Today’s Respect conference was another step on the long road to building a class struggle option to New Labour. This time it didn’t feel like we were walking down a cul de sac. Some may pine for whipped votes, cobbled together electoral slates and uplifting demagogy but the Bishopsgate Centre was bereft of them.
Conference was told that 210 (if memory serves) people registered and that there were 20 or so visitors and observers. There was a good geographical spread with strong contingents from Manchester, Bristol and Birmingham. Big up to Bromsgrove Respect which mobilised 100% of its membership.
George Galloway gave the opening speech. My hunch is that some readers will find the next couple of paragraphs tendentious and upsetting. If you are one of them why not just skip on a bit?
Respect he said was going on despite the split and it remains the most electorally and politically significant force on the British left. He thanked the leadership for its work in negotiating our retention of the name and said that we are in a potentially very fertile period for the organisation. Our aim is to have three MPs come the next general election.
Looking at the economic situation he remarked that the capitalist system as we know it has failed and that some of the businesses which are now receiving big dollops of public money should be taken into state control
Are most working class people interested in arguments about the differences between dead Russians? “No” was George’s answer. It’s a source of deep regret to me but he is probably right. In our public activity and press we have to use language that makes sense in working class communities. It’s a radical idea but it might be worth giving it a spin.
Rob Griffiths of the proper Communist Party was next up. I thought he gave a very good and constructive speech. He began by remarking that talk of the crisis of capitalism is now becoming commonplace among trade union militants. It’s no longer the preserve of the hyped up far left who’ve been devaluing the phrase by endlessly using it when capitalism obviously was doing pretty well by its own lights.
If this listener understood correctly Rob has given up with Labour. There is no longer a mass working class party giving positive reforms for working people. “Speaking as a friend to friends” he observed that the problem of the lack of working class representation is not going to be solved either by the Communist Party or Respect. I’m not sure what he was talking about when he added that neither would it be solved by what he called “the front organisation of a small left wing sect”. Your guess is as good as mine there.
He made some pretty definite proposals about things that could be done in the near future. They made a lot of sense. First up was a charter to garner signatures around demands connected to the dire economic situation. Later in the day Nick Wrack reported back to conference on a meeting he attended with Bob Crow and others at which this was discussed in more depth. Before that though Rob became all bizarre and made ludicrous suggestions about elections. Apparently there are some left wing Labour MPs we could all happily vote for. We could have non aggression pacts between left organisations. We could have a common approach in seats where the fascists have a chance of winning. All this would be preceded by a process of seeking discussions and finding areas for common action. When was the last time you heard such utopian nonsense? That’s not how the British left has achieved its hegemonic position in society!
Mark Steele followed that. I gave up taking notes after a couple of nanoseconds and if you’ve heard Mark speak you’ll know why.
The job for Respect at this conference was to allow a clear discussion and come up with a response to what is happening in the economy and the changing political situation. A number of resolutions addressed this.
The motion “Defending working people” was adopted with no opposition. It called for Respect to begin agitating and organising around these demands
A freeze on council rents for the coming financial year.
A freeze on leaseholder service charges for the coming financial year.
A freeze on council tax, parking fees and other charges for the coming financial year.
Pay increases to at least match inflation for all local government employees.
Maintenance of current levels of local government service and employment.
Demand that central government meets any funding gap.
Money currently spent on the wars and socially harmful programmes can be diverted for this purpose.
Investment in a programme of council house building.
The thinking here is that the party’s limited weight in local government can be used to build an opposition to neo-liberal solutions which links people who rely on the local state and those who work for it. The section on the economic situation resulted in the passage of a resolution calling for the organisation
To campaign for the public ownership of the financial institutions.
To support campaigns launched in defense of wages, pensions and jobs.
To support the campaign against fuel poverty.
To call for a halt reposessions on mortgage defaults and for the requisition of empty housing.
To call for a halt to all further privatisations.
To call for an immediate programme of house building, free home insulation, and investment in renewable energy to preserve jobs.
We call for new and extensive investment in public transport. To organise a series of public rallies around the country to present this alternative.
Most votes were passed with very large majorities. Only the resolutions on climate change registered a modest protest vote. The closest thing to a row was the discussion on the CPGB’s resolution to affiliate to HOPI. Some duplicitous cynics have outrageously hinted that the CPGB is not fully committed to building Respect. Codswallop like that does not deserve to be dignified with a reply.The two members who attended were a valued asset to conference. Honour was saved on all sides when an amendment calling for Respect ” to support initiatives of campaigns such as Hands Off the People of Iran and the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention.”
My only quibble that the conference could have been longer. It finished at 4pm so that members could go to canvass in the Mile End by election. This was worth doing but by elections come and go while opportunities to have national conferences are very rare. But these things are sometimes a tactical judgement and a good result will be very welcome.
The Respect that emerged from today’s conference is a stronger organisation. There were contested elections for the leadership. This was done on the basis of voting for individual candidates and even though it is a d
ull job counting the votes there is no room for jiggery pokery when it comes to seeing who got elected and why. This was a small organisation, deeply aware of its own limitations setting its face to the future and equipping itself with the politics to offer leadership for working people in the coming recession and looking to be part of the process of creating a new class struggle party.
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Liam redux 
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