The expulsions of Nick Wrack, Kevin Ovenden and Rob Hoveman has created a fog of uninformed speculation about what may or may not be happening inside the SWP. What struck me about the affair was the summary way in which three of the group’s best known names were chucked out without any right of appeal to the upcoming conference. It’s also noteworthy how a fairly large group can be convulsed by a serious strategic discussion and not use it as an opportunity to develop its ideas. Instead it’s the order of the bureaucratic boot to anyone who disagrees with the omniscient leadership. A more “Leninist” approach would have been to have had the discussion, educate the members and periphery.

Anyway back to Respect. Do you like the leaflet? It’s my own design. The text is from another Respect member. The audience for this leaflet is working class people, particularly council tenants and people who would like to live in a secure, affordable home. It’s the sort of thing that will go down a treat at the tenants’ association meeting on my estate later in the week. It will shoved through letter boxes and given out at street stalls by a variegated bunch of socialist atheists, socialist Muslims, socialist Christians and individuals who are developing their political ideas. This was the sort of activity that helped the organisation start to acquire a base of support in the white working class in Tower Hamlets. You wouldn’t be able to give it out if you were a Labour Party member. That’s because it’s the Labour council which is trying to dispose of its housing stock and only allows homes to be built for rich people in the borough.

Now this type of campaigning, or class struggle as it used to be called, is pretty bread and butter stuff for a party that defines itself as socialist. And Respect has a large socialist component. On top of that, in common with other supporters of Socialist Resistance in other branches, I am putting forward a resolution on climate change at tomorrow night’s branch meeting to go to Respect conference. This is one of the ways in which we are incorporating the ecosocialist perspective into our practical work.

I have absolutely no idea if Respect will still exist by the time the next election comes round. My cats’ judgement on whether or not the SWP will split is as likely to be right as mine. The necessary thing to be doing at the minute is to start consolidating those forces inside Respect which are willing to take part in active class struggle and use the opportunities that the ongoing disagreement has opened up. The old controlling, unpolitical way of working is now discredited and Respect can be an arena in which ideas can be argued. That is the significance of the recent events.

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