This is a slightly trimmed down version of a document agreed at a meeting of Socialist Resistance supporters at the weekend.
The Respect Renewal conference was a very big success. It was an up-beat event with an air of liberation and something of a reunion with a significant number of activists who had dropped out at various stages since the end of the Socialist Alliance as well as some who had not been involved in such an initiative previously.
Creating RR out of the wreckage of the old Respect was a remarkable achievement by any standards. Separating virtually the whole of the non-SWP Respect from the SWP in the course of a crisis created by the SWP could hardly have been predicted. It is a measure of the political crisis of the SWP that so many people drew the conclusion that the SWP were not, in the foreseeable future, capable of being at the centre of building a pluralist alternative either as a party or an a coalition. For many it had been cumulative experience. The SWP were seen as serial offenders in terms of their undemocratic domination of such organisations.
The way we acted as a current had a positive effect on the course of events, in particular the role we were able to play in the debate which raged on throughout the course of the split. Along with some of those breaking from the SWP, and others like Salma Yaqoob, we won the debate in a confrontation created by them.
The task for RR now is to spread out from the strong areas it won in the split and become a national organisation. It is too early to judge how successful Respect Renewal can be, the signs are good, but it remains extremely fragile.
It will not be easy to build without the foot-soldiers the SWP can provide. Respect Renewal will, therefore, have to be a very different organisation to the old Respect. It will have to rely much more on its political profile than its foot soldiers.
This therefore places a much greater political responsibility on us than we have had in the past. We now have to be a material part of building RR, discussing its political line and implementing it, building its events and resolving problems as they arise. This can only be done if we can turn the whole of our current around this task. It cannot be done by the small numbers we had active in the old Respect.
At the moment RR¹s geographical spread is mainly related to where there were significant groups of independents who remained active in the former Respect branches. Where the Respect branches were exclusively or predominantly SWP then little have changed and there is no doubt that that was a lot of branches.
This leaves RR a limited but important geographical spread. There are fairly well established branches in Tower Hamlets, Newham, Birmingham, Manchester and Bristol with branches in formation in Southwark, Lewisham, Islington/Camden, Haringey, Cambridge, Milton Keynes, Oxford, Brighton and South Dorset.
Good progress has been made towards consolidation in the main areas. This has been the case in Manchester and Birmingham but also in Tower Hamlets where better organisation and a better relationship with the councillors has been established than was previously the case. In fact steps are being taken to organise the councillors which were never taken in the old Respect.
The leading bodies have worked very well. The Organising Committee (essentially the executive) meets every Monday and functions very well. Nick Wrack is the National Secretary and Linda Smith remains the national chair. The National Council has met twice, once as the 19 core members and the second time with the co-opted members which took it to a meeting of about 50. The most impressive feature of the meeting was the TH delegation, which was young and vigorous and very involved. There was a very positive and optimistic atmosphere.
It is crucial to the future development of RR that we get the paper right and that it continues to be produced.
An important discussion at the recent NC was on the GLA. There was not much discussion on the mayor other than to decide that RR would not put a candidate forward and that there would be a future discussion as to who we should support. The important decision taken was to launch an appeal for a broad list for the assembly aimed in particular at the trade union left. This might be difficult to achieve but the general view was that RR needs to be seen to be reaching out to the rest of the left even if the response at this stage is limited.
Since then, however, a big debate has emerged around Livingstone. There is now a Thatcherite witch-hunt against orchestrated by the media, in particular the Evening Standard. It is in effect the Johnson election campaign. This has provoked George Galloway to launch, quite rightly a big defence of Livingstone against this attack and to link this not only to the broad candidacy for the Assembly but also to call for a vote for Livingstone he has written an article for the paper to this effect.
We need to make it very clear where we stand on this. In fact the SR SC has commissioned as article for the web site to spell out our position. First of all we have to oppose the witch hunt not least because it is a witch hunt against the whole of the left including us. We should oppose giving Livingstone any political support for all the obvious reasons but be prepared to support him against Johnson through our second (transferable) vote. There seems to be confusion in the GG article about this there is no reason to imply a first vote for Livingstone in order to defend him against the right. In the circumstances of this particular election it is only possible to give one vote to Livingstone. A first or second preference vote have political significance but no practical significance since in you can only vote for Livingstone once. And in terms of a vote against Johnson the first and second votes have equal weight. We should therefore vote for a credible candidate of the left if there is one and cast a second preference for Livingstone.
And of course beyond this kind of recomposition is the wider issue of bringing people in to the new Respect who were never prepared to come into the old one - in particular the CPB and the trade union left. It is true that the conditions of a split are not the most favourable for this, but these people are not naïve and there may well be possibilities even short to medium term ones, especially since a major obstacle to any such discussions and collaboration was the passive and conservative attitude of the SWP leadership, which clearly did not want to include any additional political rivals in the leadership of Respect, and did little to draw the RMT or CPB into discussion. It has certainly been informally agreed that achieving this has to have a completely different priority than was the case before.
Tasks for building Respect Renewal:
1) We have to ensure that all our members and supporters are properly signed up to RR.
2) We have to take the initiative and build local branches everywhere it is possible.
3) We have to promote, sell, and write for the paper.
4) We have to ensure that we therefore allocate sufficient resources nationally and locally to be part of the leadership as well as the branches of RR
5) We have to give time and attention to the political development of RR and to the debates around this.
Liam redux 
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