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The Crisis in Respect and the Politics Behind it: pamphlet for download

One of the odd things about the discussion in Respect is that one side has been very keen to get all the discussion and much of the documentation out into the open. The other side prefers to keep it behind closed doors and pass on a sanitised and misleading version. There will be some people…

Liam
1–2 minutes

One of the odd things about the discussion in Respect is that one side has been very keen to get all the discussion and much of the documentation out into the open. The other side prefers to keep it behind closed doors and pass on a sanitised and misleading version. There will be some people sitting in a pub tomorrow night cursing Charles Darwin for inventing the internet.

Socialist Resistance has produced a little pamphlet collating some of the main texts. You can download it here. Or you can buy it for £2.50. Some of the articles are listed below.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” Galloway’s original letter (23 August)
George Galloway’s letter: where we stand John Lister and Alan Thornett

Challenges for Respect Salma Yaqoob (22 September)
A new crisis or a new opportunity Alan Thornett (3 October)
What is communalism Andy Newman (19 October)
Out towards the open sea Nick Wrack (21 October)

A sense of proportion Kevin Ovenden (22 October)

Respect at the crossroads by 19 NC members (24 October)
Resignation letter from the SWP Jerry Hicks (26 October)

16 responses to “The Crisis in Respect and the Politics Behind it: pamphlet for download”

  1. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    Liam wrote the following:

    “One of the odd things about the discussion in Respect is that one side has been very keen to get all the discussion and much of the documentation out into the open.”

    And…

    “Socialist Resistance has produced a little pamphlet collating some of the main texts.”

    Interesting that these champions of democracy only publish one side of the arguments: their own. Possibly they are less keen on a balanced debate than they like to pretend. Every member of Respect Renewal will surely have already read all these texts, on this blog or the SUN blog. Can this be anything more than a money-making venture? Downloadable for free, with a token price of £1, I guess the motivation is not to cash in. However, the fifth higest “earning” MP, and the communalist businessmen clearly are not willing to squander their own cash on Galloway’s latest vanity project. And they can no longer rely on subs from the backbone of the organisation: the SWP rank and file. So how exactly will they find the money to keep the show on the road? Rehashing nonsensical arguments in the hope of making a bob or two clearly won’t work. In reality, nothing will. The communalist businessmen WILL turn on the ISG and SUN members very, very soon. As soon as Respect makes it’s appeal to voters on key issues such as abortion rights and gay rights. What the authors of this pamphlet are unwilling to admit is that entryism into New Labour and the Greens beckons for them all. Either that or going cap in hand to the CWI’s CNWP/NSSN. Respect Renewal is a dead-end, and ALL the contributors to this pamphlet already know that. Flogging this pamphlet is, therefore, a cynical exercise. It will help the credibility of the authors as much as Chris Bambery’s post-Newsnight editorial in Socialist Worker, on the alleged unity of Respect, assisted his personal credibility. Every SWP activist who sold that issue, and was forced to defend the editorial knows that the editor of the paper either lied or else has been shown to be incompetent. Either way, he has to be held responsible for asking SWP members to defend this nonsense. In exactly the same way, all the authors of this pamphlet will be held responsible for the collapse of Respect Renewal when they go cap in hand to the CNWP/NSSN. These people will have a much weaker bargaining position than will the post-Galloway Respect when they too ask for negotiations with the CNWP/NSSN.

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  2. Matthew Avatar
    Matthew

    Questions: what’s the LCR doing sending a speaker to the other Respect conference? Is that what they like the look of? Is it a snub to Socialist Resistance?

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  3. Ian Donovan Avatar
    Ian Donovan

    Personally, I would have included one key document of the SWP leadership side in this dispute – the Elaine Graham-Leigh/John Rees reply to George Galloway. They haven’t produced much else of any substance – apart from their turgid magnum opus “The Record: the SWP and Respect” which they should publish themselves if they want it distributed.

    But its excellent that these documents have been published in pamphlet form – its a record of a key political struggle, and could come to be extremely significant in winning the many SWP activists whom Rees and co have abused and alienated to a new, revived Respect project.

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  4. CHAB Avatar
    CHAB

    Matthew : It is not a snub to Socialist Resistance. The LCR had already committed to sending someone to conference before the SWP destroyed it, therefore they will still be sending someone there. They are also sending someone to the Respect RENEWAL Conference.

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  5. Andy Newman Avatar
    Andy Newman

    Does Tom have no carriage return on his keyboard?

    RUDE REMARK DELETED. Liam

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  6. kafka Avatar
    kafka

    You lot do know there’s a war going on in Iraq, right? And in Afghanistan and threats to Iran? And that the rest of capitalism is also grinding on making people’s lives a misery day after day? Climate change? Poverty? Crackdown in Pakistan? Suffering in Gaza?

    Does none of this mean anything to you?

    I can’t believe you are all devoting your time, your minds and your publishing efforts into conterproductive sniping against others on the left. Get a grip. The SWP are not your enemy.

    Or maybe war and capitalism isn’t really of much concern because you really and truly do think the SWP is the main enemy at the moment. Sad.

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  7. badger Avatar
    badger

    I have been convinced by Liam and others that the SWP pulled the plug on Respect. But I am still unclear why they “went nuclear”. It also seems to me that the split is likely to have more negative consequences than positive possibilities. Perhaps the pamphlet that you need to produce is to explore in more detail the theory of the broad socialist party. To be frank it is a nice idea but undertheorised.

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  8. Andy Newman Avatar
    Andy Newman

    It isn’t really true that there has been no theoretical development of the ideas of the ideas of a broad party.

    there has been a lot of work from Alan McCombes, Murray Smith, Nick McKerrell, and I have made my own modest contributions:
    A recent one about Respect
    http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=1017

    and previoulsy:
    http://www.socialistunity.com/?page_id=849

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  9. P.B Avatar
    P.B

    Tom, ~~~~~~~~ every thing you say is just so negative.

    COMMENTED EDITED BECAUSE IT WAS TOO PERSONAL. Liam

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  10. Liam Avatar
    Liam

    Tom,

    There is a very simple reason we have only published one side of the story. The other side has chosen not to take part in a discussion of the key themes, preferring to talk about witch hunts and red baiting. It’s hard to engage with a smokecreen like that. The pamphlet gives some idea of how the debate moved on. SR is a real shoestring operation. If we could produce a pamphlet like this in a week it should have been a cinch for the SWP to have done the same. It would enrich the discussion if they did.

    For a sketch of what SR wants to see emerge from Saturday’s conference take ten minutes to listen to the MP3 of Alan’s summary in the previous post.

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  11. Duncan Avatar
    Duncan

    Liam,

    The pamphlet is actually £2.50. If you’re selling it for a quid, that’s very kind.

    Duncan.

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  12. Piers Avatar
    Piers

    Tom

    Actually you are wrong anyway

    If you look at this blog and the Socialist Unity Blog over recent months they have both regularly published documents from the other side.

    If you look at Lenin’s Tomb or any other propaganda source associated with the SWP leadership you will find no publication of any documents from their opponents.

    The track record of who not only favours but practices open debate is perfectly clear.

    SR are perfectly entitled to produce a publication rehearsing the key texts from its perspective.

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  13. modernityblog Avatar
    modernityblog

    hey, what about 21st century socialism?

    why not post the pamphlet as a PDF file? or RTF doc?

    that wouldn’t cost a penny.

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  14. modernityblog Avatar
    modernityblog

    ops, forget that, I re-read the page

    you’ve done it, well done!

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  15. Larry R Avatar
    Larry R

    Hi Liam,
    Just downloaded pamphlet from ‘e-snips’. But when I opened the PDF its all random code! No text! And my computer froze for a moment!
    Can you check it out? Cheers,
    Larry

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  16. modernityblog Avatar
    modernityblog

    Larry,

    the PDF is fine, you might want to check the version of your
    acrobat reader, some PDFs don’t work too well with older
    versions

    later versions of acrobat can be a bit top heavy on older,
    slow machines, best try some freeware like PDF reader and
    see http://www.dirfile.com/pdf_reader.htm instead

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