One of my new year’s resolutions was to devote this blog entirely to major British and world political issues, leaving the minutiae of far left politics to other writers. But after yesterday’s confirmation that Tower Hamlets councillor Ahmed Hussain - an SWP member elected on the Respect ticket in 2006 - has defected to the Tories, I am going to break it just this once. Well, it is February. And I still haven’t had anything from the chocolate machine at work.
SWP loyalists are doing their best to make light of Hussain’s transfer of allegiance. As they rightly argue, this is hardly the first time in socialist history that a Trot has flipped over to the right, even though the process has been unusually rapid in this instance.
But the move - coming on the day that Respect candidates secured nugatory votes in two local government by-elections, despite significant SWP mobilisations for their campaigns - nicely underlines the collapse of a priority scheme that the theoreticians of Britain’s largest far left grouping theorised as ‘a united front of a special kind’.
That Respect would come to grief in this fashion was written into its political DNA from its inception. It was from the get-go - and remains, in both the versions now trading under that name since last year’s debilitating split - essentially a communalist project, in which revolutionary socialists did the leg work to ensure that a Mosque-directed bloc vote was channelled behind George Galloway and elements of the Muslim business community, in the hope of slipping a handful of their number unnoticed into the council chamber.
Some leading figures seem not even to know what trade unions are, let alone have any concept of solidarity with working class struggle. Others - such as Hussain, pictured with his new political chums at Central Office - obviously have more nous, and are ready to do whatever it might take to advance his political career. The SWP? The Conservative Party? It’s all the same to this guy.
I hate to say I told you so, but what the heck; I told you so. I have voiced this critique repeatedly since 2003, and routinely been denounced as an ‘Islamophobe’ and a ‘sad sectarian’ for doing so. One would like to think its validity is now self-evident even to the most braindead SWP rookie.
In fairness, Respect did recruit a handful of rather better people than Hussain; Oli Rahman, another of the councillors, comes to mind. But he comes from a background of trade unionism, and is precisely the sort of working class activist who could have been recruited directly to a socialist organisation.
That brings me neatly to my main point. What was so wrong in the involvement of the SWP and the ISG - the other ostensibly Trotskyist component of Respect, now in the Galloway faction - was precisely their abandonment of class politics.
The normal reply on this point is that the Bangladeshis of Tower Hamlets are part of the working class; and of course they are. But Respect has sought to appeal to them not as workers, but as Muslims. Any comparison with the principled approach of the Communist Party to East End Jews in the 1930s is entirely spurious.
What the SWP is now witnessing is the logical consequences of its decision to wind up the Socialist Alliance so that it could realign itself with George Galloway. Had it been patiently built, on the basis of consistent class struggle politics, it could at least potentially have secured local government representation and acted as a pole of attraction to leftwing Labour Party members.
That recent events have not produced a backlash inside the SWP underline that it is effectively dead as a serious Marxist current. Further shocks for the membership may yet be in store at the likely trial of Tommy Sheridan, but I guess that will cause no eruption either, just continued drip-drip erosion of the SWP’s already declining membership base.
That won’t matter to the central committee. There is a lot of money sloshing around its structures, if the blogs of some former leading members are to be believed, so it will undoubtedly continue to secure its existence without the need for any meaningful base of working class support.
Meanwhile, Galloway’s Respect Renewal faction is standing increasingly exposed as a one-man band, at least in labour movement terms. Its leader’s appeal for a ‘Progressive List’ for the London elections underlines its Billy No Mates status. My sense is that neither of the organisations seen as the most likely allies - the RMT transport union and the Communist Party of Britain - are likely to sign up. International workers’ day is likely to prove mighty humiliating for both camps.
It is now almost 12 years since the formal launch of Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party, and the idea of building a socialist political party to the left of Labour - something I threw myself into in the 1990s - is now clearly unrealisable, perhaps for a generation. So disoriented are large chunks of the far left, they are incapable even of realising that.
Comments (34)
"coming on the day that Respect candidates secured nugatory votes in two local government by-elections"
in contrast, presumably, to the stunning electoral triumphs registered by your beloved Socialist Alliance?
I have written my own obituary of Respect, but I am still glad that Dave (who had said that he would not do so) has made these comments.
Two points. The SWP, in the shape of Harman in ISJ, admitted that Labour (or ex-Labour) lefts who have had some experience of local government politics were less than surprised at the behaviour of Respect Councillors in Tower Hamlets. Having made the comment, many a time, that much (not all) of this criss-crossing, feuding, and self-promoting, is par for the course in this field, I remain unsurprised at this turn in events.
Only yesterday I was citing to a local community activist the tale of the present local Tory Borough 'Cabinet' chief of arts, leisure, and oppressing cinephiles. She, a decade back, during her divorce from another leading Tory, threatened to rat on her side, and actually applied to join the Labour Party. The LP Branch Secretary (i.e. me) 'lost' her form. In an hour I could fill the pages of a year's run of columns for the Suffolk Class Enemies with similar tales (go on, I hear you say..). No doubt others have similar, if not identical experiences.
My next point relates to the state of Respect (Renewal). Andy Newman of the Socialist Unity Blog is now defending the Archbishop of Canterbury, attacking the legacy of the French Revolution, secularism, universal human rights, and defending the Raj's policy of separate personal law for different religious groups. It seems that this faction of Respect do not need to get membership cards for the Tory Party to take on board the 19th century politics of British Conservatism.
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Andrew,
just saw Newman's post on 'Why Dr Rowan Williams Is Right About Sharia Law'
what an appalling article, instead of seeing Williams tactics of expanding the influence of the religious domain (including the CofE, etc) Newman buys into the Archbishop's premise
why Newman doesn't see the logical alternative of completely disestablishing organised religion in Britain, I can't understand?
what a terrible state of affairs when atheists, like Newman, become the spokespersons for organised religions
It seems to be many of the left see Muslims and migrants as the new proletariat, now that the old one has rejected them or bought into consumer capitalism(at least for now.) An article in Guardian CIF by the left wing sociologist Jeremy Seabrook makes this explicit. Imo, the Socialist Alliance for all its faults (inc the name) had the best chance of creating a new pro working class force/movement which did not go down the narrow and possibly dangerous path of communalism, so yet another failed project.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jeremy_seabrook/2008/02/imaginary_enemies.html
"It seems to be many of the left see Muslims and migrants as the new proletariat"
Why is the issue of someone defecting from the SWP to the Tories one that relates to religion or national status ?
Are the terms 'Muslims' and 'migrants' pejorative by their very nature ?
If so, why ?
The SWP got screwed by Galloway,and news in the Shridant stuff is further blow.
George however is starting work for Press TV the Iranian Govt Channel on Sunday, unsurprising I guess.
But this is a surprising staement for any rational being.
"only the repeated marriage between cousins over generations causes damage to the gene-pool.
That the damage makes the progeny unhealthy rather than deformed. "
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/comment/columnists/lifestyle-columnists/george-galloway/2008/02/11/minister-s-comments-just-stoke-the-fire-86908-20315537/
It certainly is a new low. I'm trying to think whether there has been such a large move rightward - from the SWP to the Tories - before in the UK by an elected politician. Did any ILP cllrs join the BUF? I'm pretty sure some KPD elected went straight to the Nazis.
I agree in the main with Dave's analysis save the bit about "revolutionary socialists did the leg work to ensure that a Mosque-directed bloc vote was channelled behind George Galloway and elements of the Muslim business community".
I agree that a lot of that happened but I think the bit that most people will read into this (but isn't stated by Dave) is that - white - revolutionary socialists ...to ensure that - Asians - in a Mosque directed...
It is very clear to me, from a little work that I have done for Respect that there are / were many Asians in Respect who are no part of any Mosque organisation. This really would be obvious to any socialist, even with no experience of Respect. To think that Asians act differently would be both ludicrous and, inadvertant as it may be, racist.
Now you may say that I am just putting up a straw man to knock it down - no-one said this. But then Dave talks about a "Mosque-directed bloc vote". Like Bengalis are sheep who vote as the Mullah tells them? Bollocks.
Maybe some do. But then in the 80s when canvassing for Labour I'd occasionally come across local white women in Bermondsey who would tell me that they'd be voting as their husband decided.
Dave is right on most everything in this post. Respect was a big come down from the Socialist Alliance.
But I see no need to be so disheartened as he is. It's plainly wrong to state "the idea of building a socialist political party to the left of Labour - something I threw myself into in the 1990s - is now clearly unrealisable, perhaps for a generation"
If the French, Dutch, Danes, Spanish, Italians and more can do it, why can't we?
All these parties e.g. the Dutch Socialist Party have their faults - I want to see a communist party (a party that doesn't pay attention to national boundaries and organises globally) rise in Britain as elsewhere - but I'd settle for an ILP for now. We can build it.
A fair amount of the KPD went over to the Nazis - they (the SA as opposed to the Rotkämpferbund) had better uniforms and weapons, apparently. But what have the TH Tories got to offer that SWP/Respect haven't? Better leaflets? More activists? Hardly. Better career chances? Maybe.
But then in the 80s when canvassing for Labour I'd occasionally come across local white women in Bermondsey who would tell me that they'd be voting as their husband decided.
This was pretty much standard fare in Dagenham in the mid-late 1990s, I'd be surprised if it's changed much since then (apart from obviously a lot of the men deciding to vote BNP and not Labour).
In the days when I used to go canvassing for Labour (do they still do that?), it was well known that when it came to Asian families tey voted as a bloc. It may be that that was perception, rather than reality, and it was twenty years ago, time for a whole new generation to have grown up. As for white working class people voting in blick, it's hardly surprising that most people do as those people they live with do. Makes for an easier life.
Dave - trying to draw large generalisations from the cases of individuals like you do here is not very convincing. There have been many socialists who have become 'renegades' - most famously probably Benito Mussolini - from revolutionary socialist to fascist, Sir Oswald Mosley, from Labour MP to British Union of Fascists, but also Robert Kilroy-Silk - from Labour MP to UKIP/Veritas/political wilderness etc etc. In these cases, it is the ego of such people which stands out - there is little really any socialist political organisation can do to stop such individuals making such choices. What matters ultimately is not the bizarre behaviour of renegades but questions of principle and politics - and Respect, while it may have taken some blows recently, is still correct on all the big issues of our time. Unlike Dave's Party - New Labour.
Respect is correct on all the big issues of our time? All of them, comrade? No doubt anywhere that there might be even a minute element of wrongness of any of those policies? The possibility that the SWP/Respect might be badly, dangerously wrong on some of the "very big issues" is also obviously one that you haven't considered.
And now a musical interlude (unfortunately in German):
Die Partei, die Partei,
Sie hat immer recht
Und Genossen es bleibe dabei,
Wer da kämpft für das Recht,
Der hat immer recht;
So, aus Leninschem Geist,
Wächst, von Stalin geschweißt,
Die Partei - die Partei - die Partei.
http://www.kommunisten-online.de/Kommunisten/Lied-der-Partei.mp3
and the full lyrics here tinyurl.com/yo63g6
Some big issues of our time...
War on Terror - New Labour for - Respect against
Privatisation - New Labour for - Respect against
Attacks on Civil Liberties - New Labour for - Respect against
Racism against Muslims - New Labour for - Respect against
"why Newman doesn't see the logical alternative of completely disestablishing organised religion in Britain, I can't understand?"
Newman suggests making small accomodations for people's religious consciences, while you demand that your 'sharia athiesm' be imposed on everyone.
Complete separation of church and state is a myth. You end up with a state influenced by the church (English and Scottish law are both essentially Christian in nature), and a church influenced by the state.
Respect is right on the big issues of our time?
Come off it.
But more to the point this confirms that the "broad left party" "new workers party" turn that has dominated left politics in the UK since the SLP is now dead.
Albeit the chickens are still running round the courtyard, while their severed heads cluck (ever more feebly) away in the bucket in the corner.
Time indeed for the left to reflect on where its gone wrong, here's two starters;
* Capitalism is not stagnant - it is not the 30s in slow motion.
* The sect form of organisation - characteristic of pretty much the entire left - is long past its sell by date.
There is, formally, no such party as New Labour. I'm sure the Blairites like to think that there is - just as the ultra-left do - but there isn't.
A good initial post by Dave there, though I share the criticism that it reads a bit too much like "Bengalis = mosque-directed block vote/white socialists = the true revolutionary cadre". Neither is true or fair. Tower Hamlets is basically a bit bonkers politically, with all of its local parties rotten to the core - we need to be careful about extrapolating too much from it, a mistake both Respect's cheerleaders and its critics have consistently made over the past four years.
But nonetheless, it must be obvious that after five failed attempts at getting a left of Labour party going in 12 years - SLP, Socialist Alliance, SSP, Respect, Solidarity - that it's time for a bit of a rethink and some introspection at the very least. Though I see little evidence of that in Snowball's "Your party smells - mine doesn't" diatribe at Dave upthread.
If I run into Hilary Wainwright I think I'll call ir "Fragmentation of the Beyond."
The serious measure of the wreckage of Rees-Peck and the monster raving ego of GG will be seen in the votes in London on 1 May 2008.
It wouldn't surprise me to see both bits together get less than half their vote of 2006, never mind 2004.
Is anyone publishing odds?
Danny Dubstep wrote:
Newman suggests making small accomodations for people's religious consciences, while you demand that your 'sharia athiesm' be imposed on everyone.
The key part of Rowan Williams speech is:
"my aim is only, as I have said, to tease out some of the broader issues around the rights of religious groups within a secular state"
Williams's aims are three fold:
1) to present a United Front of the theists
2) to expand the domain of theists within society
3) to exert wider religious influence on society
And in all of this, the CoE would be at the forefront, but accepting the demands of fellow theists for a slice of the cake.
Socialists have to ask themselves, do they wish the resurgence of religion within society and all the negative connotations which have been shown to follow from that, do they wish to privilege religious belief above others, and if so why?
And when socialists are considering this issue possibly they might want to look across the pond to North America, the resurgence of Christian fundamentalism there and those negative aspects that follow for a society as a result? Is that a model socialist would want to follow? Not in my view.
I am happy for people to believe whatever they want as a matter of private faith, however, a belief in a deity should not privilege anyone over those who do not subscribe to that view, which happens in Britain and in many other countries, Ireland, Italy etc
Socialists, I think, should be arguing for the disestablishment of the CoE/Catholic Church, removal of funding, removal of privilege, removal of religion as officials from the House of Lords, etc
These are all long-standing ideas, I am just a bit shocked that some atheists nowadays feel compelled to put forward religious views that they don't even believe themselves.
Socialists should be for removing Church influence in the State, not increasing it.
ops, link to his speech http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/1575
Snowball is a desperate creature; the defection of a Respect/SWP figure to the Tories is clearly *not* just an aberration on the part of one idividual. It is the logic of the entire non-class, communalist "Respect" project.
"Respect" is imploding. Its main failure was its inibility to persuade sufficient people to vote along communal lines: good! The sooner this reactionary, communalist diversion (in both its Galloway-Yaqoob "right" manifestation and its SWP "left" version) is dead and buried, the better for working class politics in Britain today.
Whilst taking the points about the cross-class nature of Respect making this inevitable, on one level this sort of embarrassment is something that could happen to any political party that engages with many (for want of a better term) 'Asian community leaders'.
These are difficult issues to discuss without cries of racism occurring, but anyone who follows local politics to any extent, in many of the main English cities, will be aware of frequent overnight ideological conversions to opposing parties by sitting Councillors.
Motivated either by carrot (or perhaps in private stick) time after time it is Councillors of Asian origin involved. The lucky party recipient of these new Councillors cheers their arrival, sticks two fingers up to their political rivals, and happily puts another tick in their files marked "ethnic representation". And the process continues, round and round. On and on.
There may be a million and one reasons for it, but it smacks of nepotism and corruption, and does nothing for community relations. In a political culture that ignores class, and increasingly ignores political choice, but instead divides people up into interest groups, defined so often by race/gender/sexuality, we will see more of this, not less.
If I could add my pennyworth...at the end of the day, it's class that counts. What revolutionary marxists should do is concentrate on reaching adn recruiting WORKERS not small businessmen or women. Isn't this basic, first lesson Marxism? Also, does anyone know of any serious and sensible Marxist analysis of the relationship between bourgois democratic 'rights' and socialist democratic democratic demands. Seems tome that the relationship between the two needs to be thoroughly looked at etc.
I suppose this is one of those you-have-to-laugh-or -you'd-cry moments. Have just linked to this here:
http://rupahuq.wordpress.com/2008/02/17/further-nail-in-coffin-of-respect/
Whatever next? Respect defection to BNP? It wouldn't surprise me - Bangladesh National Party or otherwise.
"I suppose this is one of those you-have-to-laugh-or -you'd-cry moments"
I'm sure it's a cause of much anguish to you Rupa, devoted as you are, to the advancement of egalitarian and socialist politics (and a career within the media friendly New Labour fold).
as Ed on 'givemeaseat' Rupa Huq.
and Snowball, as Bill J. But also the SWP can't be let so lightly off the hook
You're right, Snowball, that there have been examples, like Mussolini, who went from being a radical Left to fascism - and did it quickly but none of them did it overnight. I'm sure Peter Hitchens didn't leave IS at 0900 and was thinking 'vote Tory' by lunchtime.
And the reason people like Roger Rosewell or the above can't just jump immediately was, rancid as they may now be, they had a political view of the world - and one that changed - to justify, explain etc their passage.
The reason that your party member could just jump in a minute straight to the Tories was that he clearly was, whilst a member of the SWP and is now, completely bereft of politics - it's purely a career to him. If the Whigs come back from the dead and look well poised in TH, I'm sure he will put on a periwig and apply for membership of them.
Do you just let anyone sign up and represent your party?
Poor as their politics may have been sometimes been, Solidarity, SSP, CPGB, Militant/SP have never had any of their cllrs do likewise.
Your party went beyond the line in the Popular Front politics you indulged in with Respect - at least now be descent enough to admit to and learn from the consequences of that action.
Sue R's comment above was a peach;
"...not small businessmen or women"
Women ???
Imagine trying to recruit women (on the basis of gender, presumably) or small businessmen... is that by size, gender or socio-economic grouping ??
Oh I love the comments on Dave's blog; never has so much bollox been spraffed by so few.
What does "spraffed" mean? That appears to be an entirely new word, but potentially a very great one.
But while you're at it, you might want to tell us what the rest of your post means as well. You think everyone else is spouting rubbish, but in what way?
Eddie Truman knowds he's on the losing side, that's why he's descended to the level of the playground. Sure sign that he knows he's in the wrong.
There were not that many straight defections by KPD members to the Nazis. According to the book by Paul Merson "Communist Resistance In Nazi Germany", which took the Lower Rhine area (Dusseldorf) as a case study, just two KPD members reportedly went over to the Nazis in 1933. The more common response was depoliticisation as opposed to defection, since now KPD activity could land you in jail or a concentration camp, if you were not beaten to death in interrogation.
The Red Front Fighters' League did have significant defections to the SA. The former organisation seems to have included a lot of people who were not particularly political, liked the paramilitary stuff and found they could get that in the SA. The Nazis were worried about some of their new recruits, complaining that some SA units consisted of "beefsteaks" - brown outside but red inside.
Communist Resistance in Nazi Germany is by the late Allan Merson, a stalwart of the old CPGB who died in 1995. His book is deservedly seen as authoritative on this question. It was a privilege to have known Allan, who was a kindly and scholarly historian, yet always a committed working class activist. You can read a little about him here: http://graham.thewebtailor.co.uk/archives/000088.html
My reading on the question corresponds to what Eugen has posted.
Did you know the house was full of miniatures Jim?
Allan Merson, not Paul. Probably I wsa subconsciously influenced by Paul Merton's name. I have the book too but not with me and I have not read it in years.
Apart from Merson's book, which is published by Lawrence and Wishart in paperback, who are hardly going to advertise KPD to NSDAP defections, people might look up other sources too, it is the whole topic of the Marzgefallenen (the Germans even invented a word for them: the Fallen of March, a sarcastic reference to the new converts to Nazism)
This type of switching sides is mentioned by Shirer and Burleigh, but we need to bear in mind that the KPD had a very high turn over in the 1930s and many of the "converts" to the Brown shirts are more likely to be temporary members of the KPD, opportunists, turncoats and even a few enterists.
Just prior to the Nazi assumption of power, when the Nazi Party was riven with dissent and looked as if it might split apart they were even Nazi converts to the KPD.
its a complex subject, and I think we underestimate (with the benefit of hindsight) the draw of fascism in 1930s Germany along with its Strasserite forms, ie. National Bolshevism
Oskar Hippe, a member of the small Trotskyist organisation in Germany, mentioned that there were people who joined the Nazis in 1933 who hung onto other membership cards, like KPD or SPD ones. But for a long time after 1933, they only pulled out the Nazi one. The others were in reserve for any changes in the political situation. No doubt they came in handy in 1945, if they still had them.