Guest post: the Respect manifesto
Posted on Tuesday 30 January, 2007
Filed Under Uncategorized
One of the things I am hoping to do with this blog this year is to develop its role as a forum for strategic debate on the British left. To that end, I’d like to publish a range of guest posts, including both pieces written by socialists and material from non-socialists on questions of interest to the left. There would not be much point doing that if the guest posters agreed with me, would there?
So to get the ball rolling, here’s Snowball – who blogs at Histomat – putting the case for socialists to support Respect. Needless to say, this post does not accord with the editorial line of Dave’s Part.
Although I’m grateful to Snowball for the contribution, I can’t help noticing that he ducks most of the common criticisms of the formation, from its lack of democracy to its abandonment of the lodestar of socialist theory, namely class politics. Go easy on him, guys!
A spectre is haunting British politics: the spectre of href="http://www.respectcoalition.org/index.php?sec=1">Respect. All the powers that be have entered into href="http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/salma_yaqoob/2006/08/not_so_bright_martin.html">an unholy alliance to exorcise this spectre: The href="http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0517-35.htm">American Senate and Sky News, papers ranging from the href="http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1694421,00.html?gusrc=rss">Daily Telegraph to the href="http://www.respectcoalition.org/index.php?ite=298">Observer, innumerable commentators ranging from the neo-conservative Right to the ‘anti-totalitarian Left’. Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as linked to href="http://histomatist.blogspot.com/2007/01/controlling-future.html">‘the left in the unions and the SWP’ by its opponents in power? Where is the reactionary href="http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.story.page&obj_id=127152">opposition or href="http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=8124">ruling party that has not tried to reclaim the word ‘Respect’ from the Respect Coalition for their own nefarious political purposes? Two things result from this fact: I. The Respect Coalition is already acknowledged by all political powers to be itself a power. II. It is high time that Respect supporters should openly, in the face of the whole blogosphere, advance their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the spectre of Respect with the simple truth. The Labour Party has, historically, played a very useful role in the history of working class political representation in Britain. Whenever it has been outside of power it has demanded social reforms to benefit the working class, and whenever it has got the upper hand it has shown itself in practice almost identical if not worse than the old bourgeois parties. The apparently novel mixture of imperial war crimes abroad and neo-liberal privatisation at home which constitutes New Labour is not something altogether new. href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/hallas/works/1973/05/labour.htm">Lenin foresaw the inevitability of Blairism when he warned of ‘bourgeois agents operating within the labour movement, permeating that movement with bourgeois influence, bourgeois ideas, bourgeois lies and bourgeois corruption’. Regular readers of Dave’s Part do not need any reminding about New Labour when it comes to seeing how they are ‘tied by a thousand threads’ to capitalist society, threads composed both of capitalist ideas and money, capital itself. Respect is, however, something new. It celebrated its third birthday last week after emerging out of the mass anti-war movement which has shaken British society since 2003. Of course there have been radical left alternatives to Labour before, but for the last fifty years or so none of them have been able to mount an effective electoral challenge to Labour, despite Labour’s betrayals of the working class once in power. The beneficiaries of Labour’s past betrayals accordingly have never been the radical left, but instead have always been the right: the last time around, in 1979, Thatcher. The fascist right also find such conditions ideal for them to raise their head and attempt to fill the political vacuum (the National Front in the 1970s and the BNP today). Already the Tories under Dave Cameron are waiting, hoping the pendulum of British politics will swing back their way again. A mild revival in the fortunes of the Tories (and even the href="http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=9739">fascists) is not a problem at all for New Labour the whole justification for its political strategy rests on the idea of href="http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1811814,00.html">triangulation, shifting ever Right, safe in the knowledge that its core vote has nowhere else to go. Yet the cynical strategy of triangulation falls apart the moment that a credible left alternative appears. Respect’s activists have played an important role alongside other activists in the href="http://www.stopwar.org.uk/">Stop the War Coalition – including many on the Labour left – in making sure that Blair is on his way out of Downing Street and hopefully into some sort of international criminal court. Yet crucially Respect has also succeeded in directing at least some of the passion, strength and power of the anti-war movement against New Labour in the electoral arena – and the historic achievements here will have to be maintained and built on over the coming months and years in the looming political confrontations with Blair’s successor Brown (and, sorry folks, it will be Brown). However, the Labour Party – despite its bourgeois lie and bourgeois corruption – is going to be a long time dying. But dying it is, and unless profound disillusion, passivity, cynicism, war crimes and a rise in hatred of immigrants and Muslims are going to be the sole legacy of over one hundred years of Labour Party history then a radical left alternative has to be built to defend and build on the few social reforms that Labour did deliver in the past. Respect, in its short and dramatic history, and for all its faults, has already proved that in Britain, as in Europe, a space exists to the left of parties like New Labour which promote corporate globalisation and war. The greatest barrier against Respect successfully filling that political vacuum are not the slanderous accusations of ‘islamofascism’ thrown against us by pro-war liberals, but the size of our forces compared to the challenge and tasks ahead. 41 Responses to “Guest post: the Respect manifesto”
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This is very weak Snowball.
In particular, why should activists join respect when it adopts a coalition model that simulataneouslsy means its elected representaives are unaccountable, and also allows the SWP complete freedom of manouvre.
An organisation that has no internal democratic life to particpiapte in, and thereofre provides no opportunity for activists to shape policy.
An organisation where every conference is conducted in such a state of hysteria that large numbers of delegates resign after each one!
I was speaking to a very long term member of the SWP, a national committe memebr for many years, who told me that he thought all the hype about respect was very very damaging, and it had been impossible to build it in his town.
You may also be intersted in my (very) recent post about the expulsion of Respect national Council member, Ger Francis, from the SWP.
http://socialistunity.blogspot.com/2007/01/swp-expels-leading-member.html.
Surprisingly enough, my views of both triangulation as strategy and the difference between Labour in and out of power are both close to Snowball’s…
Dave,
I have been thinking about this one ever since my blog started over a year ago. I was one who thought that the Labour Party could be taken back, but I no longer hold that view.
My essay on the theme has just gone up at my place. You are welcome to post it here if you wish.
Listen, I am sick and tired of various types who try to tell me what to think and believe. Either we have our own party or we don’t. If we do it has to be based on our culture and our values.
I am tired of defeat and weary of having to be nice to folk that I really despise. We must decide once and for all: do we really want our children to suffer the same shit that we have lived through for almost 30 years? Do you really want your daghters to have to get pregnant to get a damned council flat? My nephew in Manchester is now 40 and he has never had a proper job.
People, it is as basic as that. So let’s lose the toy-town bolshevism. Our people don’t believe it…
While not being particularly attracted by Respect it might be said in their favour that they have managed to involve people in left politics who were not involved before ad that they have managed to attaoin a rather higher profile than is true of most of the rest of the left. These things matter, and are good. Moreover, if there’s things missing from their programe that I would prefer to see there, that’s always going to happen if you work with people with whom you have serious differences: it’ll happen in any organisation or campaign that’s bigger than a handful of people.
However, it’s still hard not to ask the question – “where are you intending to go with this?”. (It’s not my only reservation, by the way, but I’m being fraternal here. Or maybe I’m just short of time.)
Thanks for posting this Dave – and cheers for comments – I acknowledged in my post that Respect did have ‘faults’ but to try and deal with these at length in such a short number of words would have been impossible.
On democracy – the democratic structures have to be built from the bottom up by Respect branches – this takes time. However, so far, the elected officials (18 councillors and one MP) have been accountable to conference decisions it seems to me.
I hope my post did not appear to be too full of hype – but Respect has achieved important things in its short time. However, there is still an awfully long way to go but I remain convinced that the building of a socialist alternative to New Labour is the best way to stop the ‘great moving Right show’ of British politics.
I shall leave aside the amusing suggestion that an all-seeing clairvoyant Lenin foresaw Blairism. Nostrodamus: to the dustbin of history!
How can a Party that has lost half of its members in a couple of years be a Spectre haunting anything than a few dusty pubs and grime-spattered meeting halls?
How can, as Dave says, it present a response to the ‘crisis of class representation’ when it has only residual class politics, and its handful of local elected figures are largely religious, and believers in a Divinely ordered society in which class harmony prevails?
How is Respect a credible alternative to New Labour’s bureaucractic ways when its elected representatives make policy on the hoof (eg against Sex clubs) and vote without any accountability to the party (the list for Galloway is too long to post)?
How can anyone talk of Respect’s ‘historic achievements’ when all 99% of the population know of it is that its leading light made himself a laughing-stock on Big Brother?
How the hell Snowball is anyone going to take you seriously when the hurdy-gurdy of the SWP- inspired type of activism melts you out quicker than a visit to Hell?
Snowball, the problem is not that you post had hype, but that it had no substance.
The criticisms of respect come not only froom thse who were salways opposed to it, but also from people who have served on its national council, and stood as respect candidates.
It is frankly dishonest to say that democracy as to be built from the bottom up, given two things. i) the coalition model decides that Respect’s local structures are not soveriegn, as decisions are taken elsewhere (in SWP branches, or he cabals around the various councillors); ii) centrally Respect is dominated by forces who do not want the branches to be such democratic forums. (Look at Liam mac Uaid’s expereince on the branch committe in Tower Hamlets, for example, where leading SWP staff members mocked the idea of holdng Galloway accountable)
And I thought you had 22 councillors?
Snowaball, are you actually active in respect? I ask becasue it seems most SWP members are not, and if you are not in a functional resepct branch, then on what authority do you write about hoe the Coalition works?
I was a member of Respect until a few months ago. Over the last few months not only I but all the active non SWP members in our branch got fed up and left. Our branch was a rarity in that only a minority of the activists were SWP members and on the whole there was a very comradely relationship between the SWP members and the rest of us (who were/are ex Labour Party members).
However, we were from the start concerned with the lack of democracy, debate and meaningful communication within the organisation. We got fed up with the way that when there was likely to be any substantial discussion which might lead to an action unwelcome to the SWP, branch meetings would suddenly fill up with the more hackish local SWP members, or a member of the National Committee (always an SWP official) would turn up uninvited. We got fed up with the way that communication within the organisation was almost entirely one way – from the top down. We got increasingly irritated and embarrassed by the unaccountable activities of George. We got fed up by the way that conferences were stage managed and the way that inconvenient conference decisions were just ignored.
I left after it became apparent that the review of how the National Committee should be elected (which a resolution from our branch had called for at the 2005 conference) had amounted to a meeting of three people for afternoon which decided (without asking the ideas of a single ordinary member or branch) that the existing sham of election by platform was the only practicable option).
Most of the other non aligned members left as a result of the 2006 conference, where the very modest proposals of the ISG (much too modest in my view) for more internal democracy were thrown out. For several, the last straw was the ludicrous lying and manipulation of figures in order to claim that Respect was growing when everyone with eyes to see knew that Respect’s membership was eroding.
The SWP has effectively monopolised the levers of power within Respect and consistently tried to limit and discourage debate and discussion within the organisation. The SWP has lived up to its reputation for control freakery and a cavalier approach to petty bourgeois concepts like truth and democratic processes.
Respect no has no future except at the margins of British politics. Membership has fallen from a creditable 5000 at the time of its first conference to 3000 or so by its second conference and 2000 or so by its third. It now consists of little more than the SWP, possibly the ISG, possibly a hundred (at most) independent socialists and a few hundred progressive muslims. It gives me no pleasure or all to observe that Respect is now nothing more than yet another SWP front.
The original Respect initiative was, in formal terms, a brave and worthwhile project. The fact that it has come to virtually nothing, and alienated most of its actual or potential activists in the process, is the overwhelmingly the fault of the Central Committee os the SWP. And they should be ashamed of themselves.
It is true that Respect’s growth and success has been uneven – but the Labour Party also grew very unevenly at the start – from bases like the East End of London and Bradford. It will remain uneven for some time, but the fact that Respect is organising meetings in places like Barking is, for me at least, an encouraging sign.
The idea that Respect has abandoned ‘class politics’ is surely mistaken – Respect has supported every single industrial action since its formation – surely the key test here – and is supporting the PCS tomorrow. It is hard to see what more it can realistically do given New Labour’s support for the Tory anti-trade union laws – Respect has already organised a campaign for fighting unions and helped draw up a ‘Workers Charter’ (see the website). It would not do any of this if it was true that it was in hoc to middle class religious opinion as suggested by Andrew.
As for the alienation of potential and actual support after Celebrity Big Brother – yes, true. But are most people so shallow and superficial that they really put things like that over say, issues of low pay, the closing of a local hospital, the attempt to sack over a hundred thousand civil servants, the mass murder of tens of thousands of Iraqis, Trident nuclear submarine, ID Cards, city academies, PFI schemes, etc etc? If New Labour decides to back the US if it bombs Iran, will people think ‘well, I voted for Respect in the past, but there is no way I could bring myself to do so ever again after Galloway pretended to be a cat for a few minutes that one time live on TV?’ Get real.
I repeat ..
Snowaball, are you actually active in respect? I ask becasue it seems most SWP members are not, and if you are not in a functional resepct branch, then on what authority do you write about hoe the Coalition works?
If New Labour decides to back the US if it bombs Iran, will people think ‘well, I voted for Respect in the past, but there is no way I could bring myself to do so ever again after Galloway pretended to be a cat for a few minutes that one time live on TV?’ Get real.
You don’t get out much, do you? If people voted for parties based on their policies Labour would never have got re-elected in 2001, let alone 2005. There are millions of people who have stuck with Labour despite their policies, & who would never vote Green or Lib Dem despite their policies – because at some level they trust and identify with Labour, and they don’t trust or identify with the others. Your task in RESPECT isn’t to assemble the best possible list of policies, it’s to gain people’s trust – and not to throw it away when you’ve got it. Which is why Galloway is as much a liability as he is an asset.
The husk of Respect is now a squabbling group of Bengali small businessmen,the SWP and one MP for whom cash and a strangely financed media career have always taken priority over serious politics.
Interesting point Phil: “If people voted for parties based on their policies Labour would never have got re-elected in 2001, let alone 2005″
there was an opinion poll (in I think the Guardian) in 2001 prsenting voters with the policies of the parties without saying which party it was, and asking them to choose.
On that basis (under first past the post) the Green party would have won the election, the socialist alliance + SSP would have been HM’s opposition, the BNP and Lib Dems had a smattering of seats, and Labour and the Tories were wiped out.
That didn’t actualy happen!
At the end of the day,the survival of Respect depends on the ongoing silence of Tariq Aziz,Fawaz Zureikat and Amineh Abu Zayyad.
Andy – I am a member of Respect who attended the founding conference, has campaigned for them in elections since then and goes to a fair few local meetings (in Leeds). I am certainly not a leading member of Respect locally if that is what you mean, but I reckon I probably do what is about average for an SWP member in terms of activity.
What’s wrong with imitating a cat? I do that sort of thing all day.
So you were involved in the disastrous Bradford North campaign in the general election?
How do you account for the fact it was so difficlut for respect tpo get a candidate, if it is such a shoe in success.
Indeed, how do you account for the facat that you struggled to get one candidate for City & Hunslett., but the AGS coulld stand 12 candidates, and got better results than Respepct in the 2006 elections in leeds?
Those reading this discussion may find a report in this weeks Socialist Worker interesting (yes, really!).
It deals with a recent local election selection meeting in Bradford. A member from the Asian community, was competing with Helen Salmon, a former SWP student functionary for the nomination to stand in the Mosely and Kings Heath Ward. The SWP allege that 60 new members signed up to Respect in the 2 days prior to the meeting. Salmon was outvoted by 35 votes to 20.
Now an extremely optimistic Respect partisan might argue that this is a sign that the SWP do not in fact control the Respect Coalition. A less naive viewer is more likely to see this as another example of the kind of events which took place in Tower Hamlets recently, where the SWP machine’s control of the organisation was challenged by a rival machine around local figures in the Asian community. This is, I suspect, a problem that Respect’s amorphous politics and its class politics free approach to Muslim communities will invite again and again. However while it may not be an outbreak of democracy, it is at least an indication that in a few areas a Respect nomination is viewed as a prize worth fighting for.
Mark – the events reported in SW refer to Birmingham and show that there are tensions within the Respect coalition – but there always are and always will be tensions within any coalition. However, such tensions show, as you say, that Respect is in a healthier state than some people seem to think.
Andy – we decided to target particular areas with Respect rather than stand lots of (largely paper) candidates like say the AGS. However, this approach can mean the campaign can fall a bit flat if you pick a difficult area. However, while our votes were not spectacular, they were not ‘disastrous’ either.
New info on New Labour coruption in Tower Hamlets:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23383476-details/One+in+10+postal+votes+suspicious/article.do
The issue of communalism just won’t go away, will it? And quite rihtly not, as ‘Respect’ is a communalist organisation. It is attempting to re-introduce a type of politics that socialists in Liverpool and Glasgow fought (and thought they’d defeated) in the 1950′s and 60′s. Serious socialists have to fight to defeat the re-emergence of communalism, promoted by ‘Respect’ and re-assert class politics.
That’s why those of us from the Marxist tradition, who additionally have some knowledge of the labour movement, don’t just oppose ‘Respect’: we hate it and work for its defeat and destruction.
Jim
I think the trouble is that you collapse the historical process. There has always been a tendency in Respect to work towards being a special interst group for Muslims – but that outcome was not completely inevitable until perhaps more recently.
Also, you cannot in all fairness extrapollate from the appalling example of birmighham Stop the War and SWP to assume that STW in the rest of the country is the same. And this also has an impact on the discussion of Respect
Can I just say how disappointed I am that Snowball has not put a etter case defending respoect against the difficult charges ain st it.
Snowaball.
I Rrspect has any chance, then how do you account for the case of Kath Owen, in your own home town. A founding member of Respect, and a candiadte in the Euro electioon.
A very capable. non-sectarian woman, who simply felt unable to stay in respect after the hysterical sectarian atmosphere of the first delegate conference.
Asa Respect has driven away the layer of independenct lefts prepared to give it a go, then you have irreveconbly lost your opportuity.
we hate it and work for its defeat and destruction.
Good old Jim, never lets us down.
My prediction is that the events in Birmingham will be repeated in Tower Hamlets when the reselection process begins.
The methods that have sustained the SWP have more or less destroyed Respect. A very top down political culture, active bullying of people who can express political disagreements, an increasingly sham democracy. I’ve yet to see a defence of the organisation that deals in a satisfactory way with these points. I wonder what the reason for that is?
Have we sacred Snowball off? Or has he admitted defeat?
Possibly he’s just said his piece and left it at that?
true – after all anyone who asks difficult questions wouldn’t be welcome in respect anyway.
Isnt the next London election the GLA election which means that the next electoral issue in the capital will be who heads the Respect list? Presumably Lindsey German would be the obvious choice given her result last time, with a good chance of success.
Its worth restating that 2.7% of the population in the last census described themselves as Muslim. In the context of the war on terror the role of socialists with regard to the muslim population is clear. The idea that Respect is actively persuing a communalist electoral strategy is not only insulting but moronic.
Liam I have not been involved with Tower Hamlets other than canvassing during the election so I don’t know of what you speak. Its obvious however that Tower Hamlets was the hot spot on which the whole project depended to break through and therefore I am sure local disputes were sharp. No doubt this will continue to be the case. It has not been my experience locally.
Communalist?
The first Respect London Elections said
“George Galloway
Standing up for Muslim Rights”
“He stood up for Muslims Now its our turn to stand up for him”
(perhap not going for the Kurdis or Kosovan vote)
Married to a Palestinian Doctor he has strong religious bliefs and is teetotal”
Well he’s teetotal.
Steve – if a Christian socialist had stood in an election in say, Weimar Germany on a platform which included ‘Standing up for Jewish Rights’ would you have regarded that person automatically as a ‘communalist’ unworthy of support?
Snowball,
I think it is a slight exaggeration to compare Jews in Weimar Germany to the condition of Muslims in modern Britain.
For example, do you think that within 15 years there will be extermination camps murdering millions of British Muslims?
Plus Steve didn’t say that Galloway wasn’t worthy of support, he demonstrated that Galloway is a communalist.
If he advertised his wife,god fearing and teetotalism when I knew he was a serial adulterer with a history of money disappearing then I’d be suspicious.
Thank you Duncan, you are right.
In addition when it came to Bethnal Green,Galloway spent the first two weeks campaigning in Sylhet, Bangladesh.Village elders not class based politics.
Snowball, let us go back to your own personal experience.
I note that you have not answered why independent leftists (for example Kath Owen) who were active in the SA, and even in respect at the begining have left resepct in your own town.
Why did Respect select Bradford North as their target seat in Yorkshire? Well pretty clearly becasue it fitted the profile of setas where Resepct did well. A lrage Muslim population, and a safe labour seat where the Tories had no prospepct of winning.
In that seat you only got 1.4%, less than the national average of 1.69% that the SA got in 2001.
In what way wasn’t that a disatsrous result for resepct?
I am asking about you own personal experience here.
Andy: I am sure that you know far more about the state of the Left where I am than I do – as, after all, I only live here. I would however say this: Some independent leftists have never joined Respect, some joined and then left, some joined and stayed, and presumably some who didn’t join at the start have joined since. Because independents tend to take pride in their ‘independence’ it is quite difficult at the best of times to please everyone that falls into this quite broad camp ‘Independent leftist’. I hope that makes some sense and didn’t come across to much like something Donald Rumsfeld might say. As for Bradford:
2001: Bradford South: Bradford Socialist Alliance = 302 (0.9%)
2005: Bradford North: Bradford Respect = 474 (1.4%)
Not spectacular, but not disastrous.
Snowball
So how many non-SWP people are active in Respect in Leeds?
In the context of the war on terror the role of socialists with regard to the muslim population is clear.
Actually, no – the role of anyone with a brain and a conscience with regard to the Muslim population is clear. In defence of victimised minorities, socialists can and should make common cause with liberals, conservatives, Islamists and anyone else with a b. & a c.
But the specific role of socialists is to mobilise for the interests of working people, even if this brings them into conflict with liberals, conservatives, Islamists etc. RESPECT seems to be a systematic attempt to square this circle, grafting socialist policies onto a broad coalition one minute, rejecting them for the sake of ‘unity’ the next. I find it hard to wish it any success at all.
RESPECT in some areas may harbour communalist tendencies, but it’s not a word I’d want to use without strong evidence. The charge I’d make is unprincipled opportunism. The Liberals are rightly renowned for tailoring their message to their constituency, most conspicuously in areas with strong Catholic or Protestant traditions – the Catholics get “Labour are godless atheists”, the Prods get “Labour are pro-IRA”. I don’t see any difference between that and RESPECT’s 2005 Stretford mosque leaflet (Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, control orders, Muslim Association of Britain and, er, that’s it).
Respect has problems – among them the weird insistence that, when SWP do the vast majority of the work, that they shouldn’t, through force of their numbers “dominate” Respect. There’s just more of us, we’re not just doing it to piss you off. The amount of meetings I’ve been to with senior members of the SWP shouting at small Respect branches to get more non-SWP members, and to swallow our pride and give them important roles beggars’ belief.
I don’t believe Respect is a communalist organisation, well, I don’t believe is a wholly communalist organisation. I canvased in Tower Hamlets, Newham for the council elections, and the level of support from all races was fairly high. The Communist Party had a disproportiately Jewish membership, and got elected in the East End, but that doesn’t mean that it was communalist at all. What we’ve done is to go to those who are most outraged and personally effected by the ludicrous War on Terror, because they are brown, and neo-liberalism, because they live in poor areas. Doesn’t take a dummy to figure that out.
There are problems with democracy within the party, but frankly, the party is a micro-party in most of the country, and doesn’t functionally exist in lots of places. It’ll grow, and as people who aren’t democratic centralists/block-voting revolutionaries move in, they’ll demand proper structure and accountability. We’re laying the foundations, and we’re far away from deciding on wallpaper.