The overwhelming view inside Respect is that it is one component in a process of realignment that is taking place on the left British politics. It will be one part of a bigger class struggle, anti-capitalist, organisation. These videos of National Secretary Nick Wrack’s introduction at the recent national conference set this out very clearly.…
The overwhelming view inside Respect is that it is one component in a process of realignment that is taking place on the left British politics. It will be one part of a bigger class struggle, anti-capitalist, organisation. These videos of National Secretary Nick Wrack’s introduction at the recent national conference set this out very clearly.
Rob Griffiths of the Communist Party speech is a useful companion to Nick’s remarks.
Interesting to see BBC news reporter Nick Robinson standing behind him…
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“It will be one part of a bigger class struggle, anti-capitalist, organisation”
Then why should anyone stay in (With The Utmost) rather than forming/joining such a bigger organisation? And while the last few are turning out the lights, wouldn’t it be polite to offer use of the name back to the Respect majority, when it is clear from the conference that the current rump has fewer members than the SWP on its own?
Turning into Institute Of Ideas II is not a becoming sight.
I haven’t had the opportunity yet to actually hear the words on either of the videos.
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“It will be one part of a bigger class struggle, anti-capitalist, organisation”
Which has been the view of the majority within Respect since it’s foundation. Had you bothered to be involved you may have known this. Your pathetic jibes are more than tiring. Do you honestly think you are being either clever or political here?
“I haven’t had the opportunity yet to actually hear the words on either of the videos.”
This reminds me of all those Daily Mail readers who line up to condemn a film or play for whatever reason without seeing it first. Get a grip.
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I commented on remarks that were written on the post. You get a grip.
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“the majority within Respect ”
Have you swallowed a flagon of hallucinogenic mushrooms? Is your arithmetic mental, or what? Unless the SWP has less than 200 active members, they are bigger on their own than your rump. They are the majority.
“This reminds me of all those Daily Mail readers”
How dare you talk about Daily Mail readers when Galloway was at the head of the slavering mob over Ross and Brand, which was all about people being offended by a broadcast they hadn’t heard?
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Fascinating as this line of debate is I’ll start deleting comments that are not related to the political content of the post.
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You see Skidmarx – the SWP used to think that Respect was not the finished article either. Along with the rest of us your leadership understood that we needed to be part of something bigger – and this was the position from the very start of the process. It was the ‘majority’ position because everyone who was seriously engaged in the project knew we needed to get newer and larger forces involved.
That’s why we tried to get the Greens on board, that’s why we tried to get the CBP on board. That’s why we reached out to trade unionists, etc. Had you been involved in Respect you would have known this.
That you now turn this simple, obvious point into a silly, smug jibe shows just how little you understand.
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Actually it seems to mean that at the beginning the prevailing view was that Respect was an actual political party and not just a ginger group. That it was a separate pole of attraction from the Labour Party that thought it could take on Labour’s pro-war stance and win, not just a holding pattern for those whose personal vanity still blinds them to the failure of their project, which only now seems to have a mission of encouraging those in what the Progressive Democrats leader recently called “political parties”, which continually raises the question of why it still exists rather than the one of whether anyone new will ever join it (No).
With the risk of incurring Liam’s wrath, I might also point out that if Nick Wrack is repeating what’s been said before I’m not missing that much.
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A very nice, tidy speech from Nick.
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Skidmarx – you’ve given me an idea for a parallel site called “Liam’s Wrath”. I can get cross about the Top 20, 4 wheel drives, tea in cafes not made in a pot and much more.
It was never clear what the strategic plan for the old Respect was. Supporters of SR were clear. We wanted it to become a party. The core leadership never expressed a view .
The current Respect’s leadership has made plain what it thinks. Nick sets it out. He also makes plain that we are aware that it is a small fragile organisation but one that has a some role to play.
You would prefer that the organisation ceases to exist. What would you suggest we do after dissolving?
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Join an organisation with a future? Try and learn from your mistakes? (I’d currently suggest those include thinking that the split in Respect would benefit those not in the SWP and the world at large).
It’s not so much that I prefer that you give up the ghost as I think it has already left the building and it would be unfortunate not to recognise this.
Maybe join an organisation that isn’t tied to the whims of George Galloway, as his need for his own advancement now seems to be of a hindrance than a help.
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Actually, the SWP sect seems split down the middle at the moment between ultras and opportunists.
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Not necessarily your mistakes, but two of the things that convinced me that the other side of the split was in the right were the OFFU cheque business (as there was nothing in it, it seems clear afterwards that it was nothing more than an attempt to damage the SWP and so facilitate the takeover of Respect ) and Kevin and Rob pretending that they were still following the policies of the SWP at a time when they were advancing George Galloway’s interests against it (similar reasons). This is what made me think that the SWP was probably in the right, I started to be sure when Kevin started defending his new boss’ line on the de Menezes shooting and on Tibet.
Maybe it would be polite to offer use of the name back to the Respect majority. They may well have moved on, but it would help prevent a legacy of bitterness over the theft of the name to hinder co-operation between the SWP and members of groups like yours in the future.
I really don’t see what role it has to play when it was supposed to be an electoral coalition to start off with, to see it as evolving into some support group of the Left ignores the fact that it is less than the sum of its parts.
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“the OFFU cheque business (as there was nothing in it, it seems clear afterwards that it was nothing more than an attempt to damage the SWP and so facilitate the takeover of Respect ”
This really does take the biscuit, Skidmarx. You may have failed to notice two things. The first and most significant is that the donation was indeed impermissable and had to be repaid to the Electoral Commission. Perhaps you should read the Electoral Commission website for confirmation. Indeed, it was repaid recently from the unfrozen Respect account. In other words it was illegal to take the jmoney and we were right to point this out.
Secondly, you may have missed the motion passsed at last year’s SWP confernece criticising the taking of the donation. It was moved by tower hamlets SWP branch.
So it appears that you, a person with apparently so little knowledge of Respect’s history or politics, are probably the only person who still thinks the dodgy cheque was not dodgy.
As for the earlier point about Respect always feeling it should strive to be part of something bigger, let me tell you – as a person who has attended evrey NC of Respect since it’s first delegate conference – that nearly everyone on that body wanted us to be part of a bigger organisation with wider forces involved.
Having failed to get the Greens or CPB on board in the early days, we attempted negiotiations for joint election slates and other similar ideas. That we failed didn’t change the fact that we never expected Respect to be able to grow into the fully-fledged left of labour organisation without wider forces becoming involved.
The deabte was not about whether we should aim for this but how we should go about it.
Any one who pretends differently now is taking liberty with both history and the truth. But i suppose, skidmarx, considering you laxness with both these commodities in recent posts you’ll be all too happy to go along with this.
As an earlier poster suggested – time to get a grip.
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What a load of nonsense. So the cheque had to be paid to the electoral commission (nice little earner for them). So what? At the time it was being trumpeted as the final nail in the SWP’s coffin. The electoral commision didn’t ask for anyone to be charged with breaking electoral law. The only people who ever thought it was important are George Galloway’s cabal which presumably includes you. Not because it was of any real significance (though of course the excuse for taking it all to the electoral commission was that it was supposed to be a potential embarrassment to him), but because it was a convenient stick to beat the SWP with.So the SWP, led by Tower Hamlets branch decided it was a bad idea to have taken the donation. So what? As I suggested to an earlier poster – time to you to get a grip.
[Sorry about this Liam, but they keep starting it]
Only recently your splinter was claiming that it was going to get five MPs elected at the next general election. Now the idea seems to be to settle for being a thinktank for the rest of the left.Any one who pretends there’s no difference is taking liberties with both history and the truth. The only question is why anyone else on the left should feel that you can do anything for them that they can’t do for themselves.
Actually, the Respect cult seems split down the middle at the moment between ultras and opportunists.
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“Join an organisation with a future?” is a rather vague response to the question “What would you suggest we do after dissolving?”
Would you care to be more precise?
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“The only people who ever thought it was important are George Galloway’s cabal which presumably includes you.”
“So the SWP, led by Tower Hamlets branch decided it was a bad idea to have taken the donation. So what?”
Mmm, Just a minute. Are you suggesting that Tower Hamlets are in “George Galloway’s cabal”?
The fact remains that the Electoral Commission deemed the donation impermissable. Had the donation not been repaid, then electoral laws would have been broken. Your failure to understand even the basic tenets of this debate are astounding?
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I want to know what it is about the old top 20 that makes Liam cross.
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“Are you suggesting that Tower Hamlets are in “George Galloway’s cabal”?”
No.
” Had the donation not been repaid, then electoral laws would have been broken. Your failure to understand even the basic tenets of this debate are astounding?”
The donation was repaid. End of story. Except for fools who think anyone in the outside world will ever care. Your failure to understand that noone will ever care is astounding.
“Would you care to be more precise?”
I think that the carcass that is currently going under the name Respect has no future. I would suggest that if you don’t desire to spend more time at home to find an organisation to join/form that has some future for itself. I wouldn’t presume to tell you which one you should join.
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Skidmarx shows rather pathetically how a section of the British far left has lost touch with reality, and in so doing with rationality too.
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SWP member – when The Kings of Leon, X Factor Finalists and The Pussycat Dolls are the cutting edge of modern pop it is right to be cross. I hadn’t expected mainstream music to be so offensively dull in the 21st century.
And don’t get me started on Pink. Jesus! How shit is it possible to be?
Skidmarx – you obviously have firm ideas about politics. I’m sure that some readers are willing to take a steer from you if you could point them in the direction of an organisation which is seeking to build a democratic, pluralist class struggle party while we are waiting for one to emerge. Go ahead and presume.
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Perhaps Mr Skiddie thinks that the 90 people that turned up to the Left Alternative Conference last Saturday represents the future.
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“Skidmarx shows rather pathetically how a section of the British far left has lost touch with reality, and in so doing with rationality too.”
Somewhat ironic that this contains no rational argument.
I heard Galloway claim on the Talksport Whine Club last night that if he had been mayor he would have sacked Ian Blair straight after the de Menezes shooting. Yet of course back in January he and Kevin were attacking anyone who criticised Livingstone on the issue. When Livingstone came on last night Galloway only wanted to let him plug Progressive London. And when the legendary Karl in Plaistow said he would have liked to have questioned Ken on the shooting he was cut off by a mysterious technical error and was only allowed to talk about the benefits of immigration when he came back.[Maybe the excuse is that the case is sub judice, but that didn’t stop the host from giving his own opinion]
” I’m sure that some readers are willing to take a steer from you if you could point them in the direction of an organisation which is seeking to build a democratic, pluralist class struggle party ”
Nice that someone here can show some decorum.
The last time I attended an SWP meeting [Gary, get in touch] the least connected with reality moment I thought was when one of the members asked if I wanted to join, despite my having shown no interest in doing so. It becomes like a reflex, mostly a good one, but maybe often it would be better to wait until someone is closer to making up their own mind before pushing them. I hope that helps to answer you question. Oddly I think the SWP may have benefitted from this crisis, as the hamfisted attempt to destroy its influence as made it re-assert its core values in circumstances where as long as it does that it was likely to be in the right.
“Perhaps Mr Skiddie thinks that the 90 people that turned up to the Left Alternative Conference last Saturday represents the future”
Well Dickie, I see from your brother’s article on “What Happened To Respect”[I originally saw in on the US socialistworker. Can I not find it now just because their search function is a bit fucked, or have they taken it down out of embarrassment?] that the first Renewal conference had 370 attendees. So I think you’re on a severely declining curve. The first Left Alternative conference has 90 people -when the major force behind it isn’t obsessed with electoralism the way you are [Or maybe the SWP drifted towards electoralism in the last few years, I don’t know because I wasn’t there] then it says little but yes I think it is still likely to represent the future far more than your shrivelling cult.
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I see from your brother’s article on “What Happened To Respect”[I originally saw in on the US socialistworker. Can I not find it now just because their search function is a bit fucked, or have they taken it down out of embarrassment?]
Is this really a serious question? The level of your political debate astounds me.
But I’m glad you’ve cleared up why you seem to have so little grasp on the realities of Respect in its formative years – “I don’t know because I wasn’t there” That comment explains an awful lot.
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But, Skidnarx, since you appear to wish to read my article again and seem to be having trouble with the search engine (the problem is linking the old SW site with the New SW site, by the way) here’s the link. Enjoy.
http://socialistworker.org/2007-2/655/655_04_Respect.shtml
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Skidmarx
Do stop telling porkies about the London election campaign. No one in Respect “attacked” anyone who criticised Ken Livingstone over his backing for Ian Blair over the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes. No one. Making things up for polemical effect – or to wind people up – is not going to take us anywhere useful.
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Do stop telling porkies in general, or does it now comprise your entire raison d’etre? Like Candide, I have to go and work in the garden now (actually the park), so I don’t have time to dig up what you personally said on the subject, but here from a socialistunity thread entitled “We Need To Fight Seriously To Defend Ken Livingstone” is the comment of one Ed D who was clearly on your side of the debate.
EMERGENCY UNITE EXECUTIVE MEETING CALLED OVER LEGAL CHALLENGE TO DEREK SIMPSON
Here’s the highlights:
“It’s spin to call them “serious errors”. They were small errors in an operation that was always going to contain a very high level of risk. It would be astonishing if this sort of operation went smoothly; in similar circumstances in war zones this type of unfortunate mistake happens all the time.
If we’re honest with ourselves we all know that Livingstone was 100% correct to back him.”
I think you should withdraw your accusation as it embarrasses you further if that is possible.
“Is this really a serious question? ”
A light-hearted query.
““I don’t know because I wasn’t there” That comment explains an awful lot.”
Like Andy Newman, you take any admission of ignorance from your opponents as evidence that they are useless. And you can paint anyone who never admits to a weakness as cold-hearted ideologues.
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Skidmarx: “the comment of one Ed D who was clearly on your side of the debate”
Guilt by association is the last refuge of the desperate.
Assuming that the comments by “Ed D” are the same person, they come across more as a supporter of New Labour (not least because of the reference to “New Labour” in other posts).
In any case though, Respect was always intended to have a broad membership.
By the same logic as Skidmarx, one could allege that all SWP members are Tories because one of their number joined the Tories, or that they are all criminals because one SWP member who was an election agent for Respect got someone who was a convicted drug dealer who had served a prison sentence selected (and was not a legal candidate either).
More serious is that the chair/leader of the Left List/Left Alternative rump, defended by the SWP as a principled socialist, has now joined New Labour and will campaign for Gordon Brown’s government at the next election.
No-one would suggest that all Left Alternative supporters have the same lack of principles as this turncoat – merely that they were sadly mistaken in their attitude towards the sides they took within Respect.
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“Guilt by association is the last refuge of the desperate. ”
As Madonna’s character in Will & Grace would say, “Cut to me looking desperate”. You can find Kevin on the same thread arguing on the same side.
At the time it was quite difficult to spot the difference between supporters of New Labour and those from Galloway’s cabal who were saying that that was not the time to call for Blair to go but to rally round Livingstone. You and Kevin and the Surly Brothers can pretend all you want, but it won’t change what happened. It is still quite different to spot the difference, as anyone you get on with is Real Labour and those you don’t are New Labour, despite the fact that as Labour Party members they clearly seem to have more in common with each other than with you. I suppose one difference is that the Labour Party is still going to be around for a while yet.
“one SWP member who was an election agent for Respect got someone who was a convicted drug dealer who had served a prison sentence selected ”
So you clearly don’t believe in rehabilitation, and think our draconian laws against personal choice are a good way to fix what Galloway calls our Broken Society (though maybe he’ll move on to some other BS this week). Maybe that’s one reason I’ve never taken to your Prohibitionist Confederacy.
I see Galloway was supposed to hand out a Best Magazine award at a music ceremony on the weekend that had to be abandoned . Another fiasco he’s associated with.
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Ed D is a well known commenter on left blogs, he is a determined supporter of Tony Blair, the war in Iraq and New Labour.
I am not aware at any time when Ed D expressed any opinion i support of either george galloway or Respect.
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“So you clearly don’t believe in rehabilitation, and think our draconian laws against personal choice are a good way to fix what Galloway calls our Broken Society (though maybe he’ll move on to some other BS this week). Maybe that’s one reason I’ve never taken to your Prohibitionist Confederacy.”
I do believe in rehabilitation. The point was the candidate did not declare the (recent) conviction and was ineligible to stand thanks to our electoral laws – draconian or otherwise. I suppose it was more to do with incompetency of the SWP, than politics though.
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Perhaps you could show some quotes from the period showing Kevin or Galloway or anyone from Respect(George Galloway) calling for the resignation of Ian Blair, for Livingstone to sack him, and how the mayoral election and the need to rally roung Ken is no reason to sideline the issue.
Or if that’s too much why didn’t Galloway raise it with Livingstone when they were discussing Blair’s pay-off on the show on Friday, and why was the legendary Karl from Plaistow cut off when he tried to say it’s what he would have wanted to raise with Livingstone ?
In the absence of the first it is still offensive to be accused of lying by Kevin, even if he does so in Cockney rhyming slang. Respect’s brown bread, mate.
“The point was the candidate did not declare the (recent) conviction ”
Then why mention it was for drug dealing?
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Here’s a quote from Phil. I believe he’s a “REspect” supporter:
There is no justification for not taking on Livingstone over, eg., the Menezes shooting.
In principle I agree completely. In practice, here and now, in the last couple of weeks of a very close election which I don’t think anyone here wants Boris Johnson to win, I agree with Tony:
attacks on Livingstone will not make people think “yes, we need a left alternative”. They will mesh together with the attacks from the right and make a rightward shift that much more likely
http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=2104#comment-62231
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And here’s tonyc on the same thread:
Phil,when is the right time to stand up for the right of innocent Brazilians not be shot on the tube?”
This isn’t even left-wing politics.
This is like those responses that reactionaries give the left when we talk about the rights of suspected criminals – “what about MY RIGHT NOT TO BE MURDERED WHEN I WALK DOWN THE STREET?” No context, no politics, and an attempt to stifle real, meaningful discussion on how socialists should react to situations.
Socialists are supposed to be the ones with the ability to differentiate between different periods, different questions that need to be raised and different campaigns that need to be waged.
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Since Galloway’s acolytes have shut up since I produced some quotes from actual “Respect” supporter attacking anyone who criticised Ken Livingstone over his backing for Ian Blair over the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes [Kevin, I’d like that apology for calling me a liar now], I think I’ll proceed to some general analysis of the method by looking at a couple of contributions to the same thread. First though here’s a comment from Nas:
“If 150 at an aggregate is a proper measure of the SWP membership fully engaged, then it is smaller than the Socialist Party in London. Here’s a predication for you: the Left List will not exist in two months time ”
Well they changed the name to Left Alternative. But obviously my intention is to ask what if we say the same about Respect?
Oh, and I missed this question from Phil at the time:
“As for ’skidmarx’ –
Phil,when is the right time to stand up for the right of innocent Brazilians not be shot on the tube?
perhaps he/she could let us know when he/she has protested about it before now – in print, on blogs, in comment threads, whatever.”
Defending your organisation from the charge that it supported the cover-up of a report on the shooting by attacking an individual for being powerless is really quite sad.
Anyway, let’s have a look at two quotes, one from “sergo”[Who I assumed to be Kevin, but may have been a corporate identity for Galloway acolytes] and “Dave Festive” [I hope you are still festive]
First sergo, http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=2104#comment-62275 :
“To suggest that Galloway, above all, is covering up on the question of the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes is a deliberate and disgraceful slur, of which the SWP and its apologists on this blog have become masters. It both ignores his previous statements on the subject and the fact that his former parliamentary assistant Asad Rehman led and continues to lead the De Menezes campaign. ”
Now Dave Festive, http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=2104#comment-62278
“i asked earlier, i’ll ask again – when? when during this election campaign has galloway, or any prominent member of renewal, criticised livingstone? and if helping someone who covered up a murder to get off scot free isn’t something you can justifiably criticise livingstone over, then what the hell is?”
Sergo made no attempt to respond. Again I’ll repeat, having come into this without any preconceptions other than a general sympathy with both the SWP as a whole and Kevin and Rob as ex-comrades, all I knew for sure was that both sides couldn’t be right. It was exchanges like this that started to convince me that Galloway was just another bourgeois politician who might make some radical statements to cover himself, but was quite prepared to turn around and say the opposite or keep quiet if he thought it would help his personal advancement. Probably he saw an early episode of The West Wind about plausible denialability and thought “I’ll have a bit of that”. Presumably Kevin’s confidence in calling me a liar was down to a belief that this method doesn’t leave any tracks.
Thanks to comrades like johng and lenin and those outside the party like Adamski for putting such cogent arguments during that period.
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From last December:
“Livingstone’s disgraceful behaviour in relation to the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes was for one reason only – to protect New Labour’s back. Shoot to Kill was a New Labour response to the problems stirred up by the illegal invasion of Iraq. Livingstone showed whose side he was on, and it wasn’t ours. It may be possible to make out a case for calling for second preferences to go to Livingstone, but if there is Andy’s uncritical enthusiasm for the man doesn’t do it for me. Is Respect Renewal going to be in Livingstone’s pocket? From Andy’s arguments I am really worried that that is what is going to happen. ”
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There were / are diverging views about Ken Livingstone inside Respect. Socialist Resistance’s view was that it was not possible to give political support to Livingstone. An article setting out our view is here
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The vote for Livingstone was in solidarity with the thousands of workers and minorities who were voting for him to try to keep Johnson out. It gained good votes for Respect in the Assemly election because it enabled Respect to connect with those people instead of pissing them off like the sects. It’s called tactics.
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Liam, I accept that Socialist Resistance had a diverging view.
David Ellis, fair enough if you wanted to back Ken Livingstone uncritically and therefore thought criticizing him over the de Menezes shooting inconvenient or wrong. I massively disagree with you and might have some insulting things to say about such a position, but at least it could be honestly put.
What is not acceptable is for Kevin to say:
“Do stop telling porkies about the London election campaign. No one in Respect “attacked” anyone who criticised Ken Livingstone over his backing for Ian Blair over the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes. No one.” when it is manifestly untrue, and fail to apologize when this is shown to be the case.
And do stop trying to pretend that the SWP is a sect when they are larger than you, you cult.
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“Thanks to comrades like johng and lenin and those outside the party like Adamski for putting such cogent arguments during that period”
A tear fills the eye….(bloody hell there was some purpose to high blood pressure at the computer). I actually think the rows over now though really.
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Yes John- being lumped in with the likes of Adamski would bring a tear to my eye too.
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After hearing Galloway say he was going to talk about apologies on his radio show last night, I half expected to find one here from Kevin.
“I actually think the rows over now though really.”
That would be nice. Though the core of what’s left of Renewal does seem to still be trying to justify its existence by attacking those to the left, and the history still seems important enough for Kevin to make up fantasies about it.
I expect some of them will wake up if they fail to win the Mile End byelection tomorrow, though if they scrape in the belief that having a few councillors is really important will persist for a while.
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Apologies to those of you who don’t read French.
On the subject of re-writing history the quote below, which will shortly, be available in English on the International Viewpoint website, is a good example of a post hoc justification. It comes from a debate between Alex Callinicos and Francois Sabado on the LCR’s website.
“Dans le cas de Galloway et de son entourage, le déclin du mouvement anti-guerre depuis le sommet atteint en 2003 s’est combiné au pessimisme quant à la capacité des travailleurs organisés de résister de manière efficace aux attaques du New Labour et du patronat pour amener la conclusion que pour aller de l’avant Respect devait nouer des alliances avec des notables musulmans locaux qui pourraient faire gagner des voix. Mais ce raisonnement – et la scission qu’il a produit dans Respect – se superposait à une réconciliation croissante entre Galloway lui-même et le New Labour.”
http://www.lcr-lagauche.be/cm/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1180&Itemid=53
And there was me thinking it had something to do with the prospect of an imminent election and a hyper controlled organisation that was barely functioning.
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I finally heard the audio. Perhaps I should just note his stated desire to deal with the rest of the left in a friendly, comradely non-sectarian manner and leave it at that. I can’t help saying that the first one has a Mel Gibson “The bosses and politicians can attack us, but they cannae take our freedom” moment, while the second ends with a cheap imitation of MLK’s “I have been up to the mountain, and I have seen the promised land”. [While I’m on the subject, a friend of mine who did a copy of van Gogh’s “Wheatfield With Crows” on the side of his house in London Fields in cement paint, before spending the last decade in Dartmoor prison when he told the police he’d buried a body in the basement of that house before concreting the floor over, once did a mural of MLK in Australia: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/25/1050777406954.html
just the mural: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/55/King-mural-07.jpg/800px-King-mural-07.jpg%5D.
More generally, Nick Wrack is vague on politics, willing to claim great electoral success for the organisation as is without any analysis of why he expects it to grow in the future- he’s still claiming that “Respect” is likely to get three MPs elected at the next general election. I’ve previously stated why I think there’s several reasons why the vote is on a downward spiral, which I don’t think can be overcome with appeals to specific ethnic communities (as would seem to be the reason for Galloway’s ongoing pre-occupation with Somalia). When it was set up I understand Respect was supposed to be a broad organisation with an ability to unite those opposed to the war, now it is a small organisation still with little coherence, with only its belief that its electoral success will continue to give it any reason for a separate existence.
I don’t think many people will want to take the Respect newspaper door-to-door and those that do will burn out very quickly.
Of course I wasn’t trying to prolong a row, it was started because I stated my perceptions of how the split in Respect developed. There were a couple of things in Kevin’s protest letter about his expulsion that similarly pushed me towards beileving the SWP’s narrative rather than his. First the way he had no clear political differences with the CC he was prepared to identify, yet claimed this would never have happened in the party of Foot and Cliff. I don’t think either of them would have been particularly amused by party workers refusing instructions without a damn good reason. Secondly, rather than spelling out clearly what he thinks the CC was doing wrong politically, Kevin refers vaguely to them missing a huge opportunity. Like the way the dole presents the long-term unemployed with an Opportunity, that is often nothing of the sort. All in all it made me think that Rob and Kevin failed to leave the party honestly so as to make it easier in the muddied waters for their new boss to oust the SWP from Respect. A few months ago Rob said that he didn’t remember it like that, but I find his and Kevin’s explanations lack even internal credibility, and that has certainly coloured my view of all the subsequent arguments.
And Kevin , you still owe me an apology for calling me a liar. [Liam, I don’t mean to go on about this.]
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“… if they scrape in the belief that having a few councillors is really important will persist for a while.”
If Respect do win I don’t suppose it will fill quite as many column inches as this and its linked articles in Socialist Worker:
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=11349
Remember those days Skidmarx? It seems oh so long ago now, but it was actually only last year that SW put the line that “having a few councillors is really important”.
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“it was actually only last year that SW put the line that “having a few councillors is really important”.”
In terms of the thing, you can do without the word “actually” and not compromise your meaning.
I was meaning to point out how useless Clive Searle’s partial quote from me was ” Or maybe the SWP drifted towards electoralism in the last few years, I don’t know because I wasn’t there” , when I realized that I didn’t intend to put the “Or” in at all.
I did think of repeating my earlier reply to the same inane comment: “Like Andy Newman, you take any admission of ignorance from your opponents as evidence that they are useless. And you can paint anyone who never admits to a weakness as cold-hearted ideologues.” and perhaps suggesting that maybe it a bit of objectivity comes from not having been involved so much. But then I thought it worth pointing out this this is common practice whenever the “respect” high command have no argument to make (and wish to shift attention from Kevin’s lie), they try to shift the argument to an exchange of abuse so that the original point gets buried. It’s undignified, and you’re never going to build a mass movement that way.[And Nick Wrack claims “Respect” has electoral fortresses, more like castles in the sand or air]. Perhaps the next poll here should be,
“Do you think Respect best described as
(i) No Bullshit
(ii) So Bullshit
(iii) I have no idea what you’re talking about
Liam, my French is really bad [Though I did make up one joke- “Encore, plus un foi, la probleme avec les francaises est-ce que ils n’avent pas un mot pour deja vu”.], but I do recognize the word “musulman” from my reading of Primo Levi, and wonder if Callinicos covered the same ground here:
http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=484&issue=120
“In the case of Galloway and the circle around him the decline of the anti-war movement from the peak it achieved in 2003 combined with pessimism about the capacity of organised workers to mount effective resistance to the attacks mounted by New Labour and the bosses. The conclusion was that the way forward for Respect lay in sustaining alliances with local Muslim notables who could deliver votes. But this reasoning—and the split that it produced in Respect—was overlain by a growing reconciliation between Galloway himself and New Labour. This was reflected first in his support for Ken Livingstone’s unsuccessful re-election campaign for Mayor of London in May 2008 and then in his rallying to the aid of Gordon Brown’s beleaguered government during the Glasgow East parliamentary by-election that July, when a Blairite candidate was defeated by a massive swing to the Scottish National Party.”
You have 20/20 hindsight, he makes a post-hoc justification, they didn’t realize how right they were until later.
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Liam is a master at re-writing history.
For example, in 2006 on this very blog he suggested that the current Chair of Tower Hamlets Respect Renewal was involved in ballot rigging and attempting to buy votes, he praised the SWP for saying that such behaviour was unacceptable. He argued that the faction around Abjol Miah in Respect represented a narrow, parochial, local petit-bourgeois populist vision that contrasted unfavourably with the SWP (whom he also had many criticisms of) who at least were articulating a broader working class socialist perspective.
It would seem every other week Liam would attack George Galloway MP viciously.
He poignantly described how Galloway blew it.
In the 2005 election, Liam wrote that Galloway was a hero doing meeting after meeting on white working class estates in East London where no other politicians had any cache, but then he disappeared and never returned, and the people who had loved him felt betrayed. He described his personal experience in his tenants group where people went from Cheering the name of Galloway to Jeering the name of Galloway.
Liam could only be characterised as being in extreme bad faith.
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“Thanks to comrades like johng and lenin and those outside the party like Adamski for putting such cogent arguments during that period”
Thank you for these kind words. Though to be honest, I now regret some of the comments I made during that period – not the general political points, but some of the unfraternal and hostile tone of my posting.
Like many people I was quite angry , disorientated and upset during the split.
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Just on a random tangent, I noticed if you click on my name on my last two comments, instead of going to the site of my local organisation due to a spelling mistake you end up at a “MEGA-SITE of Bible, Christian, church & religious information”. I have corrected the spelling mistake on this post!
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It’s nice for someone to use the words “to be honest” and obviously mean it.
It was very disorienting to come to the debate on the split from a position of comparative ignorance. It did seem to me at the time, and this was another thing that helped me make up my mind, that the anti-SWP contributors were more abusive, and a much higher proportion used abuse as a substitute for debate rather than in addition.[ This is on socialistunity, the first site I found after googling Kevin and SWP was Dave’s Part, which was just a series of anti-SWP rants; at least there was some debate on the former]. My conclusion was eventually that the reason things were unclear was that those who had split from the SWP were deliberately making it so.[OFFU cheque-Emperor’s New Clothes].
Sometimes unfratenal and hostile is just a natural response.
I wonder if it doesn’t say much for the state the SWP was in that the “traitors”(as about the only comrade from Oxford with a local accent called them when I met him at the anti-fascism carnival in Victoria Park. He had some specific bitter words about Rob) thought it would be easy to fuck them up. There is an interesting passage in Mark Steel’s new book where he talks about how those who disagree in meetings were liable to be corrected as by an irritated maths lecturer. I felt a lot like that in my early days in the party twenty years ago, but came to accept it as the way a revolutionary party is likely to operate when it is in a relatively small,relatively propagandist phase, with a high degree of agreement among members. Maybe it led to a certain degree of sterilty over the years and an optimism of the intellect. As I said earlier in the thread, hopefully the hamfistedness of this attack will have strengthened them.
Incidentally, Kevin Ovenden always seemed to take the party’s current line and argue it without a second thought, paradoxically that was one thing that gave me pause when making judgements, if he was leaving the party then surely there must be something in it. But no.
Incidentally, Nick Wrack in the videos keeps a lot of the style of an SWP speaker. But the content is utterly vacuous,revealing a party only linked by its desire for power.
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Liam redux 
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