The SWP and Respect
Posted on Thursday 30 August, 2007
Filed Under Respect
Extract from this week’s edition of the SWP internal bulletin, Party Notes, as published over at Socialist Unity:
Two week’s ago Respect won a spectacular by-election in Shadwell in Tower Hamlets. For Respect activists and the Labour Party it demonstrated that Respect had not gone away and had a real chance of winning a seat in the GLA elections and George Galloway of winning the seat of Poplar and Limehouse.
Sadly, last week George sent out an eight page document to all members of the Respect National Committee outlining major concerns about the direction Respect is going in. George’s document also makes a number of criticisms about the way the Respect Office operates.
The SWP disagree with George’s claims and we have sent a letter to the 14 SWP members on the Respect National Committee refuting the technical issues George has raised.
Obviously the situation is very serious for Respect. The SWP is 100% committed to the Respect project and is currently doing everything it can to keep the show on the road. Next week a meeting will take place between George and the SWP to attempt to resolve the issues he raises. We will be holding a members meeting for all SWP London members to discuss the outcome of the above meeting. We will also be holding meetings for members outside London soon.
Typically, the SWP’s membership – let alone the rest of the left – is not told the nature of the issues at hand. But blogger Liam Macuaid has seen what Galloway has to say, and adds in the comments box:
GG’s document is a thorough critique of the SWP’s method. My favourite section is his description of how Respect tends to “anathematize” political voices critical of the leadership’s way of working.
While it may be possible to pick holes in this or that factual point GG makes his overall analysis is spot on and that’s why the SWP is probably choosing to fight on “technical” rather than political issues. The document does not say anything about the accountability of elected officials but maybe he’ll put that in the sequel.
The irony in all this is that GG colluded in a lot of the things he has now identified as problems, including the demonisation of dissenters, and as a result has driven out the majority of those who would have been on his side in this row.
On reading GG’s document I was struck by its similarity to a lot of the points Socialist Resistance has been making over the last couple of years.
Intriguing. But after a long day dragging Daddy’s Little Princesses round Legoland, I’m too bushed to think of anything particularly original to add. Presumably the document will surface somewhere online before too long. More comment then.
<<Go back
Comments
12 Responses to “The SWP and Respect”
Doesn’t surprise me. At heart Galloway is a Labour man, and likes a grander stage. His alliance with the SWP always seemed a little odd.
Dave. This internet has the potential to blow apart the last remnants of the cabal-politics of democratic centralism.
It is the iron grip of control in the name of ‘party discipline’ which excuses away the most extraordinary perversions of democracy within far left organisations. Differences kept secret from the wider party membership, open debate policed, bewildering changes of direction and leadership with no acknowledgement of the reason why, domination by one individual or a leadership clique. And much of this malpractice has clearly infected RESPECT.
If George Galloway has a serious critique of this method it must be made available not only to the ordinary members of RESPECT, surely this is the most basic of democratic requirements, but if it is to result in meaningful change needs to the subject of a much broader debate on the Left of how to fashion a democratic alternative to Brownite Labour. Keeping the entire argument ‘under wraps, which is clearly what the SWP prefers, does nobody any credit or good and stinks of just the kind of malpractices democratic centralism results in.
It shouldn’t be about waiting for the document to appear. Do your very best to get hold of it, and then post it as widely as possible on the blogosphere and elsewhere. A ‘debate from below’ that nor even the most powerful of Central Committees will be able to police or control.
Seems to me that George Galloway and Tommy Sheridan are two of a kind. They would rather kill the goose that lays the golden egg than knuckle down and work for the greater good (if you thnk Respect is working for the greater good). They are just disorganisers and narcisscists. Intersting to see where Galloway goes next, after all he needs some political clout to nuzzle up to the various Arab leaders he is so fond of. Whereever he goes, you can be sure Mr Galloway will be doing alright out of it.
Yeah an argument between the SWP and Galloway about democracy does seem like a fight between two bald men over a comb. Galloway’s instincts are scarcely more democratic than those of the SWP but even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day…
The impression I’ve been getting is that the SWP seem to be quietly dropping their enthusiasm for Respect (I expected a lot more exortations to join them after the McDonnell leadership bid failure than I actually heard), and that Respect itself is increasingly fraying between its socially conservative religious elements and its Trot ones (though this is by no means a simple white/Muslim split). How someone like Galloway – who is pretty socially conservative himself – fits into this is hard to call.
There are people in my local SWP branch i would love to work with if they left such a pathetic ndemocratic and ultimately destructive organisation.
leave now, put the beast to rest….
“Seems to me that George Galloway and Tommy Sheridan are two of a kind[]”
So you’re damning George for leaving RESPECT, *and* damning him for being in RESPECT? You then follow this with a dubious reference to “Arab leaders” and a suggestion that GG is more interested in “doing alright” than political ideals. And an off-topic dig at Tommy Sheridan.
Ah, now I remember. You’re a Harry’s Placer, aren’t you Sue R? Your opinions on RESPECT are as useful and unbiased as George Bush’s views on Iran.
Ahhh…I am undone!!!! Don’t sound ‘non-sectarian’ to me. I’ll just crawl back intomy hole then.
ah, ‘a non sectarian’, well we know what party you are from then, the SWP where ‘sectarian’ is code for anyone who doesn’t agree with you.
incest
incest
jc penney
jc penney