Glyn Robbins has been chair of Tower Hamlets Respect from the earliest days. This is his contribution to the discussion. He chose the title.
I have watched the crisis in RESPECT with a growing feeling of impotence. Since George’s letter, there has been a sense of inevitability about the course of events that I have likened to a runaway train that will only stop when it hits something.
I have occasionally been portrayed as being on both sides of this argument, but the fact that such a division even exists demonstrates that RESPECT has lost its way. I have tried to remind people of our founding principles, but it seems that the true meaning of “coalition” has been forgotten. I believe that our 80% principle was fundamental and the only way that we could avoid the infantile disorder that has characterized other attempts to form a board left alternative, Such factionalism is deeply alienating to the people we should be trying to appeal to.
The SWP
I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the SWP. The very fact that I feel the need to make this statement and in those words should alarm anyone who is serious about left wing politics. For as long as I’ve been involved in the labour movement (over 25 years) there has been a neurosis about the SWP that, at its most extreme, almost requires medical treatment. I am sorry to say that there are some people within our movement who are far more interested in fighting the SWP than our enemies. I believe this is once again being demonstrated in the current crisis.
There is a fundamental contradiction at the heart of the criticism being made of the SWP’s role in RESPECT. It is being argued that the SWP is not giving enough priority to the project, but at the same time, it is trying to dominate it! I don’t think you can have it both ways. The truth is that RESPECT would not have achieved what it has without the SWP. In the past, some of those who are now attacking the SWP have been only too happy to accept its resources, particularly when it was time to do the hard leg work. Has the role and nature of the SWP changed since the start of 2004? I don’t think so. Why is it that some people have suddenly woken up to all its supposed failings?
I have always said that I want RESPECT members to belong to only one political organization, as I do. But in our infancy, this is an entirely unrealistic expectation and moreover, it is contrary to the founding agreement we entered into. I am also reminded of the hypocritical treatment of Militant in the 80s when it was OK for some groups to organize within the Labour Party, but not others.
In my view, the SWP has, on the whole, exercised its numeric strength within RESPECT responsibly. It has agreed to balance representation on the National Officers and Council and in the selection of candidates. (I speak with experience. I have had my own attempts to seek nominations spiked by the SWP on two occasions!) It has also committed significant resources to RESPECT. There have been times when particular campaigns have not been handled by the SWP in the way that I would have liked and it has not always been good at identifying the moments when consensus was needed, although I’m sure it would now argue that it has made too many compromises. But the onus has always been on those who see the role of the SWP as incorrect or domineering to counter it by recruiting more members and winning arguments. Sadly, we are now seeing an unprincipled attempt to do the former, but not the latter.
George Galloway
I have been criticized, and probably rightly, for being too indulgent of George. This may be the result of my upbringing, but I don’t want to go too far down that particular road of psycho-analysis! However, I have always stated that I am proud of what we achieved in Bethnal Green and Bow and proud to have him as my MP I have always believed, whatever his personal foibles, that he is genuinely committed to the cause of socialism, the working class and the fight against imperialism. I have not changed that view. I’ve had the opportunity of seeing George speak and campaign in a wide range of situations and I believe he has a special ability to communicate political ideas, which is why it has sometimes been very frustrating that he has spent too much time doing other things.
If George Galloway is a monster, he is one of our own making. George catapulted RESPECT to a place of prominence that it would never have had without him and we were happy to go along with it. The leadership of RESPECT perpetuated the cult of the personality and this was a mistake. I said at the time of Big Brother that we would always be susceptible to unforeseen events if we allowed the organization to be personified by one individual, however talented. We made the same mistake in Tower Hamlets, allowing a virtual one man dependency culture to develop. One of our members once said “we should all be George” and he was right.
As the former Chairman of Tower Hamlets RESPECT, I take personal responsibility for another mistake – of not insisting on more accountability from George. Had we done so, and had George agreed, it would have made the current demands from him for RESPECT to be more accountable sound more genuine, rather than raising wry smiles.
George Galloway’s letter
When I first read George’s letter, I welcomed it. I knew that some of his arguments would be contested and controversial, they may even have been unwise, but I believed that his overall conclusion was correct, namely: that if RESPECT were to continue to succeed, we would have to significantly improve our organization in a number of key areas. I doubt that anyone can seriously disagree with this.
Unfortunately, what I saw as an obvious and essential need for improvement very quickly became a polarized argument and in particular, has been used by some as a pretext for an attack on the SWP in general and John Rees in particular. This was made very clear at the meeting I attended on 4th September when three members of George’s delegation called, in more or less veiled terms, for John to resign.
I don’t know if this was always George’s intention or if he always planned that this would inevitably lead to a battle royale in RESPECT.
I don’t feel the need to defend John Rees, any more than I do George Galloway. Both are perfectly capable of doing so for themselves. What I object to is the suggestion that John is solely or largely responsible for the shortcomings in RESPECT. This is absurd for at least three reasons. First, if we are evaluating John’s performance as National Secretary alongside the overall performance of RESPECT then it is a record of success, not failure. To remove John would be the equivalent of sacking a football manager who has just won his team promotion. Second, just as John alone is not responsible for RESPECT’s successes, nor can he be held solely responsible for its weaknesses. Thirdly, when you point the finger at someone else, you point three back at yourself. The sooner we all get away from the blame game and the idea that any one individual holds the key to our political fortunes, the better.
What’s really going on?
The latter point indicates the damaging, nonsensical and sometimes dishonest way in which the current argument is being polarized. I feel that the membership of RESPECT has been presented with a series of false choices. I do not want to have to choose between a more efficient political organization and John Rees. Similarly, I do not accept that for RESPECT to be a broader, more inclusive organization, it is necessary to attack the SWP or water down our core principles. I feel that there has been a tendency for real political arguments to be side-tracked or disguised, leading ultimately to the farce of different factions scrabbling around to find members or a loophole in the rulebook.
There appears to be an argument from some quarters that the presence and influence of the SWP inhibits RESPECT’s potential. In particular, there is a suggestion that by having a strong socialist component within RESPECT, we alienate a wider layer of supporters, especially what has become crudely characterized as “The Muslim Community”. This argument is unproven and is contradicted by events. While we can never know the motivation of all the people who have supported and voted for RESPECT, I don’t think many of them will have done so without knowing the type of organization we are. We have the words “socialist”and “trade unionist”in our title, we have fought all our elections on explicitly left-wing manifestos and our MP has never hidden his socialist/labour movement background. Certainly a great deal of our success has resulted from an anti-war vote, but in my view, it is no coincidence that where we have been most successful we have succeeded in pushing beyond the war to domestic issues, particularly housing. From the little I know of it, the experience of Michael Lavelette in Preston utterly confounds the view that you can’t have a RESPECT politician who is white, a socialist, a trade unionist, a member of the SWP and is able to appeal to a wider layer of support, including Muslims.
Having said that, I would also argue that RESPECT (or at least, those from a labour movement tradition within it) has a lot to learn about the nature of the Muslim community and we haven’t always been very good at listening to those who do understand it. Certainly we have made mistakes in Tower Hamlets. There are situations when tactical compromise is required, but this is the nature of politics and coalitions. Anyone wanting a purer form of politics should look elsewhere. On a personal note, I have found myself doing things in the last few years that I would have found inconceivable before RESPECT. I’ve spoken in prayer rooms, to male only audiences and attended the opening of Islamic schools. None of this do I regret. I believe it was absolutely necessary for us to do such things in order to reach out to a wider audience. (I would add that is has also widened my narrow, atheistic, world view.) Throughout my involvement in Tower Hamlets RESPECT I have also been constantly reminded that the Muslim community is also part of the British working class, a fact that I think has been misunderstood by many.
One of the key areas where RESPECT has both under-achieved and found the strains of the coalition pulling has been in relation to the trade union movement. I was shocked recently, to be told that a meeting has taken place between a senior member of RESPECT and the general secretary of a big trade union and that the discussions about some form of partnership were encouraging. Why is it that we have not been talking about this for the past two months, instead of self-indulgent faction fighting? This is not a rhetorical question.
Another real issue we are failing to seriously address is the balance between RESPECT as a campaigning organization and RESPECT as an election vehicle. Theoretically, we all know that there is no distinction between the two, but in practice, there is no doubt that our ability to win elections has brought with it problems. If I had to draw one lesson from recent events it is that we neglect grass-roots, real life campaigns at our peril. To do so is to crate a vacuum in which personal and factional interests flourish, while at the same time we weaken the connection between RESPECT and the local working class people we want to support us.
As a young Marxist I was taught “be flexible on tactics and rigid on principle”. I think therein lies the real questions that are before us now. Has RESPECT been too flexible on principle and too rigid on tactics and how do we decide if we disagree?
Personal behaviour and responsibility
I know this is not really a subject for scientific Marxists, but I believe it is relevant to the state we’re in. I think those outside of active politics look to those inside to behave in a way that is consistent with their stated beliefs. I think those of us on the inside are entitled to expect the same. I have been deeply disillusioned by the personal conduct of some of our leading members. I am thinking about indiscipline (gossiping and briefing the press instead of open discussion), rampant egotism and outright nastiness. I do not accept the argument that all is fair in love and left-wing politics. We are all responsible for out actions, particularly if we hold representative and leadership positions. I feel that too often there has been a lack of basic integrity, that has meant there has been little respect within RESPECT.
At the outset of this crisis, I told both factions that I thought they had signed a suicide pact. The prospect of RESPECT failing fills me with despair because I believe it was avoidable. Nobody ever said building an organization of its type would be easy, but with the right attitude, as well as the right actions, we could have built on the decent start we made. Sadly, we may be about to squander that important opportunity, but the opportunity remains.
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