Liam redux

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Report from the Westminster Respect conference

Here is a report from the other Respect conference written by a comrade who is not a supporter of Socialist Resistance. He has been prominently active in his London Respect branch since it was established. I went to the Westminster conference out of a kind of duty to the local branch, having been delegated and because…

Liam
3–5 minutes

Here is a report from the other Respect conference written by a comrade who is not a supporter of Socialist Resistance. He has been prominently active in his London Respect branch since it was established.

I went to the Westminster conference out of a kind of duty to the local branch, having been delegated and because I thought that an argument had to be made in every forum to help local (unsplit) groups continue working with believable legal advice and to call for an electoral alliance, instead of abandoning all our achievements to score a few points and handing the non-mainstream seats on the GLA to the BNP.

I was hoping for some mature reflection and some critical analysis of how the leadership had handled the split, and some realistic planning for the future.  There was none.  It turned out to be a day of denial.

Instead of this, within the first hour the conference had near-unanimously (if it wasn’t for me voting against) elected John Rees and Elaine Graham-Leigh to the officer posts (and Oli Rahman as Chair), reaffirming them without question rather than criticising their reckless orchestrating of some of the worst and most dishonest contributions to the email war that has destroyed the left for the foreseeable future.

It also elected 46 unopposed names to the National Council on the nod, given that there were 50 places.

At that point I should have left.  I had no further function but to be disruptive (I would have heckled if my mouth hadn’t been so wide open when a member from Brighton commended John Rees and the officers for their “dignity and restraint”).  Amina spoke well on the question of whether it was a left/right split, but I wish now that she had been able to show more anger.

Later, Julian proposed the Lewisham version of the SWP amendment (thereby opposing the SWP version) ie removing reference to witchhunts and socialists, and got a fair amount of applause and some votes, but the SWP version was overwhelmingly agreed.

In the end, although I wanted to leave at lunchtime, I figured that the argument still had to be made that the split was not as political as they claimed and that they must find a way of helping local groups work together and think about an electoral alliance.

I put in two speaker slips for the afternoon but was not called.  If I had been called, I would have made the following points questioning the extent to which there is a left/right, rather than organisational, split.

1) Speaker after speaker confused the splits in Tower Hamlets (which may involve some left/right differences for all I know) with the split in the National Council.

2) The conference had just unanimously voted for a resolution written by members who were in the Bishopsgate conference; so much for political differences.

3) The conference had just elected a list of names without being provided with a single word of information about the politics of the people whose names they had been presented with that morning.  Is that really focussing on the politics?  I recognised some of the names, but the rest could be Tories for all I know.  Election address?  Not one word, written or spoken, nothing, zilch, all just on the nod.

4) The only split locally has been over whose story one believes about the different versions of events.

Most of the speakers who had been at both conferences were very diplomatic, with the very unfortunate exception of Mark Serwotka.  After a rousing speech about unions and the political fund, he suddenly decided to take sides in a split that he clearly knows nothing about.  He just swallowed the witchhunting story, hook, line and sinker.  I sat on my hands while everyone stood and applauded, no doubt earning much dislike if anyone recognises me.

Funny how the people who claim to have been witchhunted are the ones who have retained their positions.

The only moment of light relief in what, for me, was a dead, grey conference, was when, after Rania Khan had used the fact that Respect Renewal had a guest speaker from the Green Party as a reason to slag it off, the same Green speaker turned up at the Westminster conference (and turned out to be probably the most left person there).

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19 responses to “Report from the Westminster Respect conference”

  1. Karl-Marx-Straße Avatar
    Karl-Marx-Straße

    I put in two speaker slips for the afternoon but was not called.

    You are honestly surprised at this – after being the only person to vote against John Rees for the national officer position?! You have a lot to learn about the SWP’s methods, and the whole point of the “speaker slip” system….

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  2. The East is Red Avatar
    The East is Red

    You’re living in cloud-cuckoo land if you think you can dismiss the leader of one of Britain’s largest trade unions so lightly. Unfortunately for the Trot-bashing jamboree crowd, Serwotka’s intervention was decisive, and important, and absolutely correct.

    Here’s a rough transcript of the speech. People should read it and see if it matches the fantasy-land version being peddled above. Serwotka clearly knows exactly what he’s talking about (Lenin’s Tomb has the video):

    “First of all, can I say I’m delighted to come to conference today. The context of my appearance is the need in this country for a united left alternative to Labour. And after having spoken here today, I am going to speak to the Labour Representation Committee to support John McDonnell, and also especially to urge them to look out more to the non-Labour left. We need industrial unity to resist the attacks of New Labour, but we also need political unity to give people hope. We’ve got to look at the opportunities today – every time I have met government ministers, and even trade union leaders, and I raise the problems faced by my members, and other workers, the uniform answer is always that no matter how bad it is, the offer from the Tories will be worse. The Labour Party think they can take working class support for granted, and this gives them a tremendous in-built arrogance: it invites them to be more right-wing and stick the boot in more. So, we have to make some important decisions now, because we don’t want to be in the same situation in ten years time.

    “Three weeks ago in Stirling, the churches were giving out food vouchers to people who couldn’t get their benefits. The reason why they couldn’t get their benefits is that there weren’t enough staff to support them – they are cutting 40,000 civil servants. When it came to those who needed emergency loans, the most desperate people, what should have been available in 24 hours took five weeks to be delivered. It’s not an isolated incident – among the cuts, New Labour is delegating welfare to the charities and private companies, increasingly. And I think, this is not Bush’s America. It’s a Labour government that is doing this to us. People are dying in hospitals because of underinvestment. They’re handing hundreds of thousands of pounds to private consultants. And look at EDS – they have a clause in their contract that says if they are ever removed from a contract for poor performance or anything else, they have to be offered another contract. These are clearly corrupt contracts. And when billions are being paid in city bonuses each year, we are being told that public sector workers are the cause of inflation.

    “If this was as good as politics could get, then we may as well pack up right now. But it isn’t. How do we get from where we are now to something better? I think the first thing is that if you are in a union, I will say this publicly today, you must redouble your efforts to hold your union leaders accountable, especially if they are looking the other way while workers are being attacked. These are not idle thoughts. I have spent months working with comrades to defend our services, some of whom I can see in this hall, and I’ve seen union leaders turn their back. The PCS, from not striking for years, has now had four strike ballots in three years, and the last one we had three weeks ago had the highest level of support of the lot. And look at the members of the CWU, who showed they were not cowed. They were prepared to fight against their employers and the government, and not only in official strike action either. They took illegal action to defend their conditions. So, we have got to bring the unions together in action to produce the maximum effort. And I say this to Karen Reissmann today, it’s almost certain that at our next NEC meeting, there will be a unanimously passed resolution on giving a substantial financial donation to her campaign.

    “And the Prison Officers Association. I know they’re not the most popular trade union, but they took illegal action. I got phoned at 6.30am when I was on holiday in Wales to be told that they were going to take an illegal strike action. And I take my hat off to them: they faced punitive fines, and possibly the destruction of their union. If the POA are fined, then my union and every other union should put their hands in their pockets and pay the fine, and show the government that we won’t let our fellow trade unionists be bullied. We have repeatedly called for coordinated strike action, and a lot of other unions have said they hoped they would have unity – but you must have unity in your sector before you can unite with others. When Gordon Brown has announced that he will be imposing pay restraint until 2011, we need all public sector workers on the picket line, on the same day. if they can do it in France, we can do it here. Now, that may win victories, and we may make progress, but it won’t stop the bosses coming back. We need a political alternative. I have seen the SSP prove that with a fair election system and a basic unity, you can overturn the lie that people won’t vote for left-wing parties.

    “I was as happy as anyone when George Galloway won in Bethnal Green & Bow, and when the Respect councillors were elected. I call for unity, and it is a sad irony that I am visiting three socialist meetings in London today – the Socialist Party, the LRC and this one. I have declined to speak to the Renewal conference, and I’ll tell you why. I have always believed in unity. Who is the happiest when some people split from Respect? Gordon Brown. He sees this as an opportunity. My appeal is for unity, but there can never be unity in a left-wing organisation when people attack and witch hunt other socialists.

    “And I won’t hide it, I disagree with Martin Smith and John Rees on a number of things, but we have to find where we agree. We have to tolerate difference, welcome debate, but we need unity.

    “We should not see today as a desperate position. We should see it as an opportunity to clear some things up, and move on stronger. And I would urge you – to avoid splits like this consuming your organisation, you need to root it in the organised labour movement. Let me tell yu about the TUC general council in July. Eighteen of us went to see Gordon Brown. I arrived about half an hour early and had to wait in the cabinet room – my son called and thought I was running the country. Brendan Barber and the others arrived, and Brendan asked all of us for a list of ourse concerns. We raised conditions, pay cuts, services and so on. And someone whose name I won’t mention – well, he happens to be the general secretary of Britain’s biggest trade union, so that’ll narrow it down – said, ‘I have to stop you all here, this is crazy: we are all forgetting that our priority is to get our government re-elected’. We have always had people in our movement who put Labour before the interests of the movement. But more people are questioning that. We see Bob Wareing standing against Labour, where he has been disgracefully de-selected so that Stephen Twigg – someone who I would argue does not know much about Liverpool – can stand as the Blairite candidate. We see Respect standing elsewhere. And today could perhaps be the day that we recognise what unites us is so much more than what divides us. We need to go out there and build an alternative that gives Gordon Brown sleepless nights, and our children hope for a better future.”

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  3. Andy Newman Avatar
    Andy Newman

    east is red.

    Why are you urning up everywhere to rasie the temperature.

    the SWp usually ignore other left organisations.

    Now there has been a split, can you ignore us please?

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  4. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    The author of this piece of invention masquerading as a report of Respect’s conference introduced it thus:

    “I went to the Westminster conference out of a kind of duty to the local branch, having been delegated and because I thought that an argument had to be made in every forum to help local (unsplit) groups continue working with believable legal advice and to call for an electoral alliance, instead of abandoning all our achievements to score a few points and handing the non-mainstream seats on the GLA to the BNP.”

    Two points. Firstly will you join with me in condemning all the elected delegates to Respect’s conference who refused to do their duty to their branch? Especially those who boycotted conference without giving the members of their branch an opportunity to elect substitutes willing to enfranchise their branch? Since it appears you constituted the sum total of the opposition to John Rees being re-elected as national secretary, it would appear that you are the only Galloway supporter who did their duty, at least in this respect.

    Secondly, who exactly is risking handing the non-mainstream seats on the GLA to the BNP? Listen, and listen again to Mark Serwotka’s brilliant speech to Respect’s conference. Listen to how he is doing what he can to bring all the genuine left fragments together. And listen to his explanation for why Galloway’s split will only cheer Gordon Brown, as he once again can deploy his argument to left-wing voters: the Tories are the only alternative, and they will be even worse. Respect wants genuine unity, in the face of the imperialists, and an employers’ offensive. Those parts of the traditional left (ISG primarily) who have jumped on Galloway’s anti-SWP bandwaggon are going to regret what they have done. Ok, so they will no longer have a large, disciplined contingent reducing the effectiveness of their own meagre force when it comes to the vote. However, those who now dominate Galloway’s fan club are reactionaries to the core. Surely you must all already realise what a catastrophic mistake you have made. Maybe your official optimism is not a facade. Maybe you really believe your own rhetoric. Maybe you are all incapable of staring reality in the face.

    When the tiny contingent of socialists in Respect Renewal come to their senses, when they remember that “unity is strength” is more than a soundbite, all the indications are that John Rees is not going to hold grudges. From what I have seen, it looks like he and the rest of the SWP leadership is in the mood to put the interests of our class before petty squabbles.

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  5. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    Andy said to “east is red”:

    “the SWp usually ignore other left organisations. Now there has been a split, can you ignore us please?”

    First of all, “east is red” only added five short sentences. This was his brief introduction to a transcript of Mark Serwotka’s magnificent speech. The comrade had to do this to prove that the ONLY Galloway supporter who did his duty, by attending conference as delegated to by his branch, told a pack of lies in his report of conference. Every SWP member who can supply evidence to expose the lies of Galloway’s supporters has not just a right but a duty to do this.

    Secondly, a couple of weeks ago, several SWP members who had contributed to your SUN blog discussed boycotting your SUN blog, Liam’s blog and other anti-SWPwitchhunters’ blogs. I made a very lengthy contribution making the case against so comprehensive boycott, and I am pleased that intervention by SWP members and supporters has actually increased, both in quantity and quality. Andy, it is obvious to me that the very large number of contributors to your blog in particular means that a large number of non-contributors to the Galloway supportive blogs will be reading: in other words, I don’t believe you are inventing your impressive stats, vis-a-vis “hits”. Clearly the likes of Michael Crick will be scouring these blogs, as will hacks on the gutter press and the quality end of the market, in both print and broadcast media. If SWP members and the rest of Respect do not use our right of reply to challenge all the lies that Galloway’s supporters are spreading, then the lies will be echoed by the best megaphones money can buy. Additionally, it is not just bourgeois hacks that constitute the audience for the Galloway-supportive blogs. Clearly, genuine working class people, students, other youths looking for an alternative will be tuning in to this “controversy.” In my humble opinion, SWP members, supporters and others who back Respect (as distinct from Galloway’s fan club) have made a very impressive intervention on your blog, and on Liam’s blog. And these interventions get more impressive as time goes by. And that, I would suggest, is why you, Andy, are calling for SWP members to stop intervening on these blogs. ‘Fess up, Andy, you are running scared. You have lost confidence in your arguments. You know that you have already lost the argument. You know that my predictions about the inherent instability of this anti-SWP coalition means it is a political abortion. You want to be able to shut up shop and take out membership of the Green Party in the cover of darkness. Sorry to disappoint you, Andy. But no can do.

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  6. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    There is one other point I’d like to make. There is such a massive volume of contributions on the SUN blog that it is possible that others have already raised this point. If so, I apologise in advance. Lindsey German addressed the point about Muslims having an allegedly different attitude towards democracy, and it is racist to criticise the way Galloway’s supporters in Tower Hamlets have marshelled the Muslim vote as some kind of bloc vote. Lindsey argued that it is both condesending and actually racist to imply that Muslims as a group vote as a bloc. Clearly they are divided on grounds of class and politics, as is the Catholic community, Protestant community, Hindu community, Jewish community, gay community, afro-carribean community, left-handed community, dyslexic community. It is racist to the core to try to characterise Muslims as an homogenous group. Individual Muslims need to be treated as individuals, with minds of their own, with the ability to think for themselves, with a right to abandon the religion of their parents to convert to some other religion, or to abandon all faiths. And it is their right to pick and choose which parts of the Koran they think are decisive, and which they think should not be written in stone, just as practising Catholics do. Arguing this case merits a charge of Islamophobia in some quarters. It is actually Galloway and co who are being Islamophobic by imposing a false monolithic unity to the Muslim community. The fact that Muslims at Respect’s conference made the same criticism as Lindsey German makes it much more difficult for the charge of Islamophobia to stick. To the extent that George Galloway’s fan club maintain this fiction about some undifferntiated Muslim community, then the charge of communalism is well-founded. And to the extent that Respect Renewal does continues to maintain this fiction about a wholely undifferentiated Muslim community, they are playing into the hands of the BNP. Socialists have to defend all Muslims against the genuine infringements of Muslims rights, by the state, the BNP, the mass media. However, in tandem with this, socialists have to use the electoral arena to speed up the differentiation of the Muslim community in terms of class and politics. That is what Respect is now doing.

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  7. Canadien Avatar
    Canadien

    Oh my goodness, they voted at the Respect conference and some people didn’t get their way, while others did. Shock! Horror!

    Good thing the Renewal “conference” didn’t vote at all. For anything. Whew.

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  8. Liam Avatar
    Liam

    Tom can you explain in precisely what way I have been”witch hunting” SWP members or in what way this site has been “witch hunting” the SWP? I allow everyone to put their case. I provide links to SW. I have posted bits from the pre conference bulletin. I have put up a video of John Rees to let his case be heard. Along with the SUN site and Neil’s site I have tried to put as much information in to the public domain as possible. I have made of point of letting readers know where they can get the other side of the story. The same is not true on the other side of the fence.

    I haven’t expelled anyone from this site. I haven’t orchestrated the sending of abuisve emails. I put an instant stop to name calling and I don’t go in for group bullying.

    You have to learn that disagreeing strongly with the SWP’s way of working is not the same as “witch hunting”. I can give you the e mail addresses of several former SWP members who can explain what a “witch hunt” looks and feels like.

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  9. Andy BH Avatar
    Andy BH

    Why do the replies always dry up when SWP members are asked to put any evidence for the “witch-hunt” claims? There still hasn’t been anything whatsoever.

    When I heard that Mark Serwotka had mentioned it, I wondered if he was going to put any evidence – but zilch yet again. No-one could disagree with anything else he said – hopefully SWP members will note his tribute to the “collapsing” (according to them) SSP.

    Hopefully these mild criticisms of the SWP are not too “witch-hunting” for anybody……..

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  10. hey ho Avatar
    hey ho

    Liam I’m glad you’re still going to allow SWP members to post on your site.

    I am very concerned that Andy seems is now threatening to ban SWP members posting on his Socialist Unity blog.

    It doesn’t say much for his pluralism.

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  11. LJ Avatar
    LJ

    Sounds like the SWP Respect conference was too the left of the Respect Renewal conference?

    http://leninology.blogspot.com/2007/11/respect-very-live.html

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  12. Matthew Avatar
    Matthew

    Hey Ho (I do love a reference to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) is wrong about Andy threatening to ban SWP members. His irritation was directed at specific abusive and disruptive comments. It doesn’t do anything to detract from his pluralism, unless you think pluralism is really there to defend the role and rights of trolls – and suddenly the Snow White reference becomes clearer.

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  13. DCM Avatar
    DCM

    “I am very concerned that Andy seems is now threatening to ban SWP members posting on his Socialist Unity blog.”

    Maybe Andy can come up with a new name for his website at the same time as they are thinking up a name for their new party.

    Calling it ‘socialist unity’ is such a bad joke.

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  14. modernityblog Avatar
    modernityblog

    DCM,

    In fairness to the Socialist Unity blog, it is providing a useful sounding board for many issues

    originally, I was against it covering the Respect break-up in such detail because I thought it neglected other issues that SU often covers, but the outpourings in the comment fields have been most revealing.

    Leaving aside the bickering, the partisan attacks, the sexist nonsense and sectarian rubbish, leaving all that aside, the SU blog has shown a wider range of views than are simply revealed by the split in Respect

    the question of organisation, how socialists should act in certain circumstances, what tactical issues are at stake and how they square with wider principles, all of these and many more issues been touched upon, with quite a varied range of views

    bearing in mind that there are probably many more readers of the SU blog than people that choose to comment.

    So all in all, whilst I do have some disagreements with Andy, I think he and Liam have provided very worthwhile forums for the exchange of ideas, not just about Respect but the wider problems of the Left.

    I hope that after the present split has finished that the coverage of these non-Respect issues keeps up and that there is a (non bickering) vigorous debate

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  15. Shaunyboy Avatar
    Shaunyboy

    HI there,

    I am weighing up my own position regarding the split and I am wondering how many of the new NC of Respect are in SWP as I don’t know half of them. Any ideas anyone?

    Oliur Rahman – Chair
    John Rees – National Secretary
    Elaine Graham-Leigh – National Organiser
    Dan Allen
    Chris Bambery
    Jackie Turner
    John Clossick
    Carmel Brown
    Tony Dowling
    Paddy O’Keefe
    Helen Salmon
    Miriam Scharf
    Maxine Bowler
    Tony Mercer
    Balwinder Rana
    Salvinder Dhillon
    Richard Brackenbury
    Ray Holmes
    Jeannie Robinson
    Sait Akgul
    Rob Owen
    Michael Gavan
    Ahmed Hussain
    Rania Khan
    Lutfa Begum
    Mehdi Hassan
    Michael Lavalette
    Mukhtar Master
    Kumar Murshid
    Muserat Sujawal
    John Devies
    Noreen Fatima
    Nahella Ashraf
    Umit Yildiz
    Clare Soloman
    Lindsey German
    Pat McManus
    Jonathan Jones
    Mukul Hira
    Shaun Doherty
    John Molyneux
    Sarah Creag
    Tom Woodcock
    Rashad Khan
    Explo Nani-Kofi

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  16. Andy Newman Avatar
    Andy Newman

    I am just deleting those few comments that are just shit-stirring, and not putting forard any politics – and I am applying that rule to “both sides”

    Since I started the debate has become much more civilised.

    The SWp are not banned, but I am deleting comments that are just bound to start a flame war, without any political content.

    Modernity – to tell the truth I would love it to go back to normal on SU blog! But currently I think the debate has to happen there, becasue it is not able to happen anywhere else.

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  17. Victor Avatar
    Victor

    Ive just watched Galloways speech. Look i’m happy to defend GG as a principled anti imperialist and great propagandist and communicator, but we all know the man has political flaws. Fair enough. I was prepared to defend him over big brother although we all knew it was a massive political mistake, he threw away the political capital gained in Washington. Yes he raised his profile amongst voters but activists wanted to distance themselves from him. Respect lost a large chunk of members and momentum. But there was still enough drive to win sucesses.

    The SWP covered for Galloway and played down the membership loss to protect the project. It is simply incredible for GG to blaim the membership numbers of Respect on the SWP, and given the history of this website on attacking GG I find your attitude to RR rather suprising Liam.

    It is one thing to say that the SWP hasnt thrown all its resouces into Respect, hardly suprising given that its principal aim is to build a revolutionary party. But large numbers of SWP activists, me among them, have worked their backsides off to make the project work.

    I was half convinced by the idea that the united front of a special kind was flawed and a block on Respects development. However anybody with a brain surely must realise that in order to outflank the SWP you would need to take and extremely fraternal and positive attitude to SWP members. The tone that the RR conference set was crucial and as far as I can see it has blown it. Negativity towards the SWP will drive activists into the hands of the CC and demoralise independent activists not locked in to the revolutionary party structure (there is a reason for such a structure after all).

    I was at Marxism this year wrigling in my seat as GG praised the SWP to the heights of heaven. I really didnt need my belly scratched, just a principled hard working socialist MP that would justify all the hard work that I put into him getting elected.

    When then vote came through for Galloway at the general election that was the happiest moment in my political life. I actually thought we had won a small but important first victory against the bastards.

    I genuinely thought that Bethnal Green would become the centre of a revived left wing cultural movement and left activism. That it could become the centre of a left wing cultural revival, even that poets and musicians would want to move there because it had a radical left MP at the heart of a dynamic anti war movement.

    What the hell happened? And dont tell me it was the SWP’s fault, From all the first hand information Ive had they have done the upmost to cover and compensate for GG’s behavior.

    To be honest comrades I cried when Respect split.

    We desperately needed a new left party, this was the time, this was the chance.

    For now I will limp on with Respect.

    I guess we will find out in May just what a mess we have made of things.

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  18. Duncan B Avatar
    Duncan B

    Can some one tell me where I can get a YouTube or whatever, of any of the RR speeches?
    Respect conference speeches were up and running on Saturday – where is Galloway’s speech?

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  19. Halshall Avatar
    Halshall

    Duncan B – the RR speeches are now on the SU blog

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