the National Council which was issued last week. This was a list of the action points taken from a document written by George Galloway. It echoed many of the arguments that supporters of Socialist Resistance have been making inside Respect for the last couple of years.
John Lister and Alan Thornett had written a resolution which they intended to offer as a proposed NC resolution on building the organisation for this year’s conference. Experts have commented on the document’s similarity to previous offerings from these two. A slightly modified version of it was passed unanimously today which I hope to post tomorrow. The most significant change was that it was not seconded by John Lister even though he was in the room and still agreed with what he’d written earlier in the week. The task fell to John Rees at his request. Life can be full of surprises.
Another piece of good news is that the unloved slate system is to be dropped. The NC that will be elected at this year’s conference will be charged with devising a structure for a delegate based NC from the 2008 conference. The plan is that it will be elected by single transferable vote.
It also seems likely that a new post of national organiser will be created with powers equal to that of the national secretary. You may want to start buffing up your CV.
But the good stuff doesn’t stop there. Next week the first exploratory talks are to be held between Respect and the CPB. Let’s keep our fingers and toes crossed that this is done with a bit more subtlety than was on display at recent meetings of RMT members when they were looking into standing candidates. SWP supporters argued against the idea and instead suggested that the RMT candidates stand for Respect. Slick, eh? Years of training go into honing political skills of that quality.
There was another unanimous vote from the NC to ask George Galloway to stand again for election. The ill-feeling and harshness which soured last week’s meeting were absent. A representative of Bristol Respect handed the MP a letter which had been agreed at their AGM also requesting that he put himself forward.
Now we are all rather at the mercy of Gordon Brown. Respect has three potentially winnable seats. Two in Tower Hamlets and Salma Yacoob’s in Birmingham. A week ago the organisation was on the life support machine and its nearest and dearest were thinking of pulling the plug. Today it has almost been relaunched with an overture to another left party and a consensus around measures to strengthen the accountability of elected officials, pluralism and democracy. This makes fighting an early election a much less intimidating prospect.
In politics, as in love, a good row can clear the air.
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Liam redux 
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