The continuing collapse of Respect has reached the point at which not even the Socialist Workers’ Party can maintain its traditional aloofness in such matters and is forced to put its position publically. Hence an editorial in this week’s Socialist Worker:

Socialist Worker has never been one of those papers obsessed with the manoeuvres of left groups. But the present division in Respect is so important it demands comment.

Curious. Why conflate what is supposed to be broad coalition with a mere rival Trot sect? The article goes on to bemoan just how much political and organisation support the SWP has provided to Galloway over the last four years. Now the ungrateful wretch has turned on his strongest supporters:

Now, in a concerted push which should appal those who want to see a radical alternative to Labour, Galloway has begun to attack the core of the left in Respect. He has decided that the political vision which has sustained the project no longer fits.

He denounces members of the SWP as unthinking “Leninists” who listen to nobody but their shadowy and unaccountable leadership – a classic right wing stereotype of revolutionaries. Inside Respect a campaign has been launched against the SWP in an attempt to drive us out.

It ends with confirmation that the SWP is going to fight this one down to the wire, even if that means taking the entire project down with them:

The SWP is not going to be driven out of Respect. We played an important part in creating Respect and have done as much as anyone to make the project work. We are also going to continue to stand up for Respect as a coalition that defends all working class people and tries to meet the urgent need for a left alternative to Labour.

We urge everyone to support our position that we need to defend Respect as a project that has socialism as a central part, that will not make endless concessions in order to win votes, and that stands up for democracy.

Responses from other far left organisations have been rapid. Workers’ Liberty makes some telling points:

Missing from the editorial is any suggestion why Galloway should want to do such bad things. In fact Galloway has never been anything better than a Stalinist-minded one-time Labour "soft left" with dodgy connections (admitted) to the Saudi and Emirates monarchies and successive Pakistani governments and to Saddam Hussein's hideous regime in Iraq.

Some SWP members will remember how the SWP trashed the Socialist Alliance, ditched socialist approaches in elections in favour of the claim that Respect were the best "fighters for Muslims", and steamrollered the rejection of mildly-worded pro-secularist motions at Respect conference with the allegation that they were "Islamophobic", all with the excuse that this was going to get the SWP into the political "big time".

The Socialist Party also sticks the boot in, in an oh-so-reasonable way, of course:

Some have argued that Respect the Unity Coalition – the political initiative launched by George Galloway MP and the Socialist Workers' Party in 2004 – could be a positive step towards a new mass workers' party. We would support any positive step on the road to a new party and for this reason discussed with the leadership of Respect at the time of its launch, and again in 2006.

However, while we welcomed the election of George Galloway as a Respect MP in 2005, we concluded that we could not join Respect because we believed that Respect's mistaken organisational and political approach meant it would not develop as a positive step towards a new mass workers' party but, on the contrary, could form an obstacle to the development of such a party.

Finally, Harry’s Place has a round robin from the Galloway faction that will make depressing reading for partisans of the Respect project here.

I’ll post some thoughts on where all this leaves the idea of a new left party - once the debris clears - later today.