There were many positive aspects to tonight’s Tower Hamlets Respect branch meeting. Here are four that come straight to mind.
- No blows were exchanged.
- No chairs were thrown.
- The ceiling didn’t collapse.
- The toilets were pretty clean.
This was the sequel to last Tuesday’s meeting to select conference delegates. The branch committee had appointed a sub committee to come up with a mutually agreeable slate. Tonight’s meeting was supposed to ratify it but couldn’t because the sub-committee didn’t reach agreement.
So again tonight we were presented with two slates. Except that makes the thing sound better than it was. The meeting was advertised to start at 7pm. There was an hour and a quarter of milling around, deciding who was allowed to come in, shouting and abuse. Then it got worse.
There is a reason I’ve never been invited to dance principal male lead in the Bolshoi’s production of Swan Lake. I’d be rubbish. There is a reason Azmal Hussain is not the best qualified person to chair contentious Respect branch meetings. Watching hidden camera footage of the ten worst supply teachers in London with the toughest classes seems to have been his sole preparation for taking on the job. Ignoring everything for an hour, screaming and threatening to walk out are not, as a rule, successful strategies. But, credit where it’s due, he tried them.
There were a few minutes at around 8.25 when it looked like a meeting might happen. Paul, a founder member of Respect moved the SWP’s resolution. He argued it on the basis of the constitution, democracy and so on. It would have been more persuasive if he’d said something about the phony student delegates, dodgy conference arrangements committee and the instructions to SWP branches to pack conference delegations. His motivation was followed by some depressing contributions from individual SWP members complaining about how they had been left off the delegate slate. It was truly disheartening to see keen young militants allow themselves to be manipulated like this. The issue was the political balance of the delegation in a context where the dogs in the street know that the SWP has been trying to stack delegations all across the country. Here individual hurt feelings are not important.
So there was a bit more shouting. The chair said he was leaving. There was more shouting followed by a more of less contemporaneous walk out by both sides. I went to the pub, listened to Martin Hayes’ version of The Lament For Limerick and downed three pints.
This is what was built into the coalition model. You could count the number of independent Labour Movement activists without taking off your socks. Respect in Tower Hamlets was built without trying to incorporate the contribution that Labourism and trade unionism offers to working class organisations. The SWP leadership consistently derided these structures in the certain knowledge that the only political training people need is to learn how to defer to their wisdom. That fell apart tonight. My guess is that the SWP will set up some joke organisation like “Globalise Respect” or “The proper socialist Respect”. This is a real setback. There were a lot of SWP members in that room tonight who should be part of a mass class struggle alternative to Labour. I’ll add to this later.
Oh, and neither police nor ambulances were needed.
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