Respect is in crisis. How did we arrive at where we are now?
Was it George Galloway’s letter sent out on 23rd August 2007 to all Respect National Council members stating some observations, expressing some criticisms and making some suggestions? Or was it the hysterical reaction by the SWP leadership in the weeks that followed? Despite apocalyptical warnings and assertions of “no capitulation” in the SWP road shows that took place in September, virtually all of Galloway’s solutions were agreed but only after weeks of vile and damaging blood letting.
On receiving the letter of August 23rd there were two ways of dealing with it. We had a choice to defuse or to ignite. We, i.e. the SWP leadership, chose to do the latter and have been fanning the flames ever since.
I attended the Respect National Council meeting 22nd September 2007 where it became evident for the first time to the overwhelming majority of the council that there have been very serious and deeply disturbing problems for nearly two years.
Every end has a beginning and a number of soul searching questions need to be asked.

As the SWP is by far the single largest organisation in Respect, should it not then shoulder the greatest responsibility to ensure that Respect not only survives but grows, flourishes and prospers?
How can it be that the national Respect membership numbers only 2500 when the SWP membership is nearly 6000. Obviously fewer than a 1/3 of the SWP membership are even in Respect?
When was the last time we as individual members of the SWP took part in a campaign or union activity and identified ourselves as Respect?
When did we bring anyone – friend, family, colleague or supporter of a campaign that we are involved in to Respect events or activities?
When was the last time as an individual we recruited or even asked anyone to join Respect?
Who is responsible for allowing this when the official line is that the SWP throws its full weight behind Respect?
Why have so many SWP members not even joined Respect yet are called to go to meetings around the country to discuss Respect and are now  being urged to join Respect and to get delegated to Respect conference! See email below sent out on the 17th October 2007.
RESPECT ANNUAL CONFERENCE
“The Respect annual conference is going to be very important this year. We are urging comrades do the following:
You can only get delegated to Respect conference if you are a registered member. You MUST be a paid-up member by THIS FRIDAY, 19 October .Deadline for resolutions is Friday 19 October.
Deadline for the election of delegates is Sunday 4 November. Once again we are urging as many SWP members as possible to get elected to the Respect Conference. If you have any questions please contact John Rees or the SWP National Office. Martin Smith, SWP National Organiser.”
                                                                                                                                                  
We, in the SWP also need to ask ourselves the following questions.
Did we play any part in reaching this disastrous situation or is it all due to George Galloway’s letter of August 23rd 2007? When did it all start to go wrong? Was it August 23rd or long before that?
Who or how many knew of the issues? Why was there no debate or discussion within the SWP or Respect National Council immediately problems began to arise to try to resolve the differences and thereby avoid being where we are now?
In my view the responsibility rests with the SWP leadership for this situation of crisis to have been developing over many months, even years, whilst in the SWP we were told nothing.
Is Bristol different and is this only a London thing?

Lots of people in Bristol Respect have done lots of things but we only stood for one council seat in this year¹s May elections. Let¹s ask ourselves why. Was it because we had grown? Was it because we did not want to stand in any other ward?
Or, was it in part because not enough people in the SWP in Bristol had either joined Respect or done one single thing to help Respect?
Whilst we might not have the upheaval of Tower Hamlets, our own Annual General Meeting (AGM) held on 27th September 2007 was almost ruined by our full time SWP organiser who wanted to call all the SWP members out of the room 5 minutes before the AGM was due to start, leaving non SWP Respect members (a third of the meeting) sat there not knowing what the hell was going on.
That potential disaster was averted because I refused to let it happen, but it would have without my intervention. Who would bet that this is not happening elsewhere.
Galloway was and is a maverick, warts and all. We all knew this. I am not making excuses just stating the blindingly obvious.
The Big Brother experience was considered by many a mistake but his performance before the US Senate was unrivalled and made the name of Respect known across the globe.
To describe Galloway as right wing is farcical. To vilify him and demonise him as the enemy beggars belief.
The 27 members of the Respect National Council who are also critical of the SWP do not represent a “Galloway faction” as is being presented, nor are any of them right wing or witch hunters as we are being asked to believe. They include people like Ken Loach, Linda Smith, Victoria Brittain, Salma Yaqoob and Yvonne Ridley. They are all socialists, they are all remarkable people in their own right and they are all senior members of Respect.  
I feel that our SWP leadership has created an atmosphere where an observation made is described as a criticism, where any criticism is taken as an attack which is transposed as being “right wing”.
Are we really supposed to believe that we were in an “all or nothing”, “them and us”  situation where everything we the SWP say must be true and that everything the “other side” says must be lies. Everything we the SWP do is right but everything they do is wrong!
Frankly, as in life or politics this is ludicrous.  
                                                                            
After having overreacted to Galloway’s letter in August, the SWP leadership rallied its membership to emergency party councils and road shows, seeking votes of endorsements predicated on half truths and contorted facts to justify their position, in a dishonest and degrading manner.
When sound judgement was needed we got poor analysis, when honesty and frankness were required we got a call for blind loyalty and expulsions.
The situation has been appallingly handled by our SWP leadership, with a series of misjudgements eventfully reaching a position of a self fulfilling prophecy.
Have we just thrown away a fantastic opportunity? Are we now dashing
the hopes of millions having given others and ourselves a glimpse of what is or was possible?
Was it right that so many were ready to join the chorus of catcalls vilifying some of Respect’s brightest stars without more thoroughly questioning the denouncements.
I have seen things that I can no longer accept.
I have heard things from meetings I have been at described in a way that I don’t recognise.
No longer will these things be done in my name.
For the reasons that I have set out, as from this moment I am resigning from the SWP.
To those of you who will feel let down I offer an unreserved apology, to those who will feel disappointed I am truly sorry, to those who could not care less and who may from here on invent their own distorted version I wish you well in your world.
We all have to live with our own decisions and I know I am leaving  the SWP with my integrity and honour intact and feel sure that I will be able to sleep well at night, safe in the knowledge that I did what I did for the right reasons at the right time and with the best intentions.
Jerry Hicks.

29 responses to “To the SWP Central Committee and membership: From Jerry Hicks”

  1. I wonder what kind of impact that will have amongst the SWP membership.

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  2. Has Hicks been approached to join Socialist Resistance, Liam?

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  3. Jerry Hicks may have provided us with a rather liberal estimate of the SWP membership (nearly 6000!?). Apart from that his resignation letter is spot on. Let’s just hope that more will be following him out of the rapidly degenerating SWP.

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  4. In answer to mark P this letter will have very little impact on the SWP. Members will slip away it is true but most of the core membership, plus the always plentiful and easily manipulated newbies, will be untouched by this latest renegacy.

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  5. Mike

    That won’t be true in Bristol. It is impossible to take Jer Hicks out of the SWP there, without it creating an impact.

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  6. I thought the job of a revolutionary organisation was to keep and retain important working class militants such as Jerry?
    Marxists should draw the relevant conclusions.I
    f you are loosing your workers , you are loosing your whole point of existence.

    This is a huge blow. I met Jerry at Tolpuddle a couple of years ago and found him an honest and level headed socialist with immense respect in the wider movement around Bristol.

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  7. This was my response on Socialist Unity.

    In my view the idea that this is all about a dispute about the respective integrities of the SWP and important leaders in Respect, is as mistaken as the view that its all about a dispute between Leninism and Pluralism.

    When Gerry says that a range of things have come to light over a year and a half he is absolutely right. When you have attempts to present packing meetings as an excercise in grass roots democracy, or demands for more ‘professionalism’ being used to denounce those who criticise selection proceedures which let in people capable of defecting to ‘New Labour’ it seems to me your confronting left wing arguments to justify right wing political practice, as good a definition of a very British tradition of Municipal reformism as any.

    In retrospect reading through the contributions in the IB (which importantly have been published and are being read by every SWP member) what you have are sincere comrades being pulled by these well known electoral compulsions, and dressing up more familiar kinds of electoral compulsion in a pseudo-SWP language. I have no doubt that the pulls are real and that this is the result not of consious perfidy but of genuine disorientation in the face of a new situation. But the speed with which the language adopted has shifted to the kind of hysterical denunciations made by Rob and Kevin is rather shocking if perhaps the product of the, obviously and genuinely, shocking dynamic of the last month.

    This is though, of a piece, with a language of contempt directed not at any Socialists, its true, but any Socialists raising questions about selection proceedures (its interesting that George’s intervention focused heavily on this question). In other words its perfectly ok to be left wing so long as you are just a loyal foot-soldier in the electoral process and leave deeper questions of political strategy to the higher ups. This is after all a familiar enough pattern in British left wing politics and the reason is not that people are evil or bad but that if you focus only on the question of ‘electability’ its obviously true that its best to soft pedal on the politics, at least at the level of local commitee’s. The idea here is that our good general arguments would have much greater impact if we had more representation.

    The difficulty is that the result has been an increasing subordination of a general political orientation towards attempting to providing a political home for those moving between Labour and a left alternative towards the imperatives of building local electoral machines which contain methods of operation identical to the thing we’re trying to build an alternative to. The extremely bitter fight in Tower Hamlets (with Kevin trying now to reduce this to a family affair and a couple of demented Trots) escalated precisely because of a clash between a core of people who have done a huge chunk of the leg work and a section of the councilers who seem to have seen Georges intervention as an opportunity to marginalise all these irritating little russian dolls and their hangers on.

    Obviously its true that in the current climate we would hope for the support of many who are not socialists. I also stand by everything I’ve argued about the ludicrousness of suggesting that grocers are members of the British Bourgoisie. But if a logic starts developing where such people are given a whip hand over the activists (the vitriol and contempt towards socialist activists who ‘try the chairs patience’ etc) that is a logic which has to be challenged. Georges intervention, as stated, was directly related to these arguments. And sure enough straight afterwards you had a situation were a kind of ‘all power to the councilers’ move was taken, in the first by now notorious meeting. In the last meeting it was apparently enough that a majority of people who came did not support the councilers position but were more sympathetic to what some comrades in the SWP were arguing, as well as some councilers seen as supporting them, not only for their arguments to be dismissed, but for democracy to be abrogated.

    This to me is the logic of what is going on and this is what I mean by ‘right wing’. Not a conspiracy, not evil people, but a shift which structurally will lead us to the right. I’m told that socialist worker was contacted by two media organisations one of them channel 4. In the climate (particularly of Rob Hovemans intervention which I found grotesquely offensive) I may have over-reacted to the situation. Even Russian Dolls have tempers in this situation. I am very sorry if comrades of the quality of Jerry Hicks are resigning. Its terrible and tragic and I would be the last person to suggest that mistakes have not been made. But if the logic is as I think it is (and I think it is), then in political terms (and I am constantly being told to keep my head and be political by people who seem to me to be doing the opposite) on this one, the SWP is right to argue what its arguing.

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  8. Some of the points JohnG makes might be true, but the question is this: Is the strategy of the SWP going to strengthen the socialist wing in Respect? Is the strategy of the SWP going to resolve these tensions in anyway? Instead, it seems that the strategy of the SWP is going to destroy Respect.

    As SR comrades have argued the way to resolve these tensions is not through bureaucratic maneuvers and the SWPs control freakery but building a culture of a “party” in Respect and democracy and debate and developing the internal culture.

    As Jerry Hicks says, if their have been serious tensions in Tower Hamlets Respect why haven’t they been discussed on the NCs of Respect or the SWP.

    The way the SWP are trying to resolve the problems in TH Respect is not going to strengthen socialism but threaten the existence of Tower Hamlets Respect.

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  9. I’ve just heard that via the internal respect email, the same counciler who chaired that undemocratic fiasco of a meeting and has declared that the councilers who resigned the whip have been expelled from Respect. On what authority is entirely unclear to me.

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  10. two points:

    1. was Jerry Hicks on the SWP central committee?

    and if not, WHY not?

    2. why hasn’t anyone respond to the points,
    specifically raised by Jerry Hicks?

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  11. Ian: “an honest and level headed socialist with immense respect in the wider movement around Bristol.”

    Indeed – Jer is very well respected, and this is a serious blow too the SWP in terms of their industrial credibility

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  12. Tony Greenstein Avatar
    Tony Greenstein

    John G does his best to defend the indefensible but it is extremely clear that Galloway’s original letter primarily centred on undemocratic practices – ostracism of Salma Yaqoob, the sudden appearance of staff in the Respect office etc. – all of which are not unknown to those of us who remember the Socialist Alliance.

    People may disagree with this, indeed I’m sure it will, but Respect was doomed from the very start because it was both an unholy and an unprincipled alliance. It attempted to short circuit the position of the far left in this country, on the back of the war, and use the votes primarily of Muslims to catapult people into office. In Muslim areas this succeeded, to some extent, but then the SWP found that a) their members weren’t being selected b) those who were being selected were more often than not unprincipled opportunists who were using Respect to get elected.

    Sooner or later the chickens would have come home to roost. Galloway’s letter came after the expulsion of Ger Francis not before, when the SWP lost out in the nomination of a candidate in Birmingham. Ger, the hack who harassed Sue Blackwell and others, who lied and deceived for the SWP, is now expelled and shortly after Nick Wrack, Rob Hoveman and Kevin. And now the resignation of Gerry Hicks.

    For those who have eyes to see the SWP is in a real political crisis and the ability of the leadership to lie to its members is having diminishing returns. To be blunt the SWP has not fostered a democratic culture on the left and has resorted to the tired accusation that criticism of the SWP is ‘sectarian’ because the earth revolves around SW. We all know that SW itself printed nothing until last week so for those not privy to discussion fora like this or Weekly Worker it would all have come as a big shock.

    What is certain is that what is happening in Respect cannot be classed as a simple left-right split.

    The basic idea behind Respect was not all that wrong if one excludes the communalist dimension – appealing to the Muslim community via their leaders. An attempt to build a far-left broad front in the wake of the war was not wrong in itself but it was how it was attempted. And for the SWP, as apparently is the case now, to propose the abandonment of a slate election for STV at the forthcoming conference is taking the biscuit since they opposed this and insisted on Blair’s undemocratic slate system in the Socialist Alliance.

    The other reason why I have extreme difficulty in accepting this is a left-right slate is that the SWP is quite prepared to move to the right for opportunistic reasons. It is ironic that the SWP invites to its events, including Culture of Resistance festival and via its members to broader organisations, an open anti-Semite like Gilad Atzmon. How a revolutionary socialist grouping can have any truck with someone who in his latest piece of nonsense ‘saying no to the hunters of Goliath’ talks of a ‘Judaic world view’ informing us that ‘yet, the Jewish state and the sons of Israel are at least as unpopular in the Middle East as their grandparents were in Europe just six decades ago.’
    http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/08/378213.html
    or this little gem on the anti-Semitic Peace Palestine list:
    I am suggesting that the only way to internalise the meaning of the Jewish Holocaust is to teach Jews how to start looking in the mirror, to teach Jews to ask themselves why conflicts with others happen to them time after time. Rather than blaming the Goyim, the Germans, the Muslims, the Arabs, it is about time the Jewish subject learns to ask the 6 million $ question: “why do they pick on me?” The Jews who already doing that are known as self-haters, yet they are a million moons ahead of the Jewish tribal discourse. They clearly see the conflict between universalism and Jewish tribalism. And you had better start to believe it, the chasm is massive.
    http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2007/10/gilad-atzmon-open-comment-to-jsf.html
    which quite unbelievably has a link to a review of an Atzmon concert.

    There was a time when it was the abc of socialist politics that anti-Semitism (& not anti-Zionism) was taboo, the socialism of fools, yet fools like John Rees are now quite happy to ignore the fact that they are putting someone on who is not openly anti-Semitic but consorts with and defends holocaust deniers.

    The opportunism of the SWP leadership is exacting a heavy price.

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  13. In response to modernityblog, Jerry Hicks was not on the SWP CC – which is a very small body.
    I can’t tell you why no one has responded to the points raised specifically in his letter, but I think they must be pretty devastating for those who support the SWP CC in this.
    I certainly dont think John G has done so here or elsewhere. The idea that anyone either inside or outside the SWP who has taken a different position has done so because they are electoralist is ridiculous.
    But it follows a horrible pattern in all of this. If you dont agree with someone and can’t explain why use a term of abuse. Its true that I would rather be called an electoralist than a communalist but that is hardly progress.

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  14. Thanks Terry,

    it is strange that Jerry Hicks is not on the SWP’s CC ?

    you might have thought that they would have welcome
    Jerry Hicks’ depth of knowledge and class commitment?

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  15. Johng says, “…so long as you are just a loyal foot-soldier in the electoral process and leave deeper questions of political strategy to the higher ups. ” – If you remove the word ‘electoral’, that could be a description of the SWP.

    Also John, I have a question for you. You say, “I would be the last person to suggest that mistakes have not been made.” What are those mistakes?

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  16. Interesting comment from John G
    “…so long as you are just a loyal foot-soldier in the electoral process and leave deeper questions of political strategy to the higher ups. ”

    I think it helps get ot he heart of the debate why socialists should get involved in bourgeois elections at all and how to fight for class politics.

    Elections when workers discuss all the issues of power in society can be used to build an organisation of fighting militants; what should our policies be on the economy, health, education, equality and war.

    Socialists should put forward fighting answers linked to a different vision of society one where the workers are in charge, but socialists participate in elections to win people to our side, either to join our organisations or at least work with us. The number of votes socialists win is a useful measure of our support, but it is not the point of standing.

    Putting forward revolutionary politics may not necessarily win us more support. It is an open question. Often with skilful agitation and a full open debate more people can be won to these positions than at first seems possible. However, if we put forward our arguments and lose in a proper democratic debate but still a fighting working class organisation is built then we will continue to work inside and alongside that organisation.

    Perhaps members of the SWP are beginning to realise this, even if they wouldn’t necessarily agree iwth me on everything I’ve said- and indeed I may be worng and am perfectly prepared to deabte it and test out the ideas in struggle.

    Jason

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  17. Seems to have hit The Observer http://politics.guardian.co.uk/otherparties/story/0,,2200739,00.html

    Not clear though whether it was leaked or just some journo trawling the internet. Well, of course, must have been a tip-off but could have been from almost anyone I guess. No evidence of anyone squeeling yet.

    People should perhaps be ready to say no comment to the media. Much though we should be in favour of having open debate this should be ideally in meetins both internal Respect ones and public ones and may be public forums like this but not first the papers and TV

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  18. leaked? maybe journalists read blogs too?

    I imagine by sampling a few blogs they can put together a much more comprehensive picture, but without Galloway’s name, it will all be the squabbling of the Left and of no consequence to them

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  19. I agree with Jasons definition of why its useful to work around election – and sometimes stand candidates. In fact you can do lots of what he says without standing although that does give you a bigger audience and an easier peg…
    In terns of the Observer story I think its clear no one talked to the guy as everything he says has been in blogland. He doesnt even pretend to quote.
    Apparently the journalist was a long time editor of the Jewsih Chronicle which may explain the fact that he only comments on Muslim support for Galloway and finishes with a very speculative and incorrect last sentence.

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  20. OK on The Observer the arguments convince me that it probably was someone just reading the blogs- when I hypothesised leak I only meant someone alerting it to them because it’s not the main arean of debates mainstream journalists would be following alas however important we may feel it is.

    But I guess some may have picked up on it independently.

    I still think it is best to 1) have an open debate despite the chance the media can pick it up (though perhaps therefore be extra mindful to be polite and fraternal, importnat anyway) 2) not conduct the debate through the media, in fact refuse to comment

    On elections agree with Terry that we cna do a lot of what OI say without standing in elections and indeed the extra parliamentary struggle is the main one. Only when standing in elections aids that is it worth doing in my opinion,

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  21. I agree with pretty well everything Tony Greenstein wrote, Respect was doomed from the outset because of the terrible and unprincipled political compromises built into it by the SWP. Their claim that they are the left and GG the right ignores the fact that they have not uttered a word against GGs actual right wing positions e.g. on abortion rights, but have only raised a stink when GG challenged their organisational control.
    Their leaders fight like the frightened bureaucrats they are.
    Anything was allowed as long as they were left in charge.
    That’s why of course Jerry Hicks description of their terrible organisational, bureaucratic and undemocratic practices are absolutely spot on.
    The problem is he doesn’t provide any real political analysis, and I think its a shame he just resigned, better to fight within the SWP to hold the leaders to account in my view.
    The fact that GG’s side also indulges in terrible bureaucratic methods, is no revelation either, to mention Ger Francis, but not mention Steve Godward, the victimised firefighter he helped witchunt does both of them a disservice.
    So where now? Obviously the Respect fiasco has a little further to run. The split will be expedited if not today then in the next few weeks. That will pose questions both for the “democrats” inside Respect and the SWP.
    GG will be utterly hegemonic and their will be rapid moves to ditch any remaining leftism (well any that gets in the way of getting elected anyway). It will be no place for socialists.
    But similarly in the SWP the leadership are pretty well entirely responsible for this disaster. It’s not like no one knew what GG was like before they embarked on this adventure.
    The left in the SWP need to get organised and wage a proper fight within to hold them accountable.
    As for the rest of us, we need to re-examine how we work together, where left politics has gone so badly wrong over the last two decades and try to re-build from this wreckage.

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  22. So the SWP has been outwitted by one spiv and some lads from down the mosque?

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  23. Unfortunately many of Jerry’s arguments (that there was something unprincipled about not instructing all swp members to join respect) i disagree with, and in any case, are not things the swp ever said they would do. Thats why its a bit hard to respond to the detail.

    The notion that comrades can’t be pulled by electoralism is just a bit silly. I would suggest that this is a real pull for anyone in the situation, and probably considerably more important then the latest 100 per cent correct analyses placed on some blog or other.

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  24. Jason,

    you can NOT have a debate on the web without other people seeing it, that is the nature of it**.

    so socialists and the Left, in particular, had better get used to the 21st century and learn to debate such things openly

    **altho technically it is possible to organise closed forum discussions, in reality that won’t work too well as someone (taking part) just has to cut and paste the debate to an external sources, circumventing any restrictions

    strange that no one has address Jerry Hicks’ points

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  25. whats modernity doing here? He thinks everyone in Respect is an Islamofascist or a dupe of Islamofascists.

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  26. I think people should address the political points here, and act as comradely as they can muster.

    PS: I don’t use the expression Islamofascist, too imprecise.

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  27. “Jason,

    you can NOT have a debate on the web without other people seeing it, that is the nature of it”

    I completely accept that and think that is as it should be. My only point was to wonder if someone had gone to the press but accept the arguments put here that the article is probably composed from a reading of the blogs.

    The blogs I think have performed a useful function even if a side effect is that the press can get ahold of some of the information and therefore people should indeed be careful what they write- it is the public domain after all, even though at first I found it hard to immediately believe that Observer jouranlists, for example, would tap into this.

    However, perhaps after the Crick piece on Newsnight and the fact that Galloway is an MP who has attracted some publicity this shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise.

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