There is an interview with Lindsey German in the Pink News in which she explains why she is standing for election. In it she bigs up her pro-LGBT credentials as you might expect. Nothing wrong with that. Then she decides to jump on the “Galloway homophobe by association” bandwagon. Here is what she has to say.
I think that our Muslim vote has been split and the more extreme elements have probably gone over to support George Galloway.
Last year there was a bit of a split in the party because we directed a lot of funds into having our own gay float.
We though that it was important to show that if you support one minority you should support all minorities.
George had an issue with putting too much money into the float which was one of the things that divided us as I felt that it was important.
It is such obvious drivel that there is no point doing a detailed rebuttal of it. Instead here is what I wrote just after the Respect 2005 conference.
Lindsey German really set the tone by accusing Socialist Resistance of being Islamophobic for raising the issue of the omission of LGBT rights from the manifesto. She shifted the whole debate from a serious weakness in the manifesto to just how Islamophobic it is to raise any criticism.
What happened was that Alan Thornett had been commissioned to write the manifesto. He included a section about supporting LGBT rights which was approved by the National Council. Somewhere between Alan’s computer and the commercial printer this section was excised. A Socialist Resistance supporter raised this at conference. He didn’t suggest that all Respect members had to become LGBT. He didn’t say that this was clear evidence of rampant Muslim homophobia. His tack was that this was an omission and that it must not happen again. For reasonable people this should not of been a problem. “Oops. That was a silly mistake” would have cleared it up. Instead we were treated to a glimpse of the verbal thuggery with which a section of the Respect leadership felt appropriate to use against criticism. It was a clear bloc between the SWP’s leadership and George Galloway.
As a footnote the Respect presence on Pride that year was a handful of SR supporters and a few other people but at that point accusations of Islamophobia were a much more useful stick than LGBT rights with which to beat those of us who disagreed with that notion of building an organisation.
Call it petulance but that selective version of history has helped me make up my mind about who to give my first mayoral preference to.
Liam redux 
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