If you bought your copy of the first issue of Respect’s new monthly paper at Saturday’s climate change demonstration it’s probably an illegible, waterlogged mess. You can download it respect-paper-no-1.pdf.
Respect paper: download
If you bought your copy of the first issue of Respect’s new monthly paper at Saturday’s climate change demonstration it’s probably an illegible, waterlogged mess. You can download it respect-paper-no-1.pdf.
1–2 minutes
120 responses to “Respect paper: download”
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Your link is to some site which throws up constant “malware” scans by forcing you to download some trojan
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Hmmm…not my experience at all. Should take you to esnips – an online storage site and you just open the .pdf from there. Are you sure you haven’t got a problem on your pc?
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Yeah Alan, it’s your PC.
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I get the same experience as Alan. The e-snips page closes, and I get a pop-up that prompts me to download a file.
Andy, Tony. If you don’t have this issue. Can you download the file, post it again on e-snips, and then post a clean link there.
Alan, are you also on a Mac?
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Fine on my PC too.
Nice looking paper that.
You are certainly avoiding the hero-worship one true leader thing – Galloway didn’t even have an article, unless I missed it. One picture, and even that was obscured. Was there even an add for his radio show? Don’t the great and good deserve at least a column? Colours nailed to the mast.
Liked the swipe at Ken L. too. You lot are certainly up for the scrap.
Simon
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Oops, should have read more closely – big article on page three by GG. Still, the paper is not at all dominated by those on high. I think that was my point.
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couldn’t download. will try later. but what I wrote to Andy in a more reflective mood then normal might be relevent (particularly on the question of those ‘swipes’ at Ken):
johng said,
December 9, 2007 at 11:54 amOne of the more interesting things about Georges piece on ‘train crash on the left’ was his discussion of how, effectively, any coalition has really lost it if attempts are made to force things through by mobilising activists as opposed to concensus. I disagree with him on the detail of who was really doing this (obviously) but in general terms it points to a problem for those like yourself who see what I’ve described as the ‘membership’ model as key. My critique of your general theoretical account is that it focuses much too much on the diochotomy between ‘Leninists’ and ‘broad parties’, at the expense of looking at the history of how broad parties have actually developed. To my knowledge there are no examples of broad parties (of any description) emerging on the basis of ‘membership’ type ‘ones and two’s’ mobilisation. This is an ironically Leninist approach to broad parties, and what you can end up with is the worst of all possible worlds, a sect with broad politics, not to be confused under any circumstances with an actual broad party.
It was the function of the SWP within the coalition (and indeed within the StW movement) to play the hard bastards in terms of ensuring that contingent collections of individuals did not scupper the attempt to build a platform which could be attractive to wider forces. There is something a tiny bit disengenuous therefore of some of these people playing the democracy and pluralism card.
Its notable for instance that for much of the period under discussion George would have been deeply hostile to a paper despite not having the alleged motivation of the SWP that he didn’t want a competitor. No way would he have wanted to be tied to positions on the basis of an editorial policy which he might not have controlled. Similar difficulties would have existed with the idea of branch life which might have led to the setting of national policy. What you did find was that in areas were we had an electoral base there would obviously have been real things to discuss (and in some parts one saw this).
But outside of that context whilst no one would have objected to activists meeting to discuss how they were going to build a Respect presence in a particular area, to have a national framework of branches which set the agenda nationally politically, irrespective of the social and political weight of the individuals who made up the branches would have been, and I strongly suspect, probably still would be, totally unacceptable to those whose participation is based on having real social and political weight within the movement. This has nothing to do with Leninism in my view. Its the logic of broad party formation at the early stages. One suspects that the people I am discussing would give more leeway locally were they would have the confidence that they could win their arguments through mass support of one kind or another. Some of the arguments against the SWP (that they all vote togeather, that they don’t have a proper electoral base etc) would be arguments that people like yourself may well find yourselves at the wrong end of.
The difference between my position and yours is that I don’t think George is entirely wrong on the principle of the thing. Its just that I think he’s guilty of making the same mistake he accuses the SWP of. Early on in the discussion I pointed to the fact that just as it was widely understood that you had to take individuals as they were rather then as you’d like them to be, the same thing applies to organisations and individuals with real weight. Thats why George is right on the substance of the thing when he says that if you are in a position where you are mobilising groups of activists against each other, the thing is effectively finished. This is because at this very early stage, Respect, by definition as an electoral organisation (as opposed to, say, a revolutionary party) was seeking to ‘represent’ as opposed simply to ‘organise’ large groups of people way beyond the confines of its own membership. And both the organisations and individuals being discussed represented much more then the contingent membership.
At this stage that was a good thing not a bad thing. And we needed much more of it. This was generally recognised before the current crisis, and indeed, almost everything that people currently argue about, from ‘internal life’ to the question of electoral strategy (strong areas vs spread, for instance) were widely agreed.
It is much to early to go for the membership model. Respect could only exist as a coalition of forces rather then an amalgamation of members at this stage. In other words there would be a top down logic in terms of recognising that what was at stake was what you bought to the coalition, whether this was in terms of ones position in the wider movement, or whether this was expressed in terms of electoral weight, or in organisational abilities or whathaveyou. It was also neccessary to realise (and indeed was realised) that it would indeed be true that in any genuinely broad formation, the players would indeed have their own interests, whether it reflected (hopefully) trade union leaders, political organisations, community activists or whathaveyou.
To preclude this in advance means effectively ruling out the possibility of building a broad party which will have as many disparate interests as its components but which is united around the idea of attempting to build a broad electoral alternative to New Labour. In the same way as there is a kind of circular trap in terms of electoral activity (in order to be effective you already need to have some kind of representation) there is a similar problem in getting these broader forces involved. It has to be large enough and significant enough for people to have an interest in holding it togeather despite even bitter niggles.
The fact that we couldn’t manage this is a defeat for the whole project of establishing broad political alternatives, for those who call themselves revolutionaries, for those who call themselves reformists, and for those who think the distinction is irrelevent. Its a collective failure which requires more serious thought then is really possible in the midst of this, in many ways, ludicrous faction fight. When people from other countries write to me and ask what the hell is going on, and what they should say, I just send them Andrew Murray’s speech, and tell them to stress the importance of unity. I say thats the sensible thing to do.
In reality it would probably be the sensible thing here as well, but what can you do.
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I got my copy of the paper through the post yesterday, a pleasant surprise and I’m well impressed. Just wanted to say well done to all concerned!!! I think this will provide an excellent publication to organise around.
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I’m on a mac and had the problem as reported above. I tried a couple of times and clicked on the download before the malware thing came on. I can upload again if tht would still help. Presumably though it would be going on the RR site.
At a glance it looks good as a broad radical left paper, accessible but not lightweight. But has Respect as a name ever had much resonance? To me, from afar, it’s always seemed a bit bland and meaningless.
The Australian election article was breezy jaunt from a fairly narrow inner-Sydney POV, superficial if not Panglossian. It’s right that the fall of the conservatives was a welcome victory based to a significant extent on a union-led mass movement against new employment laws (the article didn’t mention the million people marching in 2005-06, or curiously from a Green the climate change rallies of 70 000 or so people 2 weeks before the election). But your readers would also have been interested in the Blairite nature of the new government, the discontent with the ALP leadership expressed for months by unionists over the adoption of slabs of the Tory laws, including the expulsion from the Labor Party of two militant union leaders, the acceptance of recent racist land grab of Indigenous communities, etc etc. Also the Greens aren’t in power as the article vaguely implies: they did very well to get 9% for the Senate, but not a massive gain from 7.7% in 2004, and missed out on getting the balance of power in the senate. Your readers might also have been interested in the Socialist Alliance running in 18 seats – with marginal votes but involving 700 odd people in a socialist campaign, including prominent activists. The article also missed the significant fact that a range of unions gave substanital donations to the Greens – there were also unprecedented, if fairly small, donations to Socialist Alliance from 9 union state branches.
I think you’d get more thorough Oz copy from Green Left – it’s read by more people than for example the Greens website, outside of election times anyway.
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Congratualtions.
If I am 100% honest I wasn’t looking forward to the paper, but I was pleasantly surprised with how good this was.
I think the front page still looks a bit like all the other left papers (I prfer the look of GLW) but the content was varied, interesting, and widr than the typical left publications.
It even had a picture of Thomas Sankara and a tribute to Samora Machel!
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Nick makes a good point, that it is worth having a fraternal understanding with GLW and the Ameriican Socialist Worker, both of whom have very interesting and detailed articles about their own countries, ,and parts of the world.
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I think the paper is great.
I’m gonna upset Liam and the Resistance guys by saying I really, really love the design of Socialist Worker over every other left paper put together. Ever since the relaunch a few years ago, I think they’ve really shown the way when it comes to truly designing left-wing papers.
For example, they take the brave step of cutting back on the words in order to have columns of pure white space – it makes me more likely to read the full article, which means the “cost” of lost words is easily made back.
But given the timescale involved in putting this paper together, I think it’s really really impressive. And really interesting.
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I’d quite like to know how many people were selling Respect on the demo yesterday. More than just the hardcore of habituated paper-sellers?
And tonyc is right about the design advantages of Socialist Worker. You lose words anyway – at least 2 articles had bits misssing.
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Matthew I saw a group of under 20 (in number not age!) at the tube. Habituated sellers they were, ISG members plus Kevin and Nick Wrack.
I doubt they sold the 500 papers Linda Smith was hoping for, if they managed more than a tenth of that number I’d say they were doing well.
An accurate report would be interesting, after all everyone knows how important being open about reporting every setback is for RR members.
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An accurate report would be interesting, after all everyone knows how important being open about reporting every setback is for RR members.
JM, reading that comment back to yourself, do you think it’s phrased so as to make RR members
a) more likely
or
b) less likely
to discuss setbacks openly in a public forum?LikeLike
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Hey, rainy demos, soggy papers, we’ve all been there. What setback is that? I must say I like a bit of honesty, even when rueful – hasn’t the years of triumphalist exaggeration undermined the credibility of the ever upwards isn’t everything brilliant bigade?
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JM – We tried to collect money for paper sales in at the end of the demo and got in £133. I know of another £16 to be handed over. There will be others who still have money to send in but that’s at least £149. At 80 pence each I make that paid sales of 186. We still have to collect in the remaining money and I reckon that we sold over 200 in total. Not bad for a first showing in the rain. Not quite the 500 target but well over a tenth. So by your yardstick we did well. I agree.
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Having read the first issue of RR the newspaper, one thing that strikes me as an “outsider” is that anyone coming to the newspaper would have no clear idea why a new organisations had been formed. Page 22 where the only explanation for its origins and the split is given doesn’t offer a clear explanation at all. It seems the SWP has been “bureaucratic” and particularly nasty to Linda Smith, thats all we get.
Maybe the assumption is that the audience for the paper is already “in the know” in which case the audience for the paper must be pretty small. Or maybe no-one in RR can muster together a political explanation for the split?
It should also be noted that despite the heavy presence of Socialist Resistance- ISG in the EB and amongst writers, no-one raises the problems of the Respect MPs sexist comments in the mass media nor his ongoing collaboration with anti aboitionists in Parliament to restrict womens abortion rights still further.
Presumably we wil have to wait for the second issue for SR/ISG members to pluck up the courage to raise these issues in the new spirit of “accountability” in RR. Maybe in a debate and discussion page?
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Stuart seems to be asking for a paper devoted to criticising the SWP. I’m glad it didn’t go down that route – all those years of accumulated Workers Powers and Weekly Workers show the limitations of that kind of focus. Meanwhile I’m pretty sure that at the very least Respect paper will have a letters page – why not raise your concerns there?
BTW, Nick Wrack’s told us how many Respect’s got sold, how did Permanent Revolution do? It’s a good mag.
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maybe no-one in RR can muster together a political explanation for the split?
If by ‘political explanation’ you mean “after a long and sometimes heated debate it became clear that they believe /this/ and we believe /that/, and we are therefore now in different organisations”, the absence of a political explanation isn’t surprising, as that debate hasn’t happened. Some of us felt that there wasn’t (isn’t) an inherent political logic to the split, and that it could have been avoided even at quite a late stage.
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Johng, thanks for the thoughtful comment. I’ll reply to it later in the week.
The real problem with the paper is that it should have been launched three or four years ago. Getting it out so soon after the parting of the ways was a pretty good achievement. So what if there was not a big apparatus ready to distribute it? Relying on SWP fulltimers to carry Respect banners after all these years is not a benchmark of success either. Even the paper’s first issue shows that a range of political backgrounds are in a real dialogue with each other and that none of them assume that they have earned the right to control the thing. That’s a step forward.
Stuart, we did briefly consider a 24 page pullout pointing out all the issues on which SR disagreed with GG . When we sobered up we realised that that’s the sort of thing that isn’t likely to interest a public much wider than 50 people. But if you had a look at the discussion around Livingstone on this site you’ll see that there is still some distance to travel before we converge.
The British left has not produced a paper like this before. Its regular contributors and the members of the organisation that produces it cover the full spectrum of the left, the anti-war movement, environmentalists, anti-imperialists and the major traditions of British socialism. That’s not bad going but we know the hard work has only just started.
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Stuart King:
Having read the first issue of RR the newspaper, one thing that strikes me as an “outsider” is that anyone coming to the newspaper would have no clear idea why a new organisations had been formed. Page 22 where the only explanation for its origins and the split is given doesn’t offer a clear explanation at all. It seems the SWP has been “bureaucratic” and particularly nasty to Linda Smith, thats all we get.
Thank goodness for that! The idea that the Respect paper would cover the anoracky type discussion about the differences between left groups and the origins of the split sends shudders down my spine.
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Below are some further comments I made on the Marxmail and Green Left lists, in response to Lenin’s Tomb [minus my previous whinge about Oz article]
Lenin’s Tomb http://www.marxmail.org/msg34445.html
> Best of luck with it – I only hope
> that it doesn’t have the same distribution network [as Socialist Resistance]Yes best of luck to the Respect newspaper, it appears a good attempt at a broad radical left paper – accessible yet fairly substantial. I agree with Lenin’s implication that it’s difficult to win a substantial distribution without a sizable and dedicated network – and I don’t think that’s generally happened for a campaigning left paper without a revolutionary organisation or organisations involved.
One of the most striking things though is that nearly all of it could easily have sat within the UK Socialist Worker – there’s even an almost identical (and equally lightweight) article on Marxist ecology in the RR paper (p.14) and the current SW http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=13676 . I suspect Respect in its original lineup was doomed when the SWP (and most likely at the time Galloway) refused to countenance throwing their weight into a new, broader paper. This could have created a new and interesting publication *with* a viable base that could have shaken up the left, had virtually everything you’d have wanted in SW, and also consolidated Respect as a campaigning party within which the SWP could easily continued as a revolutionary component, with a public face, magazine, whatever, along the lines Nick Wrack argued for http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=879
In Australia the ISO dipped their toes in the broader paper idea in 2003-4, by writing some very good articles for Green Left Weekly. The sky did not fall in. They could have easily hopped on board the editorial team, had a substantial input, argue to change the name and whatever else. However sometime in 2004 the word came from London that Socialist Alliances were just soooo 2002 and attitudes changed quite abruptly, sadly.
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Then why did you devote a whole page of the new paper to the question?
My point was that what was said in the page did not really explain what happened and why. I suspect you will be asked this question by many people and will need an convincing explanation.Never mind the 24 page pull out, Liam, we wait with baited breath for the pluralist new paper to carry one little article containing SRs criticisms. Strange, the Labour Party left doen’t seem to have such problems with criticising its parliamentary leaders.
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So Stuart expected the first issue of the new Respect paper to carry a raft of criticisms of GG? That would have made an interesting starting point for the project of building the new party! The sneering tone of his criticism makes clear just how disingenuous his remarks are. Pity really.
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I think you’ve hit the nail on the head Jay. Its a case of starting as you mean to go on isn’t it?
Its not appropriate to criticise GG now at the start and surely in the new RR it never will be?
Given that RR’s existence is predicated on a non-aggression pact around the politics of its various elected representatives.LikeLike
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It’s interesting Bill that you conflate criticism and aggression in your remarks. Any project of building a broad left party will inevitably involve the working out of major and minor political differences; that is all part of the process. But it should be done in a comradely spirit, and I would suggest that the first issue of a new Respect paper is not the place to indulge in a series of attacks, which is what you seem to be hankering after.
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I very nearly bought a paper on the climate change demo, but every time I had a free moment RR sellers had disappeared. Then, when my arms were full of either t-shirts or papers they seemed to spring from nowhere.
Will it become a collector’s item, sought after by sad lefty trainspotters everywhere?
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I’m not sure what you mean Jay. Yes I do object to being sworn at. And no I do not think that is a useful way of conducting “debate”.
But as for criticism I’m all for it, which is why I think you should include some of GG in your paper.LikeLike
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This carping because a new organisation, in the first issue of its paper, omitted to include criticicisms of its most prominent figure is bewildering. It reveals a narrowness of the comrades’ political horizions and an ignorance of how you engage with other forces.Apart from the fact that the paper doesn’t list GG’s mistakes what did you think of the rest of it?
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I think the paper needs to include more respect policies.
for example, on the nhs, nationalise everything privatised so far, as well as the drugs companies, under democratic working class control and management – explain what this would mean and roughly how it could work, abolish prescription charges, scrap pfi schemes, for an £8 minimum wage in the NHS etc. etc.
if you have a resport or article, it needs to be a bridge to promoting respect’s demands, policies, solution etc. etc.
on palestine, climate change etc. etc. what does respect stand for? just a few key policies for each would be sudfficient.
i know you included the 14 point programme but i think the articles could incorporate some detailed policies relevent to the issue.
also, as a suggestion, an article on what is socialism, what’s class got to do with anything, how can we get socialism? etc. etc. a series basically outlining socialist and marxist ideas in basic form.
another suggestion, a series of detailed centre page articles outlining respect’s policies on various major and topical issues.
anyway well done for getting it ready in a short space of time.
best wishes,
ks
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Stuart, I think you’re not really considered what type of newspaper it is, and what the audience is. ‘Respect’ has to primarily be a paper that reports news and struggles, and which agitates for solidarity and other actions. It is not ‘PR’, which is primarily a polemical and propaganda journal aimed at other Marxists.
Nick, I have another nine quid of paper money. I think quite a few other SR people might also have gone off with money from sales, assuming that SR is centrally handling its members’ bundles.
Bill, comrades should use civil language — but so should your comrades. Some PR folk are quite intemperate and uncomradely when commenting on other sites, and folks should remain aware that venting frustrations in this way takes us further from agreement.
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I had a look at it and having previously been on the EB of Socialist Resistance it looked pretty much like SR but with some articles by other folks in it.
It’s sort of like drinking lager instead of a nice filling ale. I don’t think activists and the working class need their politics watered down in this fashion but apparently the RR comrades do (see Duncan’s comments). I’ll stick to reading PR and other newspapers if I want intellect and real debate.
It also struck me as a very local newspaper – we get one of these put through the post box every couple of months. Nothing wrong with that sort of paper as it goes – but really hardly and achievement for the left in Britain.
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Shouldn’t it have a name? Calling it ‘Respect’, the same name as not one but two political ‘parties’ seems ambiguous and silly. It also requires people two speak and write of ‘the Respect paper’ for clarity of distinction. Other papers have names that while often similar to their organisation names are identifiably different.
Or perhaps ‘Respect’ shall furthermore be taken to mean the paper, while ‘Renewal’ or some combination thereof the organisation?
Trouble is, there’s also the Respect Coalition of One to contend with.
So, where we had one Respect, we now have three:
Respect – the Unity Coalition of One
Respect Renewal – the Galloway, Yaqoob, and Miah party
Respect – the Respect paperI suggest that in the interests of plurality, Respect – the Unity Coalition of One bring out another new paper. This should of course be called ‘Respect – the paper Respect’.
What is wrong with us? We the People’s Front of Judea, brackets, officials, end brackets, do hereby convey our sincere fraternal and sisterly greetings to you, Brian, on this, the occasion of your martyrdom.
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SPLITTER!
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As it goes, I think “Respect” is a much better name for a newspaper than for a party, or a coalition, or a pre-party formation, or whatever.
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As it goes, I think “Respect” is a much better name for a newspaper than for a party, or a coalition, or a pre-party formation, or whatever.
Yes; I agree with that, Kris. It’s certainly a silly name for a party, or a coalition, or a pre-party formation. Much better for a/the publication. You can call publications allsorts of things, including ‘Respect’.
The only downside to Respect as a name for a paper is that its similarity to the pre-existing ‘coalition’ and new party: ‘Respect – The Unitary Coalition’ and ‘Respect Renewal’.
If they are wound up, then there’s no reason not to publish ‘Respect’ the paper.
I can’t see why ‘Respect Renewal’ want to take the Respect name anyway though. Far better to get a new name (‘Trinity’ or something?) or just under the independent names of the three independent candidates they exist to promote: Galloway, Yaqoob, and Miah.
Anyway, it looks lovely and colourful. I’ve not read a word of it; I’m not the target audience.
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It looks a lot more colourful on the web than in real life, as it goes. Who do you think is the target audience, anyway?
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It looks a lot more colourful on the web than in real life, as it goes.
So do I.
Who do you think is the target audience, anyway?
Well, not having read it, my thoughts are self-evidently ‘pre-informed’, at best. They are based not on the paper, but on the publishing party. And I don’t know: I’m pessimistic when it comes to all leftish papers being read by many people outside of the publishing organisation’s immediate membership and supporter base. But in the case of Respect Renewal’s publication, I assume the target audience to be the new (narrower) target vote of the new party, which in turn I believe to be a predominantly Muslim cross-class SWP-hostile subset of the anti-war Labour left and ‘left of Labour’.
Certainly that is borne out by the plan to stand only Galloway, Yaqoob, and Miah, in their respective parliamentary constituencies, and by the open hostility of this unholy trinity towards radical socialists and broader working class and socialist campaigning.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe ‘Respect’ (the paper) is to be targetted at the same class orientated audience of Socialist Worker, in which case we will have a crowded and competitive market!
Whether a person is a member of it’s target audience is not the only determinant to readership, either. Another significant question is trust.
After the glaring dishonesty of the leadership of both sides of the Respect Coalition split, it will be some time before I, and I expect many others, spend our reading time on the official publications thereof. Socialists do value truth, and truthfullness was not a feature of the handling of the split, was it?
I’ve rejected two attempt at answering your question on the other thread Kris, so please know that I am trying. It wasn’t an easy question, as you know!
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I don’t want to reopen any worm cans, so I accept that you see both sides as having been dishonest, and that therefore anyone so tainted will have to re-earn your “respect” in that sense. I don’t agree with you, but I know I’m not going to persuade you, and anyway what’s relevant here is how you feel about it.
As for the Galloway paper, I scanned it quickly on Saturday in the pub after, so although I could tell you that it didn’t inspire me, I couldn’t tell you why in detail (though the article on a strike in Israel struck me as odd). and anyway, I would think that, wouldn’t I?
(I look forward to your third time lucky attempt on the other thread.
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Well Liam, the reason we raised the question of George Galloway’s politics and whether, in the new organisation RR, anyone was going to be allowed to criticise his statements and actions, was because much was said by SR/ISG, amongst others, about the new spirit of “accountability”.
To be honest I did not expect any criticism in the first issue of Respect. That is because I don’t expect any accountability in any issue of Respect’s newspaper. Liam says its because its the first issue, Duncan clarifies because its “not that sort of paper”, Piers Mostyn told us there are “other ways to do it”. Lame, and opportunist, excuses.
The fact is that SR/ISG have now taken over the role that the SWP previously played in the united Respect. Galloway’s sexist comments, his parliamentary anti abortion activity, clearly these are “shibboleths” that can’t be allowed to stand in the way of building the “broad party”.
Like the SWP, SR/ISG know that any public criticism of Galloway on these issues will lead to an explosion, and therefore they will remain silent. Everyone on the left will see that, like the SWP, the SR/ISG are willing to sacrifice principles to win votes and build an electoralist party.
Those who won’t stand up to defend a woman’s right to choose, who will not criticise their MP when he makes outrageous sexist comments should not dare call themselves supporters of women’s liberation, let alone revolutionaries. Duncan may find that “intemperate”, the truth often is.
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The two conversations going on here thus merge, since ‘Respect’ the paper holding Respect Renewal leadership to account and the dishonesty of the leadership of both sides are related topic.
‘Respect’ the paper will no more hold Galloway to account than ‘Socialist Worker’ will Rees, ‘Private Eye’ will Hislop, etc.
And should we really expect it to? Pravda style reporting of your own organisation is only to be expected. Just as big business funding of New Labour dictates government policy, these newspapers can be expected to tow the line of their own leaders.
Like Kris, I am moderating my comment to avoid opening worm cans. And it’s better sometimes to move on. But I will say that socialists, myself included, must return to complete truthfullness between ourselves and out in the real world. Many of us have not lied outright, but we have oversold our belief in other people when campaigning for them, and gone further than we believed in our previous defence of those we now condemn, rendering our new critique hopelessly hypocritical.
The fact is that SR/ISG have now taken over the role that the SWP previously played in the united Respect.
While I don’t expect independent critique of an organisation’s leaders from an organisation’s own publication, I fear this is true.
Everyone keeps switching sides all the time when it comes to Galloway. All because he’s a professional celebrity politician with a public profile. The age of celebrity can’t die quick enough for me.
The SWP are condemned for the dishonesty of condemning Galloway on subjects they defended him on for so long, by the SR people, who in turn are condemned by the SWP people for the dishonesty of defending Galloway on subjects they condemned him on for so long. That’s all too complicated for me, and of no interest to most ordinary people. And so I move on from it. But this does not undo the damage to the sceptical trust, but trust nevertheless, I previously read or listened with.
So: another newspaper.
In fairness, what follows from some of what I said is that you probably do need different groups offering different publications. I just wish they could operate within one socialist organisation, but I’m boring myself now.
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I had the same problem as Alen G. So it’s not just his PC. If you are running a site like this you should fix problems like this when they are reported.
Fortunately I run Linux so Windows malware should not infect my PC.
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will the next issue of the Respect Renewal newspaper carry a section on creationist views, to accurately reflect the beliefs of their leader: George Galloway?
and if not, how do RR socialists feel about Galloway’s creationist views?
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Yes, this is true – there will be a full article on how the world was created, alongside an article on how the Earth is, in fact, flat.
Seriously, man: #### (TWO WORDS DELETED – LIAM)
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In all seriousness Charlie – I’d expect someone to say something in response to Hari’s article in the Independent about Galloway’s comments on TalkSport instead of just “f-off” as you so eloquently put it.
It’s a valid question.
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And for those who haven’t seen it, here’s Galloway’s comment from TalkSport as quoted in Hari’s article:
“But this week Galloway took a further step towards full-blown fanaticism, when he came out as a creationist. This is what he said on his TalkSport radio rant, in trying to rebut a caller who defended atheism and science: “I was looking at my little six month old baby today beginning to take his first steps crawling across the hall of the Methodist Central Hall today, and it doesn’t look like an accident to me. He doesn’t look like an accident of evolutionary chance to me. I’m not really prepared to believe that from the bottom-dwelling slugs of the pond came the voice of Pavarotti. I’m not really prepared to believe that Albert Einstein and a spider are really the same thing, that they just took a different evolutionary path.’”
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Tami, so what? Are socialists not able to work with religious people on the key issues of the day? Getting people into action does more to fight the conservative influence of superstition than does any amount of anti-religious agitation. And that’s part of the reason why the communist tradition does not agitate against religion.
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Stuart, there are many ways to debate Galloway’s politics. I wrote that an agitation paper is not the right place to hold that discussion. But you can tap him on the shoulder and introduce yourself… let me count the ways.
But the real point is this: for you, the only thing than be be done with Galloway is criticism. You put criticism above united action. That isolate you and your comrades from the opportunity to learn with and through the movement. In the process, you are losing an opportunity to trancend the ultimatum idealism that defined Workers’ Power’s habitual appearances at founding conferences to demand they adopt The Correct Programme, and then withdraw in mock surprise when workers’ organisations focus on the demands of the day.
Duncan.
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I am bewildered by why Tami cares so much, even on her own blog she spends more time attacking galloway than she does the right wingers in her own party, or in society.
To make a general statement as George has done about personal faith is not the same thing at all as becoming a “creationist”.
Personal religious faith is an area where socalists have to take a permissive attitude, otherwise we would be denouncing not only Galloway but James Connolly, Eric Heffer, Ernst Bloch, Camilo Torres Restrepo and many others.
There seems to be a contradiction in Tami’s politics that she supports the Labour Party due to its residual aspects as a broad party, but which party has been heavily influenced by Christian socialism, and yet she demands a totaly different standard from george.
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instead of attacking Tami, which seems to be a bit of a sport here, why not address the issue?
or won’t the RR “socialists” brook ANY criticism of creationism, simply because the RR leader, George Galloway, seems to subscribe to it?
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[…] acquired the new Respect paper – if you haven’t seen it you can do so online, courtesy of […]
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Why doesn’t someone set up a “Have you heard what George Galloway said / wrote / did?” site? That would allow everyone who is interested to indulge their hobby in one place.
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Ok obviously no one is interested seriously taking up the issue that a) the MP they are supporting refuses to defend abortion rights and b) the MP they are supporting has now said he doesn’t believe in evolution.
I can’t understand why people have such a problem simply giving their view on how this is going to be addressed within their new organisation which supposedly has a new founding tenent of “accountability”. I think it is a problem that Galloway will not defend abortion rights and I thought (perhaps wrongly) that secular atheists in RR might have something to say about George’s comments or the Hari article.
It is clear however that instead of doing so we’re just going to get more of the same defensiveness from RR comrades. These are important issues to discuss in the movement and shouldn’t be disregarded with insults.
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Liam – why don’t you answer the question?
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But Galloeay has not “subscribed to creationism”.
Creationism is a political agenda of counterposing faith based teaching at a societal level to evolutionary biology.
That is quite a dfferent thing from having personal religious faith, and personally beleiving in a divine input into creation.
No mass progresive party can nor should expect people to renounce personal relligious convictions.
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Respect has clear policy on womens’ right to choose. The party will campaign to defend abortion rights oif they are attacked.
I expect that like all other political parties, individual members of Respect may take a different view on questions that contradict their personal deeply felt religious beliefs. That is something we will have to discuss if and when it becomes a live issue.
I would take this more serioulsy from Tami if her own party took a three line whip on defending womens’ rights in this area – but in fact the labour party also allows this to be a question of conscience.
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Sorry Andy – but Galloway is not simply a “party member” – he’s your MP and he’s the public face of your party. I tshould not be difficult to understand why, given this, he should not be representing RR publically (which he does whether you like it or not) as supporting intelligent design – you can have a pedantic argument on the meaning of “creationism” all you like – but he is clearly saying he believes in some sort of divine creator out there.
I agree – no one should be asked to renounce their religious faith in a political movmement, but no one is saying that. I think this is merely another example of Galloway being beholden to no organisation. He is free to speak his mind in favour of intelligent design and is free to vote as he pleases in parliament on abortion. In short, it’s further proof that he is completely unaccoutnable to RR and the left more generally and only accountable to himself.
That is why comrades bring up these issues – not because we have a “hobby” as Liam so cynically suggests. You told us things would be different – we’re just pointing out that it’s more of the same.
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Unlike for example, the Labour Party, RR has not facilitated handing over control of schools to creationist millionaires. so what GG does in this regard is more important what he says.
As for the question of abortion rights GG distinguishes between his personal views and those of the organisation. since we are not democratic centralist that is not a problem. In the next few months there will be a serious of discussions around politics and programme in RR. I’m pretty certain that we won’t shift GG on the issue but the clear position of RR will remain in defence of the right to choose.
Can I suggest that readers raise their horizons and listen to Louise describe a real struggle in the video?
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But nobody in their right mind would submit to being an elected representtaive of a party if the party then treated them like a marrionnette who was gagged from talking publicly about their own personal beliefs.
The idea that George should be under party discipline to prevent him talking about his own profoundly held religious beliefs is astounding to me.
There has never been any sugestion from anyone in RR that I have heard that GG needs a commissar to blue pencil his writings or censor his radio show, etc. So there is no value iin your shock horror outrage that we haven’t changed in a way that we never intended to change.
The difficultly is that we have only one MP, I admit that, so any idiosynchrasies of George seem more significant than they are. But that would be the same if any one individual, whoever they are.
If you were the only MP, and someone asked your view on gun control for example, I would expect you to answer your own personal view, which I understand is that you oppose it.
If I was the only MP, it would be controversial that I support hunting.
Most people have a mature understanding that elected representatives are just human beings; and wouldn’t want them to be robotrots.
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Liam – are you going to mandate your only MP to vote for abortion rights in parliament or not?
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Actually I am in favour of the right to own guns – but Andy – I have the same very simple question for you as I asked Liam above. Care to answer?
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Notice how the “GG” fan club avoids answering the question about how he’ll vote on abortion rights – even bringing in the issue of Tami’s membership of the Labour Party…actually the current (Briefing) that Tami broadly supports, does *not* ragard abortion as a matter to be left to the individual consciences of MP’s. the “Respect Renewal”/ISG’s willingness to grovel before this ultra-reactionary, sexist and ( now *on record* as a…) CREATIONIST demagogue, is simply appaing. And also very stupid: you’ve seen how he’s done over his last group of simpering, “left” apologists, the SWP. As surely as night follows day, you lot are next in line.
But the most worrying thing about all of this, is thge inability of people like the ISG to distinguish between what is “left-wing” (albeit, perhaps, mistaken on the odd issue), and what is ultra-right. Galloway is ultra-right.LikeLike
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No I would personally not be in favour of mandating an MP to vote against their own personal religious conscience.
I would hope that an MP in such a positioon would abstaini rather than vote against the party line.
This is consistent with the way I approached such issues when I was in the Labour party.
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Ok – thanks for answering the question. At least now we know that Galloway will not be voting in faovur of a woman’s righ to choose in parliament – shame on you.
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[…] newman, on December 13th, 2007 at 3:15 pm […]
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The last time there was a vote directly upon abortion in the House of Commons: Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs — Termination of Pregnancy — 31 Oct 2006 at 15:42 — Commons Division No. 329
Labour MPs Frank Field, Stephen Pound, Andrew macKinley, James McGovan, and david Taylor voted to restrict womens’ right to choose.
Galloway abstained.
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Galloway has stated publicly he will abide by Respect policy in a parliamentary vote on abortion rights, as well as on other questions if there is disagreement.
This is the just the ‘left’ version of the New Labour/Harry’s Place anti-Galloway rant. Whatever George’s flaws, I prefer him to people who are shameless enough to howl with the wolves, and oblivious to the real political context of their anti-GG diatribes.
GG is an outspoken defender of Muslims who are targets of vicious state racist/ideological witchhunting that at times resembles the McCarthy era. So outspoken that he has become a target himself. In terms of standing up concretely against this, Permanent Revolution are not fit to lick GG’s boots. And that’s irrespective of his contradictory left-religious outlook. There’s a blood-line here, and its no accident that you find yourself lumbered with the likes of Denham on your side of it.
And its good to hear our Zionist friend calling Galloway ‘ultra-right’, i.e. a fascist in other words. Since he denied every having called GG a fascist in a similar exchange only a few weeks ago. Now I know exactly where to come for a quote when this topic comes up again – as I’m sure it will.
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So Tami
The actual record is that Galloway abstained on the vote in 2006 that was:;
beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to reduce the time limit for legal termination of pregnancy from 24 to 21 weeks; to introduce a cooling off period after the first point of contact with a medical practitioner about a termination; to require the provision of counselling about the medical risk of, and about matters relating to, termination and carrying a pregnancy to term as a condition of informed consent to termination; to enable the time period from the end of the cooling off period to the date of termination to be reduced; and for connected purposes.
Five Labour MPs actually voted for this bill. And your own political party has no mandate on this issue.
Respect has clear polict in favour of womens’ choice.
According to you fantasies Galloway is actively working to reduce abortion rights, but if that were the case would he not have voted for this bill???
Can you explain why he didn’t? it doesn’t fit into your narratice at all does it?
Now, in view of the fact that George didn’t vote last time abortion came up, why would we seek to have a fight over an issue that isn’t even on the table?
And your obsession goes so far as to write on your blog in feigned outrage that I am not in favour of mandating, shock, horror.
It has to be the sensible policy of any pluralistic party that people have an opt out on questons of personal religious faith. that is the view of the Labour Party, of which you are a member.
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Rather than asking galloway to renounce his backward religous ideas, why doesn’t the next issue of the RR newspaper carry some articles which are unabiguously pro-choice and pro-secular education, if galloway objects then he can use the letters page to put his point of view.
This is a very simple idea, but it won’t happen, SWP recoginised that these subjects had to be de-emphasised why the coalition was stable, so the ISG, andy newman and others now follow suit.
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Sorry Andy – I am tired of you purposefully conflating my support and membership of the Labour Left with the Labour Party as a whole. It’s easy to attack my views by pretending that I support all LP politicians.
However, in the LRC we don’t have an opt out for abortion on grounds of religious conscience and you know this full well. Unless you can compare like with like then please refrain from these disingenuous comparisons.
The point is that George shouldn’t be abstaining or simply not turning up – he should be voting in faovur of a woman’s right to choose if RR is going to have any kind of programme at all. You would never allow someone to abstain on a bill on racial hatred due to “religious conscience” but when there is an important debate to be had in parliament about whether or not women will be forced into childbirth or have to resort to sticking coat hangers into their bodies this suddenly becomes “ok”.
I am outraged. I am outraged that male comrades think it is ok to sell out woman’s rights for opportunist adventures. I am outraged that people calling themselves “left” make excuses for someone who refuses to defend a women’s right to chose. This isn’t “feigned outrage” Andy – it’s real.
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Some time ago there was a complaint that women do not comment enough on blogs, and in particular socialist blogs.
looking at the above dialogue, or shouting match if you like, I can see why that is the case
when women raise key issues of importance to them, they are often treated with scorn, personal comments or snide remarks
rather than dealing with the issues raised, their interlocutors often attack the women personally, casting aspersions on their views and use all kinds of very cheap tricks to avoid answering on women’s issues or directly addressing the criticism
Very shabby, the worst aspects of political hackism, and it is no wonder that women don’t feel like participating in blog debates.
This attitude toward women’s rights is just tokenism of the worst kind.
PS: I’ll bet that shortly we shall be treated an another insincere apology for “uncomradely conduct, etc”,
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Andy, Did galloway abstain? I recall he was simply not in the chamber. What about the early day motion he signed in the same month -that’s hardly abstaining is it?
RR could put this all to bed by having some unambigous articles in the next paper supporting womens right to choose and arguing for Galloway to vote with policy wherever possible. It won’t happen, and despite everything you write here you won’t call on it to happen. The ISG have quickly learnt that de-emphasing certain politics is required in order to keep the coalition with galloway alive.
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So far RR has had ONE national members’ meeting and produced ONE issue of a newspaper. The relationship between its elected officials and its conference hasn’t been discussed in any detail in the ONE month since the organisation has existed. They are not likely to be decided on this site either. Until that process has run its course any views expressed here only reflect the person expressing them.
On the other had after one century of Labourism its members can’t even mandate its leaders not to fight in an imperialist war that most of them don’t support.
There will be a process of discussion, argument and clarification as RR establishes itself. In the previous incarnation of Respect SR raised the issues of abortion and LGBT rights when the SWP tried to ignore them. Chances are we’ll probably do the same again.
As for mandating on questions of principle I’m not in favour of letting people off the hook but it will be decided by a debate in the organisation. And in just the same way that it’s dishonest to conflate Jeremy Corbyn’s views with those of Gordon Brown it’s playing the same trick to attribute GG’s opinions to everyone in RR. Parties are terrains of struggle.
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Exactly, Liam. It is quite clear just be comparing Liam and my views on various issues that we often don’t agree, and therefore neither of us is speaking for Respect. these issues need to be democratically debated and decided through democratic channels.
And, it is of course ridiculous to say that you are comparing like with like when contrasting the LRC with Respect. Respect is a political party, LRC is not.
LRC doesn’t have a parliamentary group or a whip. And if the LRC started passing policy outwith LP structures that they expected their MPs to follow, and started organising in the PLP in that way they would be on a direct collision course with the LP.
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what democratic channels are there? Galloway decides what policies are prominent and which are put on the back burner, there never was a method to call him to account in the old respect and there won’t be in the new one either.
As for terrains of struggle there doesn’t seem to be much of this going on -will RR unambigously defend a womens right to choose or will Galloway dictate the terms of the debate by making sure this stays as a single line policy statement which never receives any publicity or is part of a prominent wider campaign?
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But Andy the whole point of RR was about the democratic accountability of party officials – in the old incarnation from the SWP – we were told the reason why the split was necessary was because of their intolerable abuse of democratic structures and refusal to abide by collective decision making.
In the new RR there’s exactly the same scenario except now you’re covering up for GG.
Of course Ian can console himself that GG has promised to do this and that – but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Let’s see GG speaking out in defence of abortion rights if he’s such a party loyalist.
But to ask the question is to answer it – everyone knows – including Ian (don’t know whether he’s licking anyone’s boots or not btw although, hey, each to their own), that he will not, because its against his fundamental beliefs.
And to compare RR with the Labour Party may seem like a great thing to do, but for all its pretensions to grandure, I think RR’s got more than a little way to go in the size department – although, come to think of it, with the right size heels….LikeLike
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Well to quote Milton, “I sing unchanged”. I am only saying what i have always said.
No politically broad party can expect every member to defend every policy. That is a characteristic of democratic centralist organistations, and even then only in the bastardised form.
Now in your Trostkyite fantasies you may imagine that you can build a party large enough to effect social change while simultaneously promoting doctrinal purity. As you say the proof of the pudding is in the eating, after 30 years there are fifty of you.
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There is something weird about this obsession with GG. He’s not the only figure on the British left. He is by no means the worst person in the British Labour Movement. He hasn’t sold out any strikes, voted for any wars.
Why do people who don’t like RR, want RR to fail, don’t fancy anything that is not proper revolutionary or not the Labour Party get so stressed out by him? That’s a rhetorical question. Please don’t answer it.
Why not start obsessing about rightward moving bureaucrats and MPs who do material damage to the class struggle?
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I see my “fuck off” has been censored. And rightly, it was incredibly rude of me. But you see, this whole debate is rather frustrating, as Liam says – Why not focus on those who damage our class?
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Well its not a case of obsessing about GG. But he is after all the leader of RR and therefore what he does is relevent, not least because people like Andy put him on a pedestal above and beyond criticism.
And its a moot point of course whether pro-life MPs damage our class.
If they were successful in limiting abortion rights, they obviously would do.
Of course Andy would retort, heaven above, we need a party without doctrinal purity, where our MPs are allowed to damage the class by limiting the right of women to control their own bodies.
It will be a much bigger party than your doctrinally pure party, where its (hypothetical) representatives actually have to support progress principles. We prefer a broad big party, where they are free to do as they wish.Personally I say.
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he is after all the leader of RR
No, he’s not.
its a moot point of course whether pro-life MPs damage our class.
If they were successful in limiting abortion rights, they obviously would do.Case in point: Galloway didn’t vote for a 14-week limit. Yes, voting against would have been even better, but you take the only MP RESPECT has so far got elected as you find him. Personally I’ve never been a fan of the guy, but I believe he’s done a lot of good work in RESPECT – particularly in the last few months. If on balance he’s good for the movement, and if he’s willing to compromise on the stuff some of us would rather he didn’t believe, I don’t honestly see the problem.
I’m disappointed to hear of Galloway’s creationist leanings, but no more than that. It’s precisely because I believe RESPECT mk II will be serious about accountability, when it comes to actual questions of policy, that I don’t mind if the guy shoots his mouth off on Talk Sport.
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Labour MPs Frank Field, Stephen Pound, Andrew macKinley, James McGovan, and david Taylor voted to restrict womens’ right to choose.
I don’t know who Tami is, but I can’t understand how anyone who has read what she’s written here would suspect for a minute that she either supports these MPs or defends their stance on women’s freedom.
I am sure Labour party socialists campaign against these sorts of conservatives and careerists who have infiltrated their party. I know I tried to when I was in the Labour party.
Labour party socialists, in my experience, campaign for greater accountability and scrutiny of their MPs, and for the selection of better representatives more aligned with their socialist ideology.
The question raised, in my interpretation, was about whether the Renewal – the Trinity party had any intention of doing so. And nothing written by any of Renewal’s self-appointed ‘online butlers’ has suggested when and how they plan to do so.
I can’t speak for someone I don’t know, but the commitment to women’s freedom and socialism evident from Tami’s comments suggests that she is an active and outspoken critic of right-wingers in her party.
I would have thought ambitious members of a month-old party with no constitution but one MP would have more freedom and opportunity to take a principled stand against their public mouthpiece’s religious sexism and creationism.
But, while making noises about breadth and plurality, all I can find is staunch and disciplined defence of a rich man’s right to cry ‘religious conscience’ when promoting reactionary conservative theology about women and creation.
After criticising the SWP for their recently abandoned see-no-hear-no-speak-no-evil line on Galloway, the Renewal party’s chief online policmen seem to have started doing exactly that. Don’t become everything you despise!
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“I’d expect someone to say something in response to Hari’s article …”
How about this;-)
http://shoothari.blogspot.com/
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Well maybe it is. So what? Given that this is an argument about whether RR will hold its leaders to account, its not surprising that the issue of how it holds its most prominent leader to account features fairly highly.
After all if GG’s not your leader how come he’s above criticism?LikeLike
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“Well maybe it is. So what?”
Good to hear Bill admitting to being obsessed with GG. A suggestion …. if you can do better in terms of making a political impact in combatting the imperialist war on terror, why not just get on with doing it, instead of obsessing about the flaws of GG, who is rather better and more effective at doing that than PR will ever be?
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I think that Bill misses the point about leaders being held to account in RR. In the old Respect, bureaucratic diktat ensured that leaders were not criticised, and that there was no mechanism for holding anyone to account; and that bureaucratic diktat emanated from the CC of the SWP. That made Respect, despite its good work in many areas, an unattractive place for many veterans of the SA and other attempts to form broad left groups/parties. In RR no organisation is in a position to call the shots – and that means that these issues will be decided by the membership, in a democratically convened conference. So there is everything to play for, and I would urge the sceptics to get involved. If, at the end of the day, we find ourselves in a party where leading figures have carte blanche and make policy on the hoof, then we will have failed. But I actually think that that outcome is LESS likely now that the SWP have left than it was before.
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In RR no organisation is in a position to call the shots – and that means that these issues will be decided by the membership, in a democratically convened conference.
It is quite true that in Renewal, no organisation is in a position to call the shots. Three individuals are instead though. I’ve not heard one thing from any of the Renewal Trinity sycophants writing here or speaking anywhere else to suggest that anything important will be decided by the membership, at conference or elsewhere. All I read here is defence of Galloway’s self-proclaimed right to represent himself only and to cry ‘conscience’ to avoid scrutiny.
So there is everything to play for, and I would urge the sceptics to get involved.
We might just as well join New Labour or the SWP, such is the lack of truly democratic mechanisms in Renewal. If you’re serious about this then I think you’ll need to propose democratic representation and scrutiny. I am aware of no such action yet, and for myself and others it is this that prevents us joining the existing parties.
If, at the end of the day, we find ourselves in a party where leading figures have carte blanche and make policy on the hoof, then we will have failed. But I actually think that that outcome is LESS likely now that the SWP have left than it was before.
Why? I have issues with the SWP about democracy, but I have followed Respect’s development from inside and out and I have never witnessed SWP members acting in this way or making policy on the hoof. Respect – the Unity Coalition was generally and from the outset SWP organisation with Galloway policy. In fact, the greatest criticism of the SWP’s involvement in the old Respect’s policy was that they gave Galloway carte blanche and defended his freedom from scrutiny.
Reading this thread has shown how Liam and Andy have now adopted this same role on the Renewal ‘blogosphere’, and have refused to commit to democratic scrutiny of their professional politician.
I don’t know why. Renewal’s small membership can hardly contain many members who disagree with their three parliamentary candidates (Galloway, Yaqoob, and Miah) right-wing religious line. I can’t imagine the scrutiny would be at all challenging.
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I presume Ian’s response represents some ‘in-joke’ I’m unaware of. I think this is the problem with so much I’ve read from the Renewal Party’s online policemen. No serious attempt is ever made to engage others with the debate. Jay did, so I responded with why I strongly disagree with him on certain details.
I’ve nothing against playing for laughs, although I don’t get the HP sauce joke (maybe I’m wrong and it’s not a joke). I’d just like to read a more thoughtful reply, ideally promising action to improve the author’s chosen sect.
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, Ian, and assume it’s my ignorance rather than your cliquey obfuscation that explains why I haven’t the first clue what your point is.
Do I get points for the word ‘obfuscation’?
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Liam/Ian/Andy,
Do any of respect renewals elected representatives (mps and councillors) or candidates support abortion rights?
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HP sauce is a reference to ‘Harry’s Place’ , which is one of the chief places on the internet that propagates the line that Respect is a right-wing religious party. Most people who are not tainted by rather unhealthy prejudices can discern from our written material that Respect is a broadly left-wing organisation, so when someone writes nonsense like that, I conclude that they have a rather unhealthy axe to grind. Such assertions do not deserve other than a mocking response, to be blunt.
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Hi Bristolian,
1. Until RR has a clear structure prominent inviduals will carry undue weight, and of course in purely practical terms (if we’re being realistic and not point scoring) this is simply a function of the embryonic stage at which we find ourselves. RR is both a continuation of what’s gone before and at the same time a new (re-newed) formation.
2. Accountability measures, formation of policy, election of officers etc. etc. will all happen at the conference in the spring.
3. How those things are shaped will be determined by the membership, not by the “leaders” and not by a single group which wields excessive influence.
4. As you yourself write: “In fact, the greatest criticism of the SWP’s involvement in the old Respect’s policy was that they gave Galloway carte blanche and defended his freedom from scrutiny.” That is exactly why the SWP’s decision to end their constructive engagement in Respect is likely to open the way for more genuinely democratic methods of control.
5. The general aim, as far as I’m concerned, is to move from what existed before towards something closer to the genuine broad left party that we all want to see. Right now, there is everything to play for – which is why some of us, who’ve been reluctant to get involved in the past, have now enthusiastically joined the party.
6. FWIW, on religion I class myself as a militant atheist, and a big fan of (among other things) Dawkins’ “The God Delusion”. But that doesn’t stop me working with people who have different views on the question. After all, I’ve heard that James Connolly was a moderately decent socialist ;o)
7. If you’re still based in Bristol I’d be happy to meet you for a coffee some time to discuss all the issues that you’ve raised. Click on my name above and my email address should pop up.
Cheers,
Jay.LikeLike
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Well, I don’t frequent Harry’s Place and I’m not inclined to, so I’ll take your word for it.
While I understand that you deem my comments unworthy of anything ‘other than a mocking response’, mockery isn’t my inclination either, so I will respond in clarification.
I have no axe to grind, other than my oft-written belief that all active socialists should form a mass socialist party that all inactive socialists can and do join. I guess that is my agenda, and I have been quite transparent about it.
I disagree that my problems with the Renewal party are due to me being ‘tainted by rather unhealthy prejudices’.
However, I am against theocratic politics, unaccountable politicians having the right to represent only themselves and cry religious conscience to avoid democratic policy-making, and targetting specific ethnic and religious ‘communities’.
Rather than mock my comments, perhaps you could address the problems facing Renewal, one of which is well represented by the question Martin asks above.
The best answer to ‘assertion’ of a right-wing relgious bias would surely be to hold your right-wing religious leaders to account, and to oppose their publicly declared right-wing religious agenda. Are you not led by three pro-business anti-abortionists?
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weekly worker 527 my offer some guidance to RR comrades:
“…because of the combination of comrade Galloway’s political weakness (on this question he is an unreconstructed catholic) and the SWP’s opportunism, Respect appears by default to have a position that is flatly counterposed to the interests of the female half of the population…”
“What should happen, of course, is that the Respect executive, without doubt having a pro-choice majority, should issue a statement making clear the policy of the organisation. In the process, they should pay the closest attention to the views of the trade union branches that have voted to support Respect. … Comrade Galloway, and anyone else who shares his views of whatever creed, have a right to their views, but not to make Respect policy. A statement to this effect should be issued post haste.”
“…But we must not allow this alliance with new forces – whose militancy on issues directly relating to the war is considerable, but whose understanding of other questions may still be determined by traditional, reactionary social values – to lead us to the right. We must, on the contrary, fight to raise newly radicalised elements to the political level of what is best in the labour movement, not allow ourselves to be dragged backwards by unprincipled deals on questions involving women’s rights or similar issues.”
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Sorry, but I dont think we have any ‘right-wing religious leaders’ or ‘theocratic politics’ in our organisation. We have a range of left-wing political views, some atheistic, others mixed with religious sentiments, but I dont see why right-wing religious leaders or theocrats would join a broadly left-wing party. The idea is absurd.
It does, however, seem that your thesis about Respect is broadly what I thought it was … not merely a legitimate concern about accountability vs the possiblity of bureaucratism in a left party …. something that by the way can only be judged over time … but a prejudiced ideological attack. In which case I think this debate is something of a waste of time.
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Do you still stick by your analysis in WW527 that there is a danger of galloway and others pulling respect to the right?
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Actually, my thesis was more that the *SWP’s* method would pull Respect to the right. Or more accurately, limit and stunt the evolution to the left of leftward-moving people like Salma Yaqoob. But no worries, there was never any danger of Respect ending anywhere near as right-wing as people like Martin Ohr.
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Ian, your obsession with me is frankly worrying, are you really for a minute suggesting that I am right-wing, or even to the right of respect- how fucking stupid would anyone be to believe that.
in relation to my original post, what for is the fight “…to raise newly radicalised elements to the political level of what is best in the labour movement, not allow ourselves to be dragged backwards by unprincipled deals on questions involving women’s rights or similar issues.” currently taking, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of it in RR so far or any hint that it will take place?
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My previous comment was in response to Ian, not Jay, of course. Jay’s wasn’t shown when I began writing. I’ll follow your numbers, Jay!
1. That the ’embyonic stage’ leads unavoidably to the prominance of the Trinity is a fair point, and I’m probably being harsh on Renewal. But while your response gives hope that the eventual formation will hold its professional politicians to account on the subjects discussed here, the more populous responses of Liam, Andy, Ian, and friends, do quite the opposite. I predict a conflict in Renewal: with the careerists, opportunists, and right-wingers on one side; and the more principled and democratic socialists on the other. I hope you win, in which case I will change my attitude, but I’m unsure you have the numbers.
2. Whether the above challenge takes place at the Spring conference remains to be seen, and perhaps the likes of me will be to blame for not participating, but I’ve joined undemocratic parties with right-wing leadership before with no success!
3. I agree about the necessity of having no dominant group, though I fear the right-wing followers of Renewal’s leadership Trinity will be exactly that.
4. I am less optimistic that Galloway will subordinate himself to your more genuinely democratic methods of control, and unconvinced that enough Renewal members will pursue him on causes that conflict with his religious conservatism. This comments thread hasn’t helped!
5. I’m glad we all want to see that, and if you turn out to be right about Renewal initiating it then I’ll eagerly join, and eat humble pie ad infinitum.
6. Well I’m probably less of a committed athiest than you then! And I’m not against working with religious people either, in a socialist context; that’s important. This was my experience of Preston Respect.
7. I’m pretty much incapable of refusing coffee, but I’m actually in the process of moving East, so I’ll have to.
I suppose none of us will really know how this will pan out until a proper conference has taken place.LikeLike
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Just when I think something constructive is emerging here, Ian’s off again.
It does, however, seem that your thesis about Respect is broadly what I thought it was … not merely a legitimate concern about accountability vs the possiblity of bureaucratism in a left party …. something that by the way can only be judged over time … but a prejudiced ideological attack. In which case I think this debate is something of a waste of time.
I’m at a bit of a loss since you don’t mention why you think my ‘thesis’ is a ‘prejudiced ideological attack’.
You’re clearly wrong, as my exchange with the respectful comrade Jay above shows.I’ll wear ‘ideological’ but not ‘prejudiced’.
My concerns about democratic accountability are only party, but still party, motivated by ‘ideology’. I certainly would like accountability to ensure representatives elected for the next ‘left-of-Labour’ party are prevented from playing the religious conscience card to justify complicity with inevitable parliamentary attacks on women’s freedom. Wouldn’t you?
But your allegations of ‘prejudice’ make no more sense to me than your mockery. I remain unimpressed.
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Bristolian Tony.
I think that there is a range of opinion wihin respect. one of the things that though was quite encouraging about the RR conference was that galloway did actually listen and respond to the debate.
There is a sort of moral contract involved in political parties. If the activists do th work and build the party, and develop policy, and et people elected, ,then those elected have a moral as well as constitutional obligation to follow the party’s guidence.
But at the same time, being a political candidate or elected post holder is a very exposed and lonely place, and the elected reps desrerve the support of the party.
Up until now that contract has been deformed in resepct as the SWP were more committed to building their own organisation, and there were problems with the democratic accountability and decision making.
I am convinced that there is good will towards making Respect into a democratic accountable and friendly organisation, and what is ore a campiagning organisation that actually does things between elections!
But we are at the early stage of that.
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Maybe Tony is not quite as blinkered as his choice of words suggests. ‘Theocratic politics’, however, is rather a strong accusation to make and leaves a nasty taste. This is a left-of-labour party, not a ‘theocratic’ party and the conception that there can be a’theocratic’ right-wing party that purports to be left-of-labour, particularly in an advanced capitalist country, is pretty paranoid.
Yes, there needs to be collective responsibility for policies presented in parliamentary and other arenas. I’m well aware that GG’s history of being a outspoken individual opponent of the LP leadership over imperialist actions in the Middle East, is not exactly the best grounding in acting as part of a genuine collective. And the SWP were opposed, for their own bureaucratic reasons, to the emergence of a genuine collective (‘party’) ethos in Respect. These are weaknesses that I am confident can be overcome – if we build a genuinely inclusive party. Scapegoating individuals on the basis of stereotypes, however, is not part of that ethos in my view.
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Ian, your comments are successful in leaving me feeling belittled, mocked, and patronised. But you have been unsuccessful in convincing me that I am ‘blinkered’, ‘paranoid’, ‘prejudiced’, writing ‘nonsense’, that I have any ‘rather unhealthy axe to grind’, or that I am ‘scapegoating individuals on the basis of stereotypes’.
If the activists do th work and build the party, and develop policy, and et people elected, ,then those elected have a moral as well as constitutional obligation to follow the party’s guidence.
I agree. But since our comrades in the SWP (I mean comrades and not leadership) worked hard to build Respect, to develop policy (probably less so), and certainly to get people elected, Galloway and you have left Respect, and Galloway appears to have formed your new party outside it absolving himself of the moral and constitutional obligations to follow their guidance.
If he follows yours (in the plural sense), and if you all press him to follow a comrehensive socialist programme (including all of the progressive points raised here that conflict with his natural religious inclinations), and are successful in holding him to account in this regard, then great.
But I don’t think this will happen. I think your point about his history being in conflict with this supports my suspicions. I also fear there is not enough of you to challenge his authority even if you do follow through on it. I fear the small Renewal party has taken a singnificant minority of Respect’s more conservative supporters and councillors in Birmingham and the East End, and taken far few socialists. Many socialists remain with the SWP in Respect – the Unitary Coalition. Many more have despaired of the project and even the word Respect entirely.
While we disgaree on much detail, I feel sure you will eventually challenge Galloway’s conservatism and supremacy. But I think when that time comes you will lose.
After Galloway’s letter, the SWP decided to take Galloway on. They lost, surely with greater numbers and political resources than you have.
I hope you do put aside all ambitions and challenge him, and I hope you win. But when you lose, I hope we can all be on the same side again to form a real socialist party not organised around the SWP, George Galloway, or any other dominant component, formed instead around socialism and the working class.
On that note, which I mean in all sincerity, and being bored of Ian’s trite put-downs, I’m off for a bit of time away from a computer screen, something I highly recommend. Peace.
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Ian D; do you think the *fact* that your one MP (and, therfore, your main public face),
* opposes a women’s right to choose
*opposes free speech (and threatens those who excercise it);
* is a creationist…
suggests that your organisation is *in any way* “left-wing”, by *any* definition of the term?LikeLike
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Jim, I asked you on socialistunity to explain what you meant when you talked of George Galloway’s “crimes against humanity” (your exact words were “Galloway’s crimes against humanity”).
I think it would inform the debate if, when people try to answer your questions, they understood your motives.
What are Galloway’s crimes against humanity, Jim?
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1/ Supporting Saddam Hussain’s genocide;
2/ Supporting Stalinism’s mass-murder;
3/ Supporting the Catholic church;
4/ Supporting the Taliban;
5/ Supporting Hamas,
6/ Supporting Hizbullah…do yo want me to go on?
There is scarcely a fascistic, reactionary cause that Galloway does *not* support…LikeLike
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Charlie has saved me the trouble…
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Absolutely #### priceless, both of you.
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Priceless? In a good way?
Doubtful. Mockery again. That all you’ve got?
This is why so many of us take less and less interest in this whole affair.
Why social democrats and revolutionary socialists appear to hate each other more than they hate liberals and conservatives is a mystery to me.
I might rejoin the Labour party. At least the fight in that party is with liberals, conservatives, careerists, and war-mongers. I don’t mind hating their guts. They hate socialism, so why the devil shouldn’t I hate them?
But to hate another socialists isn’t worth an intelligent person’s time. I’ve had it with the radical left, particularly on the internet, which seems to bring out the worst in us. I just don’t want to hate socialists of any shade: communists, revolutionary socialists, parliamentary socialists, democratic socialists, social democrats, socialist reformists, any of them. If I’ve left any kind of socialist out then I didn’t mean to.
Or maybe we should just have a big scrap on Hyde Park?
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It is worth saying that Galloway was protesting against Saddam’s repression of the Iraqi people years before any of the pro-war left took any interest. He was one of the only Labour MPs to do so.
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Let’s not forget the Galloway-Saddam meeting of 1994:
“Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability. And I want you to know that we are with you ‘hatta al-nasr, hatta al-nasr, hatta al- Quds’ [until victory, until victory, until Jerusalem].”
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/662/in3.htm
George in person:
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Tony – a big scrap, Hyde Park, with all the left, and everyone has to join the party that wins? That would work, I reckon.
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Andy : “It is worth saying that Galloway was protesting against Saddam’s repression of the Iraqi people years before any of the pro-war left took any interest. He was one of the only Labour MPs to do so.”
Why are you regurgitating this crap, this is a story made up entirely by galloway and not backed up by any facts. In fact many labour mps asked questions in parliament about saddam during the iran-iraq war and kicked up quite a fuss at the gassing of the kurds. As I recall galloway was very late joining in.
This sort of bluff may work when being questioned by idiots in the senate, but thankfully the rest of the left actually has some memory.
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Martin, you say this story is crap but do not yourself back up this assertion with facts – and your group have been not been particularly successful at getting your version of the ‘truth’ out there- despite your years of obsessive Galloway stalking.
So, ‘Galloway was very late in joining in’ the condemnation of Saddam? This gives the whole game away as you admit he did have an anti-Saddam record before the invasion of Iraq and clearly well before the 1994 quotes above…
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“But to hate another socialists isn’t worth an intelligent person’s time. I’ve had it with the radical left, particularly on the internet, which seems to bring out the worst in us. I just don’t want to hate socialists of any shade: communists, revolutionary socialists, parliamentary socialists, democratic socialists, social democrats, socialist reformists, any of them. If I’ve left any kind of socialist out then I didn’t mean to.”
Well, Britsolian Tony seems to be doing a fair amount of the ‘hating’ that he claims to be opposed to. In particular, his accusation that Respect’s politics are in some way ‘theocratic’, is pretty bizarre, being based on a crude stereotype.
Jim Denham is a thinly disguised racist, whose own co-blog featured an article by him congratulating Israel on its 50th anniversary – a state founded through the expulsion of the majority Arab population of the territory it was established on, which he evidently regards as a good thing.
Denham and co hate Galloway because he is an articulate and able defender of the Arabic-speaking peoples of the Middle East against Zionist Israel and imperialism. They are ex-socialists who have completely capitulated to the prevailing reactionary demonisation of Arabs and Muslims. Simple as that. Much of their propaganda is recycled from the Daily Telegraph, or similar sources.
Contrary to Bristolian Tony, who for all I know may be genuinely naive, this is not a debate between socialists and progressives, but rather a confrontation between Arab/Muslim-hating reactionaries and the genuine left, that flares up from time-to-time because of their trolling on left blogs.
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I’m hating nobody, and don’t patronise me. Naivity and paranoia can’t both be claimed about the same person on the same thread. If I’m either, the latter is far more believable. Please stop writing about me, Ian; there are far more important topics, and I consider it rudeness. I’m a nobody. Move on.
I stand by what I said. When Salma Yaqoob and Abjol Miah start socialist campaigning I’ll call for their pariticipation in a socialist party (assuming we have by then formed one). Even Galloway, who claims to be a socialist, needs to convince me of that. A good start would be to stop spouting sexist reactionary nonsense incompatible with socialism on talkSPORT radio.
I’d appreciate any response to this comment on three politicians concentrating on them rather than me. I don’t yet receive a salary from the taxpayer, and I’m quite boring really Ian. Goodnight.
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RobM,
I’m not sure what I admitted, I don’t recall galloway criticising Saddam at all until he suddenly started telling people he’d campaigned against him all along. As far as I recall the in parliament the only people to openly oppose saddam were corbyn, bernie grant, anne clywd, gwyneth dunwoody. Although I also remember in the late 80’s the campaign group including in particular Dawn Primarola writing letters to the guardian criticising Saddam. The guardian and hansard are both online now so presumably this isn’t too hard to check.
You could call awl’s position on galloway obsessive stalking or you could call it 20years of consistent calss politics. Either way more people on the left probably agree with us now that he is a dodgy, sexist, stalinist, dictator-loving shitbag with a pathlogical hatred of trots than ever before.
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Liam,
Is there going to be another edition of the ‘monthly’ respect renewal newspaper?
BTW I noticed in the december edition that there is a joining form for respect renewal but not for respect itself is this a mistake or do you explain to contacts that if they join RR they don’t actually get to vote on policy or candidates because you are pretending to still be part of real respect?
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Liam redux 
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