Liam redux

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Respect National Conference

The Respect National Conference will take place on Saturday 25 October 2008 at the Bishopsgate Institute in London, near to Liverpool Street Station. The conference will be open to all members of Respect Renewal and visitors. Only members of Respect Renewal who are fully paid up on 24 October will be allowed to vote. Membership…

Liam
1–2 minutes

The Respect National Conference will take place on Saturday 25 October 2008 at the Bishopsgate Institute in London, near to Liverpool Street Station.

The conference will be open to all members of Respect Renewal and visitors. Only members of Respect Renewal who are fully paid up on 24 October will be allowed to vote. Membership until the end of 2008 is now available for £5.

The conference fee will be £10 per person.

Resolutions – must be submitted by 16 September 2008; they can be on any subject. They should be succinct.

Send to

conference@respectrenewal.org

Any six members can submit a resolution. Anyone wanting to submit a resolution and seek support from five others can ask for it to be posted on the website.

Any branch can submit up to three resolutions. Branches will be determined by the Standing Orders Committee.

Amendments to resolutions must be submitted by 10 October 2008.

There is a Standing Orders Committee which will organise conference business and prioritise resolutions.

The conference will elect a National Council but the size and method of election will be discussed further at the Respect National Council which meets on 6th September.

Nominations for the new National Council must be received by 10 October 2008. People can nominate themselves. Anyone nominated for the NC must be a paid-up member by 1 September 2008.

If you would like any further information about our conference then please contact us by writing

to us at: conference@respectrenewal.org

Download the members’ newsletter.

respectnewsletter_25jul08

31 responses to “Respect National Conference”

  1. Geoff Collier Avatar
    Geoff Collier

    I’m puzzled by the statement that conference resolutions can be submitted by a group of six people. The constitution specifies twenty, surely? What’s happened to that?

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  2. johng Avatar
    johng

    Is the organisation called Respect or Respect Renewal?

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  3. David Ellis Avatar
    David Ellis

    Respect Johng. Why? Are you coming?

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  4. johng Avatar
    johng

    Nope. You have to be a registered member of ‘Respect Renewal’ to attend, which was why I asked.

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  5. Nas Avatar
    Nas

    The reason’s simple, johng. The people – your party comrades – who had took control of the email list for Respect have now moved on and decided to found a new organisation and then put it into moth balls. So, the only way there can be a proper conference of Respect would be for it to be organised by those who continue to constitute Respect.

    If the SWP want to come to the conference then there’s nothing to stop you mobilising for it. Do you want to come to the conference, john? If so, apply. Simple.

    I don’t imagine the interloper chair of Respect who the SWP imposed at a non-constitutional conference – Oliur Rahman – will be there. But I’m sure you will be, if you want to come. Do you?

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  6. Liam Avatar
    Liam

    There is only one organisation which now wants to use the name Respect so “Renewal” will fade from use pretty quickly. It’s not a major point.

    The conference will be a welcoming place for anyone who sees Respect as one component in the creation of a broad class struggle party and I hope that comrades who were in the party’s previous edition begin to see what we are trying to build as serious, pluralistic and democratic enough to consider joining. I suspect Nas feels the same way too.

    There will be no thundering denunciations or “annihilations” (as I understand they are called in some circles) of minority opinions, bloc votes or a single current having an effective working majority on the leadership. These were the things that made the old version of Respect deeply unattractive to many of the people we want to be part of the project. This conference will offer a different model of debate, discussion and building.

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  7. Nas Avatar
    Nas

    LIam: totally true. Let everyone come to the Respect conference who is a member of Respect. This thing is going forward. Even more so after the Glasgow East result. I would welcome the SWP turning up as they did to the last conference. One thing’s for sure – they won’t be holding their own conference; if they were to, it would even more obviously be a sham than last year.

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  8. Prinkipo Exile Avatar
    Prinkipo Exile

    Left Alternative also appear to be having a conference though it’s not clear when and where it is, what the agenda is, who’s entitled to attend or who constitutes the Conference Arrangements Committee.

    “5. Conference
    The suggested dates of the 25th and 26th of October are during half-term. It was agreed that we change the date till after half-term and have a 1-day conference. It was further agreed that the agenda be flexible and local campaigners be invited as observers.

    The Conference Arrangements Committee was agreed with the provision that others can put themselves forward.”
    Left Alternative NC Minutes June 2008

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  9. johng Avatar
    johng

    interesting news. so will you be inviting observers from left list then?

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  10. Doug Avatar
    Doug

    Left Alternative (isn’t it so much easier to just say SWP?), Repect Renewal. Who’ll be the first to provide ‘His’ and ‘Hers’ prayer rooms or creche facilties. Place your bets now.

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  11. TLC Avatar
    TLC

    Johng – I’ve no idea whether we will inviting any observers. The primary aim is to invite Respect members to take part – now if you’d like to register in line with the standing orders I’m sure you’ll accomodated.

    The discussion on electoral strategy should be interesting – perhaps you’ll be able to explain to those assembled why you are unable to decide if you’d prefer Jim Fitzpartick or George Galloway to elected in Poplar at the next election.

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  12. Liam Avatar
    Liam

    Normal practice is to invite observers from organisations with which one has a working relationship or one sees as sharing a common framework in another country.

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  13. Joseph Kisolo Avatar
    Joseph Kisolo

    This conference will be a real test for the organisation. If we get it right it could be the spring broad for building something beautiful out of the wreckage of the past year. If its fucked up, we gana be a long time before we build any new radical left-wing challenge.

    I really hope that we make into some thing really interesting where disagreement and debate is actively encouraged. I would encourage members to submit resolutions on topics where there is some debate, or that significantly take forward Respects policy so that rather then the ra-ra “war is shit”, “privatisation is bad” (they both are shit but we all knew so before the clappy clappy unanimous votes) rallies of the past.

    How about hosting some possible motions up on this blog for general open discussion before the conference, with the possibility of adding lots of different views to take to the conference?

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  14. Mark P Avatar
    Mark P

    “This conference will be a real test for the organisation” – Joseph

    There is a terrible, moralistic tendency on the Left of organising in a certain way because we feel we ought to rather than thinking through what we actually need to do.

    The central objective of Respect’s forthcoming conference is surely participatipn. We are a small, very small, organisation. It should be perfectly feasible to hold a conference which almost the entire membership attend. But that in itself is not enough, we shouldn’t be just providing an audience for a platform performance of tub-thumping rhetoric. Participation is what it says on the tin, taking part. If a traditional resolution based conference with amendments, compositing, speeches for and against achieves that then great. If it doesn’t, not so good.

    The key is shaping the forms best-suited to the organisation as it currently stands not get hung up on pre-existing formulas that in plenty of instances have proved anything but participative.

    Mark P

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  15. RobM Avatar
    RobM

    Mark,

    Surely the most important thing for RESPECT is to sort out its structures (formal democracy has been on hold for quite a while now), renew, refresh and flesh-out policy and begin to create an organisation equal to the tasks ahead.

    To do that we do need a proper, democratic conference at which the part y as a whole debates strategy.

    Of course we need to work hard to maximise participation and make conference as welcoming as possible to those who are, perhaps, new to politics. I doubt you will find (m)any in RESPECT who disagree with that.

    We can discuss precisely how we make conference welcoming and participative and I would hope that a substantial amount of discussion on this is reflected in forthcoming issues of the paper.

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  16. Joseph Kisolo Avatar
    Joseph Kisolo

    I kinda agree with Mark and Rob,

    On the resolution/amendment structure – I agree that it can fail to achive participation and can encorage back room top table deals etc. etc., however, I’m honestly not sure what a better alternative, that retains democratic involvment, is – and we certainly haven’t got time to set one up before next conference – so it looks like we are stuck with resolutions based conference for now.

    (aside: my only experience of an alternative system is the SWP conference system, where rather then motions, there is a pre-conference discusion period – then at the conference everyone is (in theory) free to speak from the floor, each sesion is summed up (in writting) by two people (chossen by conference arangements commitie), people are free to move amendments to this document and it is then voted on. In theory I think this system could actually be better then a resolutions based one in encoraging participation but my experience of it in practice is that it doesn’t work so well. The main problem is the amount of power it put in the hands of the person who makes the desitions about which speakers to call – prehaps though this could be tweeked?)

    The question then is how we maximise participation on a resolutions based system – personaly I think that the best way to do this is to get a bit of debate up and running, that way ordinary members have a reason to participate rather then if all the motions are anadine in which case why would they bother speaking? We shouldn’t assume that new/less experienced members won’t have views of their own. We also shouldn’t underestimate the pool of resorces in terms of knowledge in our small party.

    We certainly do need to get the formal bits a tad more sorted as Mark says.

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  17. Clive Searle Avatar
    Clive Searle

    I actually think that the resolutions and amendments method of making policy is a preety blunt method of generating policy on what may be quite complex issues. There are quite a number of other ways that policy ccan be arrived at that both is democratic and allows participation beyond the movers and seconders of motions and amendments.

    Here’s one example.

    Annual conference Year 1 accepts ‘motions on principals’ – these short and succinct motions outline the basic principals around an issue.

    If such a ‘motion on principals’ accepted the conference instructs the movers of the motion to draw up a detailed policy paper on that subject. Others are free to do the same but all must be inline with the basic principals outlined inthe orginal motion.

    These papers are then published and submitted for dicussion at regional – therefore smaller – policy conferences where the documents are discussed, refined and merged into one or, on the case of genuine disagreement, more final policy documents. Any member who wishes to discuss that issue will be able to attend and have their say. The aim would be collaborative deliberations.

    Annual Conference Year 2 – the refined policy document/s are submitted for discussion at the following annual conference. Amendments – paragraph by paragraph can be allowed. The documents and amendments can be voted on – for, against or remiited for further discussion.

    Now it’s a lot slower process but I suspect it generates better policy over the long run.

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  18. David Ellis Avatar
    David Ellis

    Mark P: I must admit that you are the very thing that the working clas is trying to escape. They are deperate for a voice. Desperate to be heard. Respect has to be that vehicle. Your controlling insincts are quite repulsive. Surely the leadership should have confidence in itself and confidence in ite membership. The council has to fight its corner as do the membership. Bring on the resolutions.

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  19. Mark P Avatar
    Mark P

    “Mark P: I must admit that you are the very thing that the working class is trying to escape.”

    Yes, yes, the ‘working class’ is straining at my ruthless leash desperate to compose ‘Conference notes… Conference believes… Conference resolves’ to put the world to rights isn’t it?

    “Bring on the resolutions.”

    Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Oh for the culture of Resolutionary Socialism. We’ll have a vote against climate change shall we? That should do the trick.

    As for ‘controlling instincts’ here we have an organisation of 3-400 members, not more than 5-6 functioning branches, a one day conference squeezed into around 7 hours. I can’t think of anything more ‘controlling’ than going throuigh the motions (sic) of a party conference culture that actively excludes participation and instead privileges the contributions, and lets be honest egos, of those immersed in one particular way of organising things because they’ve been doing it like this in student unions, trade unions, left groups for donkey’s years. And when we’ve waved our hands in the air to vote in favour of building more council houses we’ll all feel warm inside will we?

    Anything but ‘controlling instincts’. How about a conference that is messy and chaotic yet is something everybody takes part in, isn’t dominated by the same old faces who’ve learnt the trade of conferences. That realises only so much can be achieved in seven hours and focuses on matters we can effect rather than ones we can’t , that is about learning from each other not being spoken at. Oh and that might just have a smidgin of pleasure about it too (when was the last time you enjoyed a conference?). And finds a method of ensuring the conference reflects the will of all those who take part not just those who have the most to say.

    Hard isn’t it thinking what such a conference might look, sound like? Thats because its not what the left is used to. Perhaps that should be telling us something. Does Respect way to mimic existing left forms or will it be shaped by the communities it has successfully reached out to in East London and Birmingham in particular who have never been represented by these forms?

    Mark P

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  20. Joseph Kisolo Avatar
    Joseph Kisolo

    One barrier to involvement at conference has been removed post-split in that unlike other Respect conferences there will be no one big block of uniform votes.

    Mark, I don’t agree with David Ellis, in that I think the point you are making is a valid one – many conferences are dull, pointless rubber stamps on stuff we all agree on “i.e. climate change = bad” and give power to the people most used to organising around motions and amendments etc. Formal democratic structure does not a democracy make.

    However, since you don’t seem to offer any concrete example of an alternative way of organising a conference, its hard to judge where you envision us going? Could you elaborate on what “being shaped by the communities it has successfully reached out to” means in terms of what kind of different “forms” we should organise in?

    Clive has put forward one suggestion that looks interesting, I would like to see this developed further. I (kind of) put forward the only alternative I have experience of. It would be great if others could put forward some concrete suggestions, particularly Mark since he is the most critical of the current system.

    As for right now, i’ll repeat the point I made above, we ain’t got time to revolutionise the form of our conference before the next one, so right now we gana have to make the best of what we got.

    One thing I think is key to doing so is, rather then putting forward “climate change = bad” motions, that a) are uncontentiously right and b) are already reflected in Respects current policies, we should start circulating more complex and nuanced motions that take the policy forward. Roy Wilkes has already started circulating a motion on climate change that makes some very specific proposals, I would suggest others do like wise.

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  21. Mark P Avatar
    Mark P

    Its a good question Joseph, and I’m not claiming for the moment to have all the answers! I’m suggesting though two starting points

    1.> Don’t lets organise in way we feel we ought to but instead in a way that suits our needs

    2.> In a small organisation participation should be the priority, we cannot assume existing forms of organisation are necessarily the best way to facilitate this

    3.> Identify what we want an initiative like a national conference can best achieve.

    So from point one we can perhaps get away from this ridiculous idea that a resolutions based conference is the only form of democracy acceptable. We permit ourselves to at least investigate alternatives rather than the cul-de-sac of resolutions= democracy, nothing else is good enough.

    From point two we might for example use the seven hours of the conference primarily to enable horiziontal organisation. Sharing successes and failures between branches and individuals. Build dialogue with potential allies, Listen to constructively-minded critics. Most of all talk, listen and learn from each other.

    From point three structure point two around a handful of consensual objectives. These might be our expectations for the 2010 General Electioon campaign, both for our 3-5 target seats and for Respect members spread across the country. And we might want to consider the very particular political circumstances in which firstly Respect emerged – the War, and now the growing crisis of working-class representation. These could be the subject of conference narratives issued in the next month or so for everyone to participate in shaping via additions, deletions.

    The above would be messy and chaotic if hundreds of members want to take part, good! The difficulty is we’re bouncing ourselves into a same-old same-old structure of a conference that privileges the contribution of a few and which is in danger of serving no obvious purpose , certainly not in terms of Respect’s development. Anything would surely be better than that?

    Mark P

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  22. Liam Avatar
    Liam

    My experience of concensus based decision making is that it can be a polite veneer for very anti-democratic practices. The concensus emerges from an inner core and it’s “really bad karma” to offer a radically different view to the prevailing one on offer.

    At SR events we tend to break up the larger sessions into smaller workshops. This does allow for more detailed, less structured discussion and it is easy to see how working groups could help develop networks and ideas. However any policy that an organisation has requires a transparent method of changing it, amending it or overturning it. Dull and formal though it might often be the working class has still not developed a better method of debate and voting.

    One of the many dreary aspects of the old Respect conferences was the deftly inserted uplifting morality tale in which someone had been told by her or his leadership to say just how dead brilliant what they were doing was. Death by anecdote! A conference in which we work out what our politics are, how we connect with the end of Brown, decide our campaigning priorities and encourage people to build the organisation is what we need. It’s entirely possible to do that within the proposed structure.

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  23. Mark P Avatar
    Mark P

    “A conference in which we work out what our politics are, how we connect with the end of Brown, decide our campaigning priorities and encourage people to build the organisation is what we need.” – Liam

    In 7 hours (less lunch and tea breaks)? And at the same time encourage the maximum participation by all. Incidentally the latter has nothing necessarily to do with ‘consensus based decision making’ differences would still emerge in a structure based fundamentally on participation just not in the customary and often alien, for, against, hands in the air way that too many are willing to present as the sole form of democratic decision-making.

    All I am suggesting is that we fit the format of the national conference to our particular form of organisation and most pressing needs not what we feel we ‘ought’ to do because thats what we’ve always done.

    Mark P

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  24. ID Avatar
    ID

    I dont understand this notion of a “structure based fundamentally on participation just not in the customary and often alien, for, against, hands in the air way that too many are willing to present as the sole form of democratic decision-making.”

    Please describe it. Would people, either individually or collectively, be able to put forward written statements of proposed policy (“resolutions”), and have them discussed and voted on one way or another at the end of the discussion? And if not, what other way of taking decisions on policy is being proposed? Or if not, if people, collectively, can’t dicuss policy and then vote on it, how can they ‘participate’?

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  25. sloth Avatar
    sloth

    “As for ‘controlling instincts’ here we have an organisation of 3-400 members”

    And there was me…………..being told Tower Hamlets on its own had 700 members and when the SWP said it was not real members but part of the dodgy dealings they were lambasted for saying this, but it turns out they seem to have said the truth. Or where have all the members gone?

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  26. Joseph Kisolo Avatar
    Joseph Kisolo

    One of the most disempowering things, I saw at a past Respect conference was when, in a debate about Respect becoming more party like, the motion moved by the “party platform” people, there was a non-aligned bloke, I think he was a vicar, who talked about how he was enthusiastic about Respect but how he thought that there needed to be more structure to allow people like him (i.e. those not aligned to parties within Respect) to be able to effectually and systematically get their voice across. His very good points where then ignored by every speaker that followed him.

    Plenty of SWP speakers pitched in to the debate by ignoring the vicar and instead laying into the motives of the proposers of the motion. Then either John Lister or Allen Thornlet , I can’t quite remember, fucked it right up by instead of building on the very good points raised in favour of this motion went off on one about there being a different motion at conference about Scotland!? Apparently the NC had (undemocratically?) agreed there would be no discussion of the Scottish situation at conference!

    The motion about the political development in Scotland (which should have been non-conciousness in that it didn’t take sides in the split) was removed by Manchester (though I was in the Manchester delegation and would have preferred it stayed!).

    The motion about Respect’s structure (I think it was calling for a Delegate-Based National Council) was defeated. though I know that some SWP members at least voted against it just because they had been instructed to and because they were suspicious of the motives of the ISG rather then engaging with the debate.

    This is the kind of factional crap i hope we will have ditched at the next conference, were each motion should be considered on its merits in good faith rather then on the suggested motives of the movers of the motion. There should also be a sense in which the debate feels like it matters – i.e. that people actually listen to the debate and the result could go either way.

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  27. Joseph Kisolo Avatar
    Joseph Kisolo

    Mark I am all for your vision of a chaotic participatory conference and exploring possibilities that are not motion/amendment based but i think that you ignore the positive psychological affect of at the end of the discussion coming to a vote, hands raised in the air, on the issue at hand.

    Voting is important not just because abstractly “we feel like we ought to do it”, but because of what it archives, the feeling of empowerment for the members involved that, in a world where we have a say over very little, they are in control of Respect – that it is their party – it belongs to them. That is one of our “most pressing needs” because if people don’t feel they have a real alligence to their party they ain’t going to slog there guts out building it on the ground (or at least they will only do so for so long).

    I am hard pressed to see how any alternative that didn’t involve voting at some point (is this what you are suggesting it’s unclear?) could archive this?

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  28. Joseph Kisolo Avatar
    Joseph Kisolo

    archives=achives

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  29. steph Avatar
    steph

    Sloth, you’re engaging in some rather idle speculation there. Tower Hamlets may have hit a membership of 700 in 2005/6 around the time of the general election campaign, and the following year most of those people didn’t renew their membership. This is the point that Galloway raised in his infamous letter – that Respect was stagnating, membership was declining, yet the national office seemed to be complacent and needed an urgent shake-up. Basically the national office had just shifted the goalposts so that you would still be a member for two years after joining even if you didn’t renew.

    I’m afraid it won’t wash to try and claim that all those people who joined TH Respect at its high point were those few dozen ‘pocket members’ that both sides seem to have drummed up when things were at their low point.

    The figure that Mark P is talking about is those people who have actively joined Respect Renewal, even if they already had up-to-date Respect membership. As the formal status of Renewal was that of a ‘platform’ within Respect (at least until the SWP gave up the name), it was and is possible to be active in Respect without formally being a member of RR. That’s certainly the case for some people in Tower Hamlets now, and I’m sure it’s true of other areas, so the membership will no doubt increase a bit before the conference.

    But still, as Mark P says, we’re a small group and need to learn the lessons of past errors in order to rebuild. Whatever shape the conference takes, I think it will still be a refreshing change from our past efforts, and hopefully help us get our organisation sorted out to meet the challenge of the next election.

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  30. jim Avatar
    jim

    sorry confused.com…………what is the membership at present?

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  31. sloth Avatar
    sloth

    Steph
    Sorry for idle speculation!!
    But I was just raising an issue about there being 300 members as stated by RR members themselves and the figures given for membership in Tower Hamlets a few years back. No disputing that some members naturally drift in and out of political organisations but it seems a rather massive drop in your membership. Now if I remember back the conference of RR claimed something in the region of 350 people, seems that even those who went to the confernce have to some degree left RR.
    I think Kevin Ovenden has hit the nail on the head when he stated that without electing Galloway at the next general election the game is up.
    It is interesting that RR are out on the election trail already, ignoring anything else that takes place in the wider world. It suggests RR is an electoral party and nothing else. Its profile around the pay strikes was by all accounts very poor. If the left is to develop then this needs to change.

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