The younger members of Respect in Tower Hamlets are getting into the habit of rolling up to branch committee meetings, announcing that they intend to organise a public meeting and then doing it. There was the meeting on Palestine a few weeks ago and tonight about seventy people heard Abjol Miah, Yvonne Ridley and George Galloway speak in hall in Whitechapel.
This is quite
remarkable. In the old version of Respect every detail would have been micro-managed. Now the young comrades book the room, get the speakers, produce the publicity, build the event and run the meeting. It’s wonderful to watch. You can never be quite sure who is going to say what, there are no set piece hectoring speeches and the evening has the feel of something organised by a real party of committed amateurs who are learning by doing.
As is my custom I didn’t take notes so this reconstruction of what was said is bound to be a little imprecise.
Abjol Miah reminded the audience of Respect’s origins as an anti-war party. He remarked on how the imperialist war has made the situation of women immeasurably worse there. He drew some domestic political conclusions in his reply to a question from the floor when he referred to how the white working class has been let down by New Labour and posed Respect as a pole of attraction for them.
My hunch is that the headline from the meeting will be Yvonne Ridley’s “anti-Leninist tirade”. Either that or her assertion that she’s willing to start a riot if there’s an attack on Iran. Let’s deal with it. First the rioting – I’ll give £50 to the reader of this site who can convincingly prove that they’ve never indulged in a bit of polemical hyperbole. You can collect it from me at the SR stall in Trafalgar Square on Saturday. Anyway rioting is harder than it looks. The couple of times I tried it I was more of a danger to my side than the British Army. As for the “anti-Leninism” – she was making the point that Islamophobia is a big part of public discourse at the moment and that Islam is often presented as the root of many of the world’s problems. She wasn’t wrong when she remarked that the major human catastrophes of the 20th and 21st centuries were the work of non-Muslims. Her list included King Leopold of the Belgians (one bad bastard who doesn’t get slagged off enough), Stalin, Hitler, 
Pol Pot and Lenin. Most of the readers of this site would consider Lenin’s inclusion in that list proof of historical illiteracy. We would also accept that for most people outside the far left explaining the differences between Lenin and Stalin would be quite a challenge.
George Galloway was on strong form. The purpose of the meeting was to mobilise Respect supporters for Saturday’s demonstration and it’s unlikely that anyone who heard George’s speech will not be attending. The video will be up in due course so I won’t bother paraphrasing. There was some discussion about the upcoming GLA and mayoral elections with George making clear his support for Ken Livingstone but also explaining why he and the other Respect candidates are standing. You know the reasons already.
Tonight’s meeting was strong proof that in Tower Hamlets Respect has survived both as a credible electoral force and an organisation with an activist and anti-imperialist bent. The best part of all is that a new group of young and talented political fighters is growing out of it.
Liam redux 
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