This evening, at a packed AGM of Tower Hamlets Liberal Democrats at Oxford House in Bethnal Green, I was adopted as the LibDem PPC for my home constituency of Poplar and Limehouse (new boundaries, having lost all the bits in Newham). It’s an extraodinary seat, illustrating both the huge diversity of London and also the yawning gap between rich and poor. It also looks like being a right royal battleground at the forthcoming general election, not only because the sitting Labour MP, Farming and Food Minister Jim Fitzpatrick, annoyed the large local Muslim community a while back by walking out of a Muslim wedding because he couldn’t sit next to his wife, but also because ‘Gorgeous’ George Galloway (Respect) is trying to move over from his current perch in neighbouring Bethnal Green and Bow. So we can expect some vigorous campaigning and lots of media attention. Having first moved into the area in 1985, I have seen huge changes — some good, some bad – and whatever the result at the end of it, I am determined to enjoy the next six months or so and to be part of a LibDem renaissance in Tower Hamlets.

Link: http://tower-hamlets-libdems.org.uk

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Seeing Roy Jenkins losing Glasgow Hillhead and Shirley Williams failing to win Cambridge turned me to drink, with interesting consequences...

The 1987 General Election was unquestionably a very poor one for the SDP/Liberal Alliance.  The ‘Two Davids’ appeared to be not singing from the same song sheet and the parties did poorly.

SDP luminaries Shirley Williams and Roy Jenkins both went down to defeat in Cambridge and Glasgow Hillhead and moves began to merge the two parties in preparation for fighting the election afterwards.

But, before any of this could happen the local Alliance members in my constituency had a party that evening to see the election results come in. 

Being only 16 I was not used to drinking lots but as the results came in with Shirley Williams failing to gain Cambridge and Roy Jenkins losing to George Galloway in Glasgow I sank into the malaise that only Lib Dems can feel following an election – ‘another false dawn’.

So, when I was taken home at an unearthly time in the morning I was fully aware that the Alliance had been crushed, as were my hopes, but only slightly aware of my French literature mock ‘A’ Level later that morning.

Going to bed drunk at 5am, followed by an exam at 9am, and really being drunk until the following afternoon was no preparation for a 3 hour exam in a foreign language, as to be honest, I was struggling quite hard with English, let alone French.

Nonetheless I dutifully took the exam, in French, and left the exam room in only a slightly better state than when I went in.  I could not really discuss the questions with my school colleagues because I literally had no memory of anything that went on.

A few weeks later our French teacher, Mrs Percy, announced, ‘who thinks they have done badly in this exam?’ Unsurprisingly I raised my hand as to be fair I would have been surprised if I had even hit the paper with my writing. She looked at me rather severely and said, ‘No John, this is your best piece of work ever!’

I am sure there is a moral to this tale, but over the past 20 years I have still not been able to work it out!

No coalition with ‘son of No2EU’

Issues of left and right are not so clear-cut when it comes to Respect. Mike Macnair reports on its annual conference, held in Birmingham on Saturday November 14

Respect’s annual conference was marked by somewhat confused debates on anti-fascist activity, and on the so far unnamed ‘son of No2EU’ electoral coalition. These have given rise to somewhat ill-tempered exchanges between the participants and among others in the ‘blogosphere’ in the last few days.¹

The conference also changed the name of the organisation from ‘Respect – the Unity Coalition’ to ‘The Respect Party’, altered the mode of election of the leadership, and passed a number of leftwing ‘motherhood and apple pie’ resolutions on international questions, and constructive resolutions on constitutional issues and on free public transport.

This report focuses mainly on the controversies. I have tried to give as much as possible of what was argued on the different sides, so that readers can form their own views of the arguments.

The official report of the conference says that 210 delegates attended² (‘delegates’ were, of course, any Respect members who had agreed to pay the conference fee, rather than people elected by branches). However, I counted around 100 present in the main hall in each of the morning and afternoon sessions, and in the one vote which was counted (to be discussed below) 113 votes were cast; but it may well be that people coming and going or in circulation outside the hall meant that numbers were higher than I saw. Clive Searle reported that Respect now has 850 members, with a significant growth in recruitment in the last months; it would be interesting to know whether these members are concentrated in east London and Birmingham or more widely spread.

At the beginning of the conference a decision was taken to elect the same number of national council (NC) members as there were nominees, avoiding the need for a contested election. The resulting committee of 47 is overlarge from a group of 850, but, of course, the actual leadership will be some body delegated from the NC.

As if to reaffirm this point, almost the last decision taken at the end of the conference was to adopt for the future a variant of the Socialist Workers Party’s method of election of a ‘party council’, with 40% to be elected by the conference and 60% by regional meetings. Clive Searle moved the proposal on behalf of Manchester Respect with classic SWP arguments: election by conference would tend to favour “people who talk a lot”, while “people who do a lot” do not get elected.

In reality, though, most political work consists of ‘talking a lot’ – on the doorstep, on stalls, in trade union meetings, in public meetings, in discussions with colleagues and neighbours. People who “do a lot” turn out to be, as the SWP experience of this form of election reveals … apparatus yes-men and women. Moreover, a regionally-elected NC lacks the clear lines of authority which would allow it to overrule and remove, if necessary, the actual leadership. This was one of the few contentious votes, but the principle of local/regional election was not controverted: Southwark Respect merely proposed election by branches rather than regions. This proposal was opposed by Ger Francis, Salma Yaqoob and Alan Thornett, on the ground of the very variable development of Respect branches across the country, and overwhelmingly defeated.

The conference started late, and the agenda had to be shuffled because George Galloway, who was supposed to introduce the first session, ‘Resisting the cuts agenda’, was stuck in traffic on the M1, so that the first item taken was the discussion on ‘One society, many cultures’ – in fact on fighting racism and Islamophobia – introduced by Salma Yaqoob. In general, the discussions were quite seriously cramped, with a small number of floor speakers restricted to three minutes.

Racism and fascism

Salma Yaqoob (as usual) started with the personal-political: her experience of growing demonisation of Muslims in the wake of the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, which brought her into politics, moving on to a recent expensive racist smear-job leaflet about her which has been circulated to white voters only in the Sparkbrook constituency; and from there to mainstream politicians exploiting the Islamophobic climate, while making mealy-mouthed efforts to dissociate themselves from the British National Party. Terrorist radicalisation in this country arose from British state terrorist operations overseas, rather than the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq reducing the threat of terrorism here. It was not just the English Defence League which had crawled out of the woodwork; mainstream politicians had whipped up issues around immigration and foreigners, to the benefit of the British National Party. They refused to admit that it was their neoliberal economic policies which had led to the present crisis.

She argued that Respect’s stance, in contrast, was to insist on telling the truth. We had told the truth about unjust wars abroad; now we had to tell the truth about immigration. Britain benefited from immigration; even Boris Johnson admitted that half a million illegal immigrants in London needed to be legitimised, since if they were deported the city would grind to a halt. Society is richer for diversity and pluralism. Respect believes in the solidarity of all human beings. There is a 13,000 waiting list for social housing in Birmingham, which breeds resentment. If we invested in social housing, in infrastructure, in the hardworking working class people of this country, we would strike racism at the root. “We will fight together,” she concluded, “black, white, Asian, Christian, Muslim, Jew and atheist, for the betterment of all.”

This was not a sharply contentious speech. However, the second floor speaker, Stuart Richardson of Socialist Resistance, focussed his attention on ‘the anti-fascist struggle’. The context of the rise of the far right was the decline of the framework of working class politics; this made space for the demagogues of fascism. The EDL had come to Birmingham three times. The first time was unopposed. In early August, Asian youth had mobilised against them, but had been regrettably isolated. Unite Against Fascism had issued a statement calling for resistance to the EDL. But when they came the third time UAF refused to mobilise, and called for a police ban. In fact, the only police ban was on a ‘Birmingham United’ meeting called by a local journalist, and the EDL were unopposed. The EDL needed to be opposed whenever they came. And – anticipating the second debate – unless there was a broad left coalition in the coming general election, there would be massive space for the growth of the far right.

Among several very varied non-contentious contributions from the floor, comrade Richardson’s was opposed by a number of speakers, including Ger Francis and Kevin Ovenden, and by Salma Yaqoob in her reply to the debate. The gist of these arguments was that as a matter of tactics the EDL was aiming to cause a ‘race riot’, which could then be exploited to smear Asian/Muslim communities and win votes for the far right. In this situation the problem was how to avoid the youth getting into a ruck with the police; if this happened, said comrade Ovenden, it would not be people like comrade Richardson who ended up in jail. It was tactically necessary to call for police bans, precisely in order to avoid being seen to call for a ruck. If they came into Sparkbrook, said another speaker, a confrontation would be inevitable; but turning small demonstrations in Birmingham city centre into street fights was tactically wrong. Salma Yaqoob argued that we were fighting a propaganda war, not just a barney. The police had initially repeated the EDL lie that it was not a racist organisation, but had been forced to recant on this by UAF’s tactics.

Various blogosphere commentators have described the conference as a shift to the right, and this debate was one of the supposed symptoms. In fact, it is less clear. Both sides in the debate – the supposed ‘left’ as well as the supposed ‘right’ – framed the ‘anti-fascist issue’ within the popular-frontist ‘broadest possible coalition approach’ of UAF. Within this framework, Stuart Richardson’s argument was standard far-left, head-banging, ‘no platform’ politics. His opponents were certainly correct to say that going for a ruck with small EDL demonstrations in Birmingham city centre would have been bad tactics. The defence of Sparkbrook, if it had been posed, or the defence of a Harrow mosque – which actually happened – is a different matter. The point is that the left’s and migrant communities’ response to far-right mobilisations has to both be, and be seen by broad masses to be, clearly defensive.

The question of calling for police bans undoubtedly does place Socialist Resistance on the left of the discussion, as against Ovenden and co. The evidence of history, including recent history, is perfectly clear: police bans are used primarily to assist the far right against its opponents. For the left to call for them serves merely to legitimise the use of similar legal moves against the left. But then, of course, this is also a difference with … the SWP.

At a more fundamental level, comrade Richardson’s argument – connected both to the commitment to UAF, and to his views on ‘son of No2EU’ – is fundamentally mistaken. As Salma Yaqoob and others said, in order to confront far-right racism it is necessary to confront the myths about immigration promoted by the mainstream media and parties. And in order to confront these myths, it is necessary to fight for public services – housing, health, welfare – to meet the needs of all. It follows that a revival of “the framework of working class politics” or a broad left coalition which was unwilling to take on the immigration myths head-on and raise clear demands on production for need, not for profit, would not succeed in defeating the far right. In this respect Salma Yaqoob and co-thinkers have made a partial but fundamental step to the left of the standard Anti-Nazi League/UAF ideology. And so too has Abjol Miah, who spoke to the same point – the need to fight for public services in order to undercut racism – in the second debate.

Electoral strategy

The sharper debate came in the second session, ‘Resisting the cuts agenda’, actually about electoral strategy. The session was opened by Nick Wrack raising a point of order: an emergency motion he and others had proposed calling for support to the ‘son of No2EU’ coalition, had been ruled out of order. The point was deferred to after the lunch break (after George Galloway had introduced the session and there had been a brief question and answer session). It then took the form of Clive Searle giving a conference arrangements committee report, which argued that neither this motion, nor another on anti-fascism moved after the deadline, were genuine emergency motions on the basis of new circumstances.

Nick Wrack now moved reference back of the report. Left unity had been discussed over the last year, and comrades who favoured support for a project of this sort had been constantly told that nothing concrete had been agreed. Now something concrete had been agreed. This was a development since the deadline for motions, and therefore justified an emergency motion. The proposal for reference back was, however, defeated by 79 votes to 34.

From the technical or procedural point of view the conference arrangements committee was right. Nick Wrack and his co-thinkers could perfectly well have proposed before the deadline a motion supporting ‘son of No2EU’ on the assumption that the negotiators for this coalition might agree something. However, from the points of view of a clear, therefore democratic vote on the issues, the decision was wrong. The issue was central to the debate. When it came to the vote at the end of the session, however, both the motions which had been proposed on this issue were accepted nem con. It is reasonably clear that this would not have been the case if Nick Wrack and co’s motion had been allowed to go to the vote. In this sense the decision to rule the motion out of order obfuscated the decision-making process: the vote on the reference-back is left to stand as an indirect proxy for the scale of support for the ‘Wrackite’ position.

George Galloway’s introduction to the session displayed his usual rhetorical skills, targeted on New Labour, on anti-immigration, and on the all-party consensus for cuts – and also on the advocates of support for ‘son of No2EU’. Respect has to offer an alternative, because none of the mainstream parties will; the problem, he argued, is how to do so effectively. Respect is back on its feet and has a good chance of getting three MPs elected: “It is not for us to sew together a coalition which can get 1.8% of the vote. We want a breakthrough into the big time.” Long-standing membership of far-left organisations seems, he said, to be an obstacle to unity because comrades find it hard to break bad habits.

In the question and answer session, among other contributors, Stuart Richardson argued for a coalition; and for the possibility of mass strikes to stop the cuts, as in Ireland. George Barrett, from Barking, asked what help Respect could give to fighting the fascists in Barking. Another contributor asked what vote George would recommend where Respect was not standing. Kevin Ovenden asked what the impact on politics would be if Respect won three MPs.

These questions set the framework for George Galloway’s reply. In the first place, he argued for a Labour vote to try to minimise the Tory landslide. The Tories are worse than Labour because they have no connection with working people, while Labour depends on the trade unions for funding. In Glasgow North East, Labour was running “as insurgents” against the Scottish National Party, and the candidate made himself sound leftwing like a Respect candidate; he was not to be believed, but it reflects pressures Labour is under. Secondly, Respect had to make a choice whether to aim to coalesce with small forces to its left, or with larger forces who are now Labour supporters; this was a strategic choice which needed to be discussed through and settled.

In response to George Barrett, he said that the answer was practically no help could be given and this would remain the case unless Respect got a lot bigger and had more resources. To parachute a far-left candidate into Barking would, if anything, increase Griffin’s chances of success. Stuart Richardson, he said, was living in a fantasy world in relation to mass strikes against cuts. Respect had no leading trade unionists in a position to call for strikes, and in any case the unions had been so weakened that they would have difficulty sustaining such serious action. In some cases, like the NHS, what was needed was not strike action, but unity between workers and services users.

We should not call for a Labour vote across the board, Galloway said, but needed to consider the degree to which Labour candidates were implicated in government, and the degree of their venality, and also the likelihood that left candidates would win the seat rather than give the seat to the Tories. We should support Caroline Lucas (Green Party) in Brighton, and perhaps Peter Tatchell (also Green) in Oxford East. But we needed to avoid “auto-anti-Labourism” (nice to hear a phrase borrowed from this paper … even if it was used in service of the Morning Star’s line).

It was important to avoid illusions in the trade union movement, Galloway concluded; just as EP Thompson showed how the British working class was made, today it has been unmade as a class. We should keep nostalgia for mass strikes or storming the Winter Palace at home, and develop new ideas for a new world. Respect has, he repeated, a real chance of three MPs. If it achieves this goal it will become the magnet around which the left coalesces.

Debate

The afternoon session, after a speech by fraternal speaker Andrew Murray of the Stop the War Coalition, saw a continuation of this debate. Kevin Ovenden moved a motion from the outgoing NC, urging that the main aim is to win three MPs in the target seats, but beyond this the importance of flexibility; the Greens have agreed to stand down in Sparkbrook in favour of Salma Yaqoob; we could support, for example, the People’s Party in Blaenau Gwent, Val Wise in Preston, or David Nellist in Coventry. Alan Thornett, moving a motion from Southwark, was carefully ambiguous on the disputed issues: though Respect needed to reach out to its right, he said, it was also necessary to collaborate with others to our left to build up a system of socialist candidates. We should not only support candidates who could win: for example, even if Dave Nellist could not win, we should support him against Bob Ainsworth. At the last resort we should vote Labour. And it was right for Respect to stand in its own name.

Ian Donovan, moving another motion on alliances, spoke in effect for the emergency motion not taken (to which he was a signatory). ‘Son of No2EU’ was more serious than comrade Galloway had suggested: the Communist Party of Britain was not a sect, and comrade Galloway writes for the Morning Star. The general secretaries of three trade unions were on the platform at the RMT conference. This was a partial break by the trade unions from Labour, and leftists should approach it “sympathetically”.

Ger Francis said that comrades were presenting a divide between those for and those against unity. The question was, rather, what sort of unity. The advocates of ‘son of No2EU’ had wanted Respect to stand in the Euro elections (in fact, they wanted Respect to support No2EU in those elections). In contrast, by choosing not to stand then, Respect had prepared the way for a similar action by the Greens in Sparkbrook. ‘Son of No2EU’ was exaggerated: all three general secretaries on the platform had been speaking in a personal capacity. The scheme was too close to the old Socialist Alliance, which got marginal votes.

Nick Wrack said that no-one was denigrating Respect or advocating that Respect not stand in its own name. But we need “a new party which brings together all strands of working class opinion against New Labour”. Respect candidates will only reach perhaps 2-3 million of an electorate of 20-30 million. Comrades were underestimating ‘son of No2EU’: these were not small, unpopular organisations. Many former Labour voters will not vote Labour. What alternative do we offer them? Salma Yaqoob said that the argument was about what sort of unity. By standing down in the Euro elections Respect showed the Greens we were able to work with others. Nick had opposed that.

Fred Leplat from Socialist Resistance argued for the need to collaborate with ‘son of No2EU’. It was a big step to have two trade union general secretaries and a leftwing daily saying they would back candidates to the left of Labour. It was like what was happening in Europe with Die Linke. John Nicholson from Manchester said that unity required an offer of trust. That was what Respect had done with the Greens in the Euro elections. ‘Son of No2EU’ was the opposite: “You do not build up trust by announcing an unnamed coalition shortly before an election and after having refused to work with others in No2EU.”

Curiously, George Galloway’s reply to the debate was held until after the votes had been taken (mostly, as I said, nem con) and a message of support read out from Peter Cranie, the defeated Green candidate in the North West Euro constituency. Comrade Galloway’s reply was quite sharply polemical. He argued that No2EU had “objectively helped Griffin into the European parliament”. Now there was another coalition being set up with no name, which would adopt the same schematic approach to elections. He is against it. There is a clear choice of priorities: if everything is a priority, nothing is. Respect should focus on its target constituencies, not divert resources to building a broader coalition.

It is true, he said, that he writes for the Morning Star, but the Communist Party of Britain is electorally marginal and an electoral liability. He does not want to be in a coalition with communist and Trotskyist groups. He doubts that Brian Caton will be able to swing his members in the Prison Officers Association, who are not exactly leftwingers; or that the RMT or FBU will back the coalition when it comes to the crunch. Even if it gets off the ground, in the vast majority of constituencies the coalition will not be a serious contender, and the right answer will to be to vote Labour. At all costs we need to avoid the possibility of being seen to help the Tories to a landslide victory. We have to be able to say after the election: we stood where we were strong, and in a few constituencies on this or that principle against the sitting Labour MP, but in the main we did what we could to stop the Tories.

I spoke briefly to Nick Wrack in the tea break. He said – as Ian Donovan, and some Socialist Resistance supporters, also did – that there was an underlying issue of direction. Was the orientation of Respect to be to a ‘left’ including the Greens, or, on the other hand, to a working class movement? ‘Son of No2EU’ meant some very tentative steps towards a trade union break with Labour; it was important not to ‘diss’ these steps, but to encourage them.

A move to the right?

Was this a left-right debate and did it, as some blogosphere commentators suggest, amount to a move to the right? It is in my opinion much more ambiguous, and it is necessary to disentangle the different threads. In the first place, neither Galloway’s underlying position that Labour is preferable to the Tories nor his and his co-thinkers’ willingness to reach stand-down agreements with the Greens if possible is a novelty. Respect has always been a project for a ‘left’ defined in non-class or cross-class terms. So this is not a move to the right.

If anything, the arguments of Galloway, Yaqoob and Miah at this conference were posed more in terms of the working class and of collectivism than they were in previous years. (The cause is probably the crash and the threat of massive cuts to public services, which has forced everyone – even sections of the right – to think to some extent in these terms.)

Secondly, he and other platform and floor speakers showed considerable willingness to take on anti-immigration arguments directly and upfront. At the early Respect conferences, Galloway argued explicitly against opposition to immigration controls and I have no idea whether he has actually changed his view on this question (probably not). But the pro-migrant emphasis represents a substantial shift to the left. If it is followed in the run-up to the general election, and if the as-yet-unknown political platform of ‘son of No2EU’ is anything like that of No2EU itself, Respect will be well to the left of it on this front, on constitutional issues and on internationalism.

Thirdly, in my personal opinion Galloway’s judgment of the British political dynamics in the run-up to the coming general election and of the likely success of No2EU is much more realistic than that of the advocates of support for ‘son of No2EU’. The next general election will be fought under conditions of a realistic prospect of a Tory victory, and that will squeeze any ‘left of Labour’ vote, (as happened in 1979), precisely because – though Galloway did not use this expression – Labour remains a ‘bourgeois workers’ party’. ‘Son of No2EU’ remains – a little more than four months before the last possible date for an election – without a name, a political platform, target constituencies or candidates selected. It would take a miracle for it to make a serious impact. That said, Galloway and his co-thinkers’ hopes for Respect winning three MPs are also probably overstated: the squeeze on ‘left of Labour’ votes will hit them, too.

In a sense the core issue is, on the one hand, the arguments of the ‘Wrackites’ that ‘son of No2EU’ represents a class movement because of its trade union basis; and, on the other, Galloway’s arguments, casually thrown into his reply to questions, about an “unmaking of the British working class”; and connected, but sitting on one side, the issue of stand-down agreements with the Greens.

The ‘Wrackite’ argument is probably unsound. If ‘son of No2EU’ really involved trade unions turning out large numbers of rank and file activists as canvassers, fundraisers and local activists of the new project, we could really speak of a mass working class movement. No2EU itself, however, involved nothing of the sort. It would be surprising if it had, since the trade unions have never directly mobilised much more than money in support of the Labour Party – the grunt work being done originally by the affiliated socialist groups, later by the constituency and ward parties as a sort of socialist group.

Conversely, while in one sense Galloway is correct to talk of an “unmaking” – that is, the decay from within of the still formally and numerically imposing institutions of the working class – his argument is, like that of the Eurocommunists from which it is derived, overstated. Class is still a large feature of lived experience in Britain and one which has real influence on practical politics; and workers in industry and infrastructure, though fewer than they once were, retain very substantial numbers and are to a considerable extent organised in trade unions. It is this fact, which actually underlies the political dynamics of the general election, which Galloway throws at his opponents.

This in turn affects the issue of the Greens. The Greens are, quite simply, a semi-leftist petty bourgeois party: meaning by that that their financial and activist base is among professionals and small businesspeople. This is reflected in their conduct in local government office, which tends to be similar to that of the Liberal Democrats.

This does not imply that stand-down agreements with the Greens are unprincipled. On the contrary: it would be a perfectly principled tactic for a Communist Party, in order to overcome undemocratic hurdles to electoral representation, to enter into stand-down agreements with leftish petty bourgeois parties, as long as these agreements did not involve ‘mixing the banners’ or pretending that class did not matter.

Respect is, of course, not a Communist Party, but – as constructed – a cross-class, left-populist formation. But, paradoxically, the debate at its 2009 conference shows the ‘right wing’ in some ways closer to the idea of a Communist Party than the ‘left wing’. The reason is that the ‘right wing’ recognises that Labour is in some degraded sense still a workers’ party, and hence is groping towards a policy alternative to Labour. Meanwhile the ‘left wing’, believing Labour has ceased to be a ‘bourgeois workers’ party’, is hoping to reinvent Labour on the basis of a trade union coalition without any real policy alternative to Labour.

Notes

1. For example, on Liam Mac Uaid’s blog: liammacuaid.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/respect-conference-2/; on Andy Newman’s Socialist Unity site: www.socialistunity.com/?p=4884; on Dave Osler’s Dave’s Part: www.davidosler.com/2009/11/respect_dead_end_for_the_serio.html
2. www.therespectparty.net/breakingnews.php?id=767

You can see George Galloway shows:
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No coalition with ‘son of No2EU’

Issues of left and right are not so clear-cut when it comes to Respect. Mike Macnair reports on its annual conference, held in Birmingham on Saturday November 14

Respect’s annual conference was marked by somewhat confused debates on anti-fascist activity, and on the so far unnamed ‘son of No2EU’ electoral coalition. These have given rise to somewhat ill-tempered exchanges between the participants and among others in the ‘blogosphere’ in the last few days.¹

The conference also changed the name of the organisation from ‘Respect – the Unity Coalition’ to ‘The Respect Party’, altered the mode of election of the leadership, and passed a number of leftwing ‘motherhood and apple pie’ resolutions on international questions, and constructive resolutions on constitutional issues and on free public transport.

This report focuses mainly on the controversies. I have tried to give as much as possible of what was argued on the different sides, so that readers can form their own views of the arguments.

The official report of the conference says that 210 delegates attended² (‘delegates’ were, of course, any Respect members who had agreed to pay the conference fee, rather than people elected by branches). However, I counted around 100 present in the main hall in each of the morning and afternoon sessions, and in the one vote which was counted (to be discussed below) 113 votes were cast; but it may well be that people coming and going or in circulation outside the hall meant that numbers were higher than I saw. Clive Searle reported that Respect now has 850 members, with a significant growth in recruitment in the last months; it would be interesting to know whether these members are concentrated in east London and Birmingham or more widely spread.

At the beginning of the conference a decision was taken to elect the same number of national council (NC) members as there were nominees, avoiding the need for a contested election. The resulting committee of 47 is overlarge from a group of 850, but, of course, the actual leadership will be some body delegated from the NC.

As if to reaffirm this point, almost the last decision taken at the end of the conference was to adopt for the future a variant of the Socialist Workers Party’s method of election of a ‘party council’, with 40% to be elected by the conference and 60% by regional meetings. Clive Searle moved the proposal on behalf of Manchester Respect with classic SWP arguments: election by conference would tend to favour “people who talk a lot”, while “people who do a lot” do not get elected.

In reality, though, most political work consists of ‘talking a lot’ – on the doorstep, on stalls, in trade union meetings, in public meetings, in discussions with colleagues and neighbours. People who “do a lot” turn out to be, as the SWP experience of this form of election reveals … apparatus yes-men and women. Moreover, a regionally-elected NC lacks the clear lines of authority which would allow it to overrule and remove, if necessary, the actual leadership. This was one of the few contentious votes, but the principle of local/regional election was not controverted: Southwark Respect merely proposed election by branches rather than regions. This proposal was opposed by Ger Francis, Salma Yaqoob and Alan Thornett, on the ground of the very variable development of Respect branches across the country, and overwhelmingly defeated.

The conference started late, and the agenda had to be shuffled because George Galloway, who was supposed to introduce the first session, ‘Resisting the cuts agenda’, was stuck in traffic on the M1, so that the first item taken was the discussion on ‘One society, many cultures’ – in fact on fighting racism and Islamophobia – introduced by Salma Yaqoob. In general, the discussions were quite seriously cramped, with a small number of floor speakers restricted to three minutes.

Racism and fascism

Salma Yaqoob (as usual) started with the personal-political: her experience of growing demonisation of Muslims in the wake of the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, which brought her into politics, moving on to a recent expensive racist smear-job leaflet about her which has been circulated to white voters only in the Sparkbrook constituency; and from there to mainstream politicians exploiting the Islamophobic climate, while making mealy-mouthed efforts to dissociate themselves from the British National Party. Terrorist radicalisation in this country arose from British state terrorist operations overseas, rather than the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq reducing the threat of terrorism here. It was not just the English Defence League which had crawled out of the woodwork; mainstream politicians had whipped up issues around immigration and foreigners, to the benefit of the British National Party. They refused to admit that it was their neoliberal economic policies which had led to the present crisis.

She argued that Respect’s stance, in contrast, was to insist on telling the truth. We had told the truth about unjust wars abroad; now we had to tell the truth about immigration. Britain benefited from immigration; even Boris Johnson admitted that half a million illegal immigrants in London needed to be legitimised, since if they were deported the city would grind to a halt. Society is richer for diversity and pluralism. Respect believes in the solidarity of all human beings. There is a 13,000 waiting list for social housing in Birmingham, which breeds resentment. If we invested in social housing, in infrastructure, in the hardworking working class people of this country, we would strike racism at the root. “We will fight together,” she concluded, “black, white, Asian, Christian, Muslim, Jew and atheist, for the betterment of all.”

This was not a sharply contentious speech. However, the second floor speaker, Stuart Richardson of Socialist Resistance, focussed his attention on ‘the anti-fascist struggle’. The context of the rise of the far right was the decline of the framework of working class politics; this made space for the demagogues of fascism. The EDL had come to Birmingham three times. The first time was unopposed. In early August, Asian youth had mobilised against them, but had been regrettably isolated. Unite Against Fascism had issued a statement calling for resistance to the EDL. But when they came the third time UAF refused to mobilise, and called for a police ban. In fact, the only police ban was on a ‘Birmingham United’ meeting called by a local journalist, and the EDL were unopposed. The EDL needed to be opposed whenever they came. And – anticipating the second debate – unless there was a broad left coalition in the coming general election, there would be massive space for the growth of the far right.

Among several very varied non-contentious contributions from the floor, comrade Richardson’s was opposed by a number of speakers, including Ger Francis and Kevin Ovenden, and by Salma Yaqoob in her reply to the debate. The gist of these arguments was that as a matter of tactics the EDL was aiming to cause a ‘race riot’, which could then be exploited to smear Asian/Muslim communities and win votes for the far right. In this situation the problem was how to avoid the youth getting into a ruck with the police; if this happened, said comrade Ovenden, it would not be people like comrade Richardson who ended up in jail. It was tactically necessary to call for police bans, precisely in order to avoid being seen to call for a ruck. If they came into Sparkbrook, said another speaker, a confrontation would be inevitable; but turning small demonstrations in Birmingham city centre into street fights was tactically wrong. Salma Yaqoob argued that we were fighting a propaganda war, not just a barney. The police had initially repeated the EDL lie that it was not a racist organisation, but had been forced to recant on this by UAF’s tactics.

Various blogosphere commentators have described the conference as a shift to the right, and this debate was one of the supposed symptoms. In fact, it is less clear. Both sides in the debate – the supposed ‘left’ as well as the supposed ‘right’ – framed the ‘anti-fascist issue’ within the popular-frontist ‘broadest possible coalition approach’ of UAF. Within this framework, Stuart Richardson’s argument was standard far-left, head-banging, ‘no platform’ politics. His opponents were certainly correct to say that going for a ruck with small EDL demonstrations in Birmingham city centre would have been bad tactics. The defence of Sparkbrook, if it had been posed, or the defence of a Harrow mosque – which actually happened – is a different matter. The point is that the left’s and migrant communities’ response to far-right mobilisations has to both be, and be seen by broad masses to be, clearly defensive.

The question of calling for police bans undoubtedly does place Socialist Resistance on the left of the discussion, as against Ovenden and co. The evidence of history, including recent history, is perfectly clear: police bans are used primarily to assist the far right against its opponents. For the left to call for them serves merely to legitimise the use of similar legal moves against the left. But then, of course, this is also a difference with … the SWP.

At a more fundamental level, comrade Richardson’s argument – connected both to the commitment to UAF, and to his views on ‘son of No2EU’ – is fundamentally mistaken. As Salma Yaqoob and others said, in order to confront far-right racism it is necessary to confront the myths about immigration promoted by the mainstream media and parties. And in order to confront these myths, it is necessary to fight for public services – housing, health, welfare – to meet the needs of all. It follows that a revival of “the framework of working class politics” or a broad left coalition which was unwilling to take on the immigration myths head-on and raise clear demands on production for need, not for profit, would not succeed in defeating the far right. In this respect Salma Yaqoob and co-thinkers have made a partial but fundamental step to the left of the standard Anti-Nazi League/UAF ideology. And so too has Abjol Miah, who spoke to the same point – the need to fight for public services in order to undercut racism – in the second debate.

Electoral strategy

The sharper debate came in the second session, ‘Resisting the cuts agenda’, actually about electoral strategy. The session was opened by Nick Wrack raising a point of order: an emergency motion he and others had proposed calling for support to the ‘son of No2EU’ coalition, had been ruled out of order. The point was deferred to after the lunch break (after George Galloway had introduced the session and there had been a brief question and answer session). It then took the form of Clive Searle giving a conference arrangements committee report, which argued that neither this motion, nor another on anti-fascism moved after the deadline, were genuine emergency motions on the basis of new circumstances.

Nick Wrack now moved reference back of the report. Left unity had been discussed over the last year, and comrades who favoured support for a project of this sort had been constantly told that nothing concrete had been agreed. Now something concrete had been agreed. This was a development since the deadline for motions, and therefore justified an emergency motion. The proposal for reference back was, however, defeated by 79 votes to 34.

From the technical or procedural point of view the conference arrangements committee was right. Nick Wrack and his co-thinkers could perfectly well have proposed before the deadline a motion supporting ‘son of No2EU’ on the assumption that the negotiators for this coalition might agree something. However, from the points of view of a clear, therefore democratic vote on the issues, the decision was wrong. The issue was central to the debate. When it came to the vote at the end of the session, however, both the motions which had been proposed on this issue were accepted nem con. It is reasonably clear that this would not have been the case if Nick Wrack and co’s motion had been allowed to go to the vote. In this sense the decision to rule the motion out of order obfuscated the decision-making process: the vote on the reference-back is left to stand as an indirect proxy for the scale of support for the ‘Wrackite’ position.

George Galloway’s introduction to the session displayed his usual rhetorical skills, targeted on New Labour, on anti-immigration, and on the all-party consensus for cuts – and also on the advocates of support for ‘son of No2EU’. Respect has to offer an alternative, because none of the mainstream parties will; the problem, he argued, is how to do so effectively. Respect is back on its feet and has a good chance of getting three MPs elected: “It is not for us to sew together a coalition which can get 1.8% of the vote. We want a breakthrough into the big time.” Long-standing membership of far-left organisations seems, he said, to be an obstacle to unity because comrades find it hard to break bad habits.

In the question and answer session, among other contributors, Stuart Richardson argued for a coalition; and for the possibility of mass strikes to stop the cuts, as in Ireland. George Barrett, from Barking, asked what help Respect could give to fighting the fascists in Barking. Another contributor asked what vote George would recommend where Respect was not standing. Kevin Ovenden asked what the impact on politics would be if Respect won three MPs.

These questions set the framework for George Galloway’s reply. In the first place, he argued for a Labour vote to try to minimise the Tory landslide. The Tories are worse than Labour because they have no connection with working people, while Labour depends on the trade unions for funding. In Glasgow North East, Labour was running “as insurgents” against the Scottish National Party, and the candidate made himself sound leftwing like a Respect candidate; he was not to be believed, but it reflects pressures Labour is under. Secondly, Respect had to make a choice whether to aim to coalesce with small forces to its left, or with larger forces who are now Labour supporters; this was a strategic choice which needed to be discussed through and settled.

In response to George Barrett, he said that the answer was practically no help could be given and this would remain the case unless Respect got a lot bigger and had more resources. To parachute a far-left candidate into Barking would, if anything, increase Griffin’s chances of success. Stuart Richardson, he said, was living in a fantasy world in relation to mass strikes against cuts. Respect had no leading trade unionists in a position to call for strikes, and in any case the unions had been so weakened that they would have difficulty sustaining such serious action. In some cases, like the NHS, what was needed was not strike action, but unity between workers and services users.

We should not call for a Labour vote across the board, Galloway said, but needed to consider the degree to which Labour candidates were implicated in government, and the degree of their venality, and also the likelihood that left candidates would win the seat rather than give the seat to the Tories. We should support Caroline Lucas (Green Party) in Brighton, and perhaps Peter Tatchell (also Green) in Oxford East. But we needed to avoid “auto-anti-Labourism” (nice to hear a phrase borrowed from this paper … even if it was used in service of the Morning Star’s line).

It was important to avoid illusions in the trade union movement, Galloway concluded; just as EP Thompson showed how the British working class was made, today it has been unmade as a class. We should keep nostalgia for mass strikes or storming the Winter Palace at home, and develop new ideas for a new world. Respect has, he repeated, a real chance of three MPs. If it achieves this goal it will become the magnet around which the left coalesces.

Debate

The afternoon session, after a speech by fraternal speaker Andrew Murray of the Stop the War Coalition, saw a continuation of this debate. Kevin Ovenden moved a motion from the outgoing NC, urging that the main aim is to win three MPs in the target seats, but beyond this the importance of flexibility; the Greens have agreed to stand down in Sparkbrook in favour of Salma Yaqoob; we could support, for example, the People’s Party in Blaenau Gwent, Val Wise in Preston, or David Nellist in Coventry. Alan Thornett, moving a motion from Southwark, was carefully ambiguous on the disputed issues: though Respect needed to reach out to its right, he said, it was also necessary to collaborate with others to our left to build up a system of socialist candidates. We should not only support candidates who could win: for example, even if Dave Nellist could not win, we should support him against Bob Ainsworth. At the last resort we should vote Labour. And it was right for Respect to stand in its own name.

Ian Donovan, moving another motion on alliances, spoke in effect for the emergency motion not taken (to which he was a signatory). ‘Son of No2EU’ was more serious than comrade Galloway had suggested: the Communist Party of Britain was not a sect, and comrade Galloway writes for the Morning Star. The general secretaries of three trade unions were on the platform at the RMT conference. This was a partial break by the trade unions from Labour, and leftists should approach it “sympathetically”.

Ger Francis said that comrades were presenting a divide between those for and those against unity. The question was, rather, what sort of unity. The advocates of ‘son of No2EU’ had wanted Respect to stand in the Euro elections (in fact, they wanted Respect to support No2EU in those elections). In contrast, by choosing not to stand then, Respect had prepared the way for a similar action by the Greens in Sparkbrook. ‘Son of No2EU’ was exaggerated: all three general secretaries on the platform had been speaking in a personal capacity. The scheme was too close to the old Socialist Alliance, which got marginal votes.

Nick Wrack said that no-one was denigrating Respect or advocating that Respect not stand in its own name. But we need “a new party which brings together all strands of working class opinion against New Labour”. Respect candidates will only reach perhaps 2-3 million of an electorate of 20-30 million. Comrades were underestimating ‘son of No2EU’: these were not small, unpopular organisations. Many former Labour voters will not vote Labour. What alternative do we offer them? Salma Yaqoob said that the argument was about what sort of unity. By standing down in the Euro elections Respect showed the Greens we were able to work with others. Nick had opposed that.

Fred Leplat from Socialist Resistance argued for the need to collaborate with ‘son of No2EU’. It was a big step to have two trade union general secretaries and a leftwing daily saying they would back candidates to the left of Labour. It was like what was happening in Europe with Die Linke. John Nicholson from Manchester said that unity required an offer of trust. That was what Respect had done with the Greens in the Euro elections. ‘Son of No2EU’ was the opposite: “You do not build up trust by announcing an unnamed coalition shortly before an election and after having refused to work with others in No2EU.”

Curiously, George Galloway’s reply to the debate was held until after the votes had been taken (mostly, as I said, nem con) and a message of support read out from Peter Cranie, the defeated Green candidate in the North West Euro constituency. Comrade Galloway’s reply was quite sharply polemical. He argued that No2EU had “objectively helped Griffin into the European parliament”. Now there was another coalition being set up with no name, which would adopt the same schematic approach to elections. He is against it. There is a clear choice of priorities: if everything is a priority, nothing is. Respect should focus on its target constituencies, not divert resources to building a broader coalition.

It is true, he said, that he writes for the Morning Star, but the Communist Party of Britain is electorally marginal and an electoral liability. He does not want to be in a coalition with communist and Trotskyist groups. He doubts that Brian Caton will be able to swing his members in the Prison Officers Association, who are not exactly leftwingers; or that the RMT or FBU will back the coalition when it comes to the crunch. Even if it gets off the ground, in the vast majority of constituencies the coalition will not be a serious contender, and the right answer will to be to vote Labour. At all costs we need to avoid the possibility of being seen to help the Tories to a landslide victory. We have to be able to say after the election: we stood where we were strong, and in a few constituencies on this or that principle against the sitting Labour MP, but in the main we did what we could to stop the Tories.

I spoke briefly to Nick Wrack in the tea break. He said – as Ian Donovan, and some Socialist Resistance supporters, also did – that there was an underlying issue of direction. Was the orientation of Respect to be to a ‘left’ including the Greens, or, on the other hand, to a working class movement? ‘Son of No2EU’ meant some very tentative steps towards a trade union break with Labour; it was important not to ‘diss’ these steps, but to encourage them.

A move to the right?

Was this a left-right debate and did it, as some blogosphere commentators suggest, amount to a move to the right? It is in my opinion much more ambiguous, and it is necessary to disentangle the different threads. In the first place, neither Galloway’s underlying position that Labour is preferable to the Tories nor his and his co-thinkers’ willingness to reach stand-down agreements with the Greens if possible is a novelty. Respect has always been a project for a ‘left’ defined in non-class or cross-class terms. So this is not a move to the right.

If anything, the arguments of Galloway, Yaqoob and Miah at this conference were posed more in terms of the working class and of collectivism than they were in previous years. (The cause is probably the crash and the threat of massive cuts to public services, which has forced everyone – even sections of the right – to think to some extent in these terms.)

Secondly, he and other platform and floor speakers showed considerable willingness to take on anti-immigration arguments directly and upfront. At the early Respect conferences, Galloway argued explicitly against opposition to immigration controls and I have no idea whether he has actually changed his view on this question (probably not). But the pro-migrant emphasis represents a substantial shift to the left. If it is followed in the run-up to the general election, and if the as-yet-unknown political platform of ‘son of No2EU’ is anything like that of No2EU itself, Respect will be well to the left of it on this front, on constitutional issues and on internationalism.

Thirdly, in my personal opinion Galloway’s judgment of the British political dynamics in the run-up to the coming general election and of the likely success of No2EU is much more realistic than that of the advocates of support for ‘son of No2EU’. The next general election will be fought under conditions of a realistic prospect of a Tory victory, and that will squeeze any ‘left of Labour’ vote, (as happened in 1979), precisely because – though Galloway did not use this expression – Labour remains a ‘bourgeois workers’ party’. ‘Son of No2EU’ remains – a little more than four months before the last possible date for an election – without a name, a political platform, target constituencies or candidates selected. It would take a miracle for it to make a serious impact. That said, Galloway and his co-thinkers’ hopes for Respect winning three MPs are also probably overstated: the squeeze on ‘left of Labour’ votes will hit them, too.

In a sense the core issue is, on the one hand, the arguments of the ‘Wrackites’ that ‘son of No2EU’ represents a class movement because of its trade union basis; and, on the other, Galloway’s arguments, casually thrown into his reply to questions, about an “unmaking of the British working class”; and connected, but sitting on one side, the issue of stand-down agreements with the Greens.

The ‘Wrackite’ argument is probably unsound. If ‘son of No2EU’ really involved trade unions turning out large numbers of rank and file activists as canvassers, fundraisers and local activists of the new project, we could really speak of a mass working class movement. No2EU itself, however, involved nothing of the sort. It would be surprising if it had, since the trade unions have never directly mobilised much more than money in support of the Labour Party – the grunt work being done originally by the affiliated socialist groups, later by the constituency and ward parties as a sort of socialist group.

Conversely, while in one sense Galloway is correct to talk of an “unmaking” – that is, the decay from within of the still formally and numerically imposing institutions of the working class – his argument is, like that of the Eurocommunists from which it is derived, overstated. Class is still a large feature of lived experience in Britain and one which has real influence on practical politics; and workers in industry and infrastructure, though fewer than they once were, retain very substantial numbers and are to a considerable extent organised in trade unions. It is this fact, which actually underlies the political dynamics of the general election, which Galloway throws at his opponents.

This in turn affects the issue of the Greens. The Greens are, quite simply, a semi-leftist petty bourgeois party: meaning by that that their financial and activist base is among professionals and small businesspeople. This is reflected in their conduct in local government office, which tends to be similar to that of the Liberal Democrats.

This does not imply that stand-down agreements with the Greens are unprincipled. On the contrary: it would be a perfectly principled tactic for a Communist Party, in order to overcome undemocratic hurdles to electoral representation, to enter into stand-down agreements with leftish petty bourgeois parties, as long as these agreements did not involve ‘mixing the banners’ or pretending that class did not matter.

Respect is, of course, not a Communist Party, but – as constructed – a cross-class, left-populist formation. But, paradoxically, the debate at its 2009 conference shows the ‘right wing’ in some ways closer to the idea of a Communist Party than the ‘left wing’. The reason is that the ‘right wing’ recognises that Labour is in some degraded sense still a workers’ party, and hence is groping towards a policy alternative to Labour. Meanwhile the ‘left wing’, believing Labour has ceased to be a ‘bourgeois workers’ party’, is hoping to reinvent Labour on the basis of a trade union coalition without any real policy alternative to Labour.

Notes

 

1. For example, on Liam Mac Uaid’s blog: liammacuaid.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/respect-conference-2/; on Andy Newman’s Socialist Unity site: www.socialistunity.com/?p=4884; on Dave Osler’s Dave’s Part: www.davidosler.com/2009/11/respect_dead_end_for_the_serio.html
2. www.therespectparty.net/breakingnews.php?id=767

A nation built on the premise of Ethnic Cleansing and Terror, yet claims to be the only democracy in the Middle East is proof that it is nothing more than a Nazi state!

WE SHALL RETURN!

Recent debates over at Socialist Unity have prompted the Friendly Lefty, in a feeble attempt at humour, to offer the following suggestion for a drinking game – so as to make the experience altogether more bearable. Feel free to suggest additions if you please. Enjoy!

Take a sip of your drink of choice every time someone …

- announces that millions of working-class people want a hard-left workers’ party to vote for …
- … or proposes the immediate formation of a new workers party
- calls the Labour Party ‘Zanu-Labour’
- says the Greens are ‘neoliberals identical to the establishment parties of big business’
- says Respect has abandoned working class politics and is now indistinguishable from Labour
- denounces Ken Livingstone for having been ‘Blair’s Mayor’
- proposes Bob Crow for Prime Minister
- says Salma Yaqoob hasn’t done anything to demonstrate that she is a ‘socialist in any meaningful sense’
- asks how anyone could ever vote Labour as they are a party of war and privatization
- says that Labour and the Tories are the same
- says that Compass are a left cover for Blairism
- argues that Diane Abbott is unsupportable because she sent her boy to an independent school (double sip if they then won’t accept that Black working class children have it worse off than white working class children)

Take a hearty glug whenever anyone …

- attacks Chavez for not abolishing the post of President of Venezuela and inaugurating a period of soviets and workers’ cooperatives (take a double glug if they then won’t accept that this would lead the revolution to be violently crushed within weeks)
- predicts that George Galloway will be back in the Labour Party by August
- argues that a electoral coalition composed of the Socialist Party and a couple of trade union general secretaries acting in a personal capacity could provide a viable left alternative at May’s general election
- calls Gerry Adams or Martin McGuiness traitors to the cause of Irish freedom (double glug if they then offer no practical steps towards Irish freedom)
- refuses to accept that Black and Asian shop-owners can be oppressed by racism, because they are ‘petit-bourgeois’

Neck the bottle …

- Whenever Ian Donovan posts a comment
- If a middle-ground is amicably agreed

Syrien, Iran, Hamas, Hizbollah och Saddam Hussein kramaren George Galloway sågas av en YouTube användare som lyckats säga konfrontera den här folkmordsförnekarens lögner med hans egna ord.
Sevärt och roligt.

Avslutningsvis, “Jesus var palestinier”:

You can see George Galloway shows:
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The Respect Annual Conference was held in Birmingham this year.

The Respect annual conference took place in Birmingham on Saturday with 210 delegates attending. The event revolved around the three key themes of our general election campaign: anti-racism and defense of multiculturalism, opposition to the cuts agenda of the mainstream parties, and international solidarity.

The opening session was introduced by Respect party leader Salma Yaqoob. Salma laid into New Labour for creating the conditions under which the BNP has grown; with its attacks on the Muslim community and increasingly anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Salma Yaqoob

She described how, since 9/11, Labour has resisted any examination of the disastrous role of its own foreign policy in creating a homegrown terrorist threat, leaving the impression that there is something intrinsic to the religon and culture of British Muslims that presents a threat to British society. She cited Jack Straw’s attacks on Muslim women who wear niqab; the attacks on mainstream Muslim organisations like the MCB and MAB for “sitting on the sidelines” in the fight against terrorism from the former Secretary for State for Communities, Ruth Kelly; and the Preventing Violent Extremism agenda, now described by Liberty as the ‘biggest spying operation’ since the Cold War.

Conference delegates

Similarly when Gordon Brown says that he wants ‘British jobs for British workers’, or ‘local homes for local people’, or curbs on immigration, he is stoking the fires of fear and intolerance that the BNP are the primary beneficiaries of. Salma challenged myths about immigrants being responsible for the recession or shortages in housing and concluded by emphasising Respect’s twin track approach in tackling racism: On the one hand, upholding and defending multiculturalism and challenging all forms of racism; and on the other hand, challenging the social inequality that allows the politics of resentment and division to breed.

The following discussion was by far the best of the conference. Not only was the quality of contributions largely very impressive, but they also conveyed a deep sense of commitment to tackling racism and an engagement in that struggle.

George Galloway

The second session was introduced by George Galloway, focusing on the recession and the politics of an alternative to economic crisis. Unfortunately, the discussion became distorted by those advocating the yet to be born ‘son-of-No2EU’.

An account of what followed, by an observer from the Green Left, accurately conveyed George’s response: ‘Galloway absolutely hammered No2EU in particular for standing against Peter Cranie in the North West… and refused to entertain any talk of coalition with the son of NO2EU.’ In addition to hammering NO2EU for effectively letting the BNP in (‘if the left had united it would have been Peter Cranie on Question Time not Nick Griffin’) he was scathing about the exaggeration being peddled about son-of-NO2EU. Contrary to claims by Ian Donovan, there were not ‘three national unions’ supporting this initiative; the reality was that three national union secretaries addressed a meeting in a personal capacity on working class political representation. George predicted the FBU would not support any so-called ‘new coalition’ and ridiculed the idea that the Prison Officers Association were now in the vanguard of building a far-left of Labour alternative, saying this would come as a bit of a surprise to any prisoner, especially those black, Irish or Muslim prisoners who had been on the receiving end of dealings with ‘screws’.

A sharp tone was adopted by both George and Salma towards an increasingly marginal current of opinion in Respect that sees our future as part of a coalition of the far left. The tone reflects the degree of frustration with an argument, just 6 months before a General Election, over backing a coalition with no name, no policies and no electoral credibility.

Nick Wrack

It also reflects a clear difference of strategy. As both George and Salmaexplained, we are focused on building unity and working with others, but we reject the narrow conception of left unity that gives pride of place to organizations with absolutely no popular support. Respect’s former National Secretary, Nick Wrack, came in for particular criticism, with Salma pointing out the irony of his calls for ‘left unity’ when he was one of those insisting that Respect should stand against the Greens in the North-West European region.

The message was delivered loud and clear: we wish all those who want to join the ‘coalition with no name’ well on their journey, and where we can establish friendly relations with any other progressive party or coalition we will do so, but we have an opportunity to advance the left by getting Respect MPs elected. If we fail, it will not be for the want of trying.

Andrew Murray

The final session was introduced by Andrew Murray who received a standing ovation for his passionate call for opposition to the war in Afghanistan and for Respect to use its strengths to help Stop the War reconnect with its core support. He was followed by Francisco Dominguez from the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign, who painted a vivid picture of the Bolivarian revolution 10 years on, the threats it faces, and the importance of international solidarity. Finally, Kevin Ovenden outlined exciting new developments in Palestinian solidarity, describing the way that Viva Palestina was fast becoming a global campaign, finding new and significant support in Malaysia among other places, and deepening its productive relationship with the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign.

Delegates vote

There was genuine and sharp debate at this conference. And the outcome was clear. Respect’s leadership is absolutely determined that the influence of the ultra-left will remain marginal. There is no place for the kind of political sectarianism that is indifferent to a Tory victory or bitterly hostile to cooperation with the Green Party. Such views, often articulated by politically irrelevant grouplets of the far left, are an obstacle to the growth of a radical party of the left. The potential for a serious radical and left-wing party will be determined by its ability to speak to the millions who are essentially disillusioned Labour

Respect Conference

supporters, and its ability to provide convincing alternatives to the politics of war, racism and cuts.
I fully expect the new National Council, on which the more sectarian voices are a shrinking minority, to drive through this perspective more forcefully in the coming year.

A report by Ger Francis

[Videos for this event will be available soon. Picture gallery on the Birmingham Respect facebook group: here]

Additional reports:

Respect Conference – Andy Newman, Socialist Unity (15.11.09)

Respect Conference in Birmingham today – Derek Wall (Green Party), Another World is Possible (14.11.09)

Two brief reports follow from Respect members present at yesterday’s National Conference in Birmingham. The event was a lively affair, with a good attendance of more than 200 and an excellent opening speech by Salma Yaqoob. Most importantly, Respect’s recent turn to the broader left of British politics was consolidated in the face of persistent opposition from ultra-leftists. Their main activity, as explained more fully below, was to attempt to objectively damage Respect by committing it to an alliance with small parties of the far-left.

The first report is by Ger Francis of Birmingham Respect:

The Respect annual conference took place in Birmingham on Saturday with 210 delegates attending. The event revolved around the three key themes of our general election campaign: anti-racism and defense of multiculturalism, opposition to the cuts agenda of the mainstream parties, and international solidarity.

The opening session was introduced by Respect party leader Salma Yaqoob. Salma laid into New Labour for creating the conditions under which the BNP has grown; with its attacks on the Muslim community and increasingly anti-immigrant rhetoric.

She described how, since 9/11, Labour has resisted any examination of the disastrous role of its own foreign policy in creating a homegrown terrorist threat, leaving the impression that there is something intrinsic to the religon and culture of British Muslims that presents a threat to British society. She cited Jack Straw’s attacks on Muslim women who wear niqab; the attacks on mainstream Muslim organisations like the MCB and MAB for “sitting on the sidelines” in the fight against terrorism from the former Secretary for State for Communities, Ruth Kelly; and the Preventing Violent Extremism agenda, now described by Liberty as the ‘biggest spying operation’ since the Cold War.

Similarly when Gordon Brown says that he wants ‘British jobs for British workers’, or ‘local homes for local people’, or curbs on immigration, he is stoking the fires of fear and intolerance that the BNP are the primary beneficiaries of. Salma challenged myths about immigrants being responsible for the recession or shortages in housing and concluded by emphasising Respect’s twin track approach in tackling racism: On the one hand, upholding and defending multiculturalism and challenging all forms of racism; and on the other hand, challenging the social inequality that allows the politics of resentment and division to breed.

The following discussion was by far the best of the conference. Not only was the quality of contributions largely very impressive, but they also conveyed a deep sense of commitment to tackling racism and an engagement in that struggle.

The second session was introduced by George Galloway, focusing on the recession and the politics of an alternative to economic crisis. Unfortunately, the discussion became distorted by those advocating the yet to be born ‘son-of-No2EU’.

An account of what followed, by an observer from the Green Left, accurately conveyed George’s response: ‘Galloway absolutely hammered No2EU in particular for standing against Peter Cranie in the North West…and refused to entertain any talk of coalition with the son of NO2EU.’ In addition to hammering NO2EU for effectively letting the BNP in (‘if the left had united it would have been Peter Cranie on Question Time not Nick Griffin’) he was scathing about the exaggeration being peddled about son-of-NO2EU. Contrary to claims by Ian Donovan, there were not ‘three national unions’ supporting this initiative; the reality was that three national union secretaries addressed a meeting in a personal capacity on working class political representation. George predicted the FBU would not support any so-called ‘new coalition’ and ridiculed the idea that the Prison Officers Association were now in the vanguard of building a far-left of Labour alternative, saying this would come as a bit of a surprise to any prisoner, especially those black, Irish or Muslim prisoners who had been on the receiving end of dealings with ‘screws’.

A sharp tone was adopted by both George and Salma towards an increasingly marginal current of opinion in Respect that sees our future as part of a coalition of the far left. The tone reflects the degree of frustration with an argument, just 6 months before a General Election, over backing a coalition with no name, no policies and no electoral credibility.

It also reflects a clear difference of strategy. As both George and Salma explained, we are focused on building unity and working with others, but we reject the narrow conception of left unity that gives pride of place to organizations with absolutely no popular support. Respect’s former National Secretary, Nick Wrack, came in for particular criticism, with Salma pointing out the irony of his calls for ‘left unity’ when he was one of those insisting that Respect should stand against the Greens in the North-West European region.

The message was delivered loud and clear: we wish all those who want to join the ‘coalition with no name’ well on their journey, and where we can establish friendly relations with any other progressive party or coalition we will do so, but we have an opportunity to advance the left by getting Respect MPs elected. If we fail, it will not be for the want of trying.

The final session was introduced by Andrew Murray who received a standing ovation for his passionate call for opposition to the war in Afghanistan and for Respect to use its strengths to help Stop the War reconnect with its core support. He was followed by Francisco Dominguez from the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign, who painted a vivid picture of the Bolivarian revolution 10 years on, the threats it faces, and the importance of international solidarity. Finally, Kevin Ovenden outlined exciting new developments in Palestinian solidarity, describing the way that Viva Palestina was fast becoming a global campaign, finding new and significant support in Malaysia among other places, and deepening its productive relationship with the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign.

There was genuine and sharp debate at this conference. And the outcome was clear. Respect’s leadership is absolutely determined that the influence of the ultra-left will remain marginal. There is no place for the kind of political sectarianism that is indifferent to a Tory victory or bitterly hostile to cooperation with the Green Party. Such views, often articulated by politically irrelevant grouplets of the far left, are an obstacle to the growth of a radical party of the left. The potential for a serious radical and left-wing party will be determined by its ability to speak to the millions who are essentially disillusioned Labour supporters, and its ability to provide convincing alternatives to the politics of war, racism and cuts.

I fully expect the new National Council, on which the more sectarian voices are a shrinking minority, to drive through this perspective more forcefully in the coming year.

And this report is from Kevin Ovenden of Tower Hamlets Respect:

Following the conference there is now a real desire in Respect to drive on to the elections and to continue expanding out of our core areas. Those promoting an alternative strategy – standing as part of a coalition with no name, whose previous incarnation got a quarter of our GLA vote in London and the same as the SWP’s front – had negligible support by the time the debate had been had.

We will now seek to make the best contribution we can to rebuilding a powerful left in Britain, which is overwhelmingly to get three MPs elected and to offer what support we can to credible left candidates elsewhere.

We are also firmly positioned in the broad labour movement, which means we are far from indifferent to a Tory victory.

I, for one, have little time for those who, having lost the debate, claim that socialists are being driven out of Respect (witch-hunted is the traditional term). All characters and events appear twice in history – the SWP’s witch-hunt claims and break from Respect were a tragedy, Neil’s claims are farcical.

The arguments put by many of us in the Respect leadership in, for example, the debate on immigration and anti-racism were grounded in clear socialist analysis. In opposition to the claim that “the working class knows” about the history of the struggle against slavery of support for the North against the South in the American civil war, for example, I pointed out that it is an unfortunate fact that some workers are racist and more are influenced by racist ideas.

That can be changed; but not by pretending the problem does not exist, lionising the abstract “worker” and talking economistically about everything else but racism.

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You can see George Galloway shows:
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A report by Ger Francis of Birmingham Respect is available on Socialist Unity. It looks to have been a very good event. Not so long ago the strength of the Zionists at Birmingham University was such that the Palestine Society was banned. When the Islamic Society started organising themselves and consequently cleaned up in delegate elections to NUS Conference in 2005, such a fuss was caused that the vote was deemed invalid and a re-election announced.

Advocates of Palestine have come a long way to be able to successfully hold an event like this on campus and for this should be commended.

Please “Help” Isra-hell

Cynthia McKinney War Crimes Conference Speech

Part 1

Part 2

Speech by Cynthia McKinney from the USA at the War Crimes Conference & Exhibition that took place at the Putra World Trade Center in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia on 28th October 2009.

George Galloway War Crimes Conference Speech

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Speech by George Galloway MP at the War Crimes Conference & Exhibition that took place at the Putra World Trade Center in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia on 28th October 2009.

Criminalise War – Tun Mahathir

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Keynote address of HE Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad 4th Prime Minister of Malaysia at the War Crimes Conference & Exhibition that took place at the Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia on 28th October 2009.

You can see George Galloway shows:
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You can see this and other shows 24×7 on SpideredNews.com TV
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You can see George Galloway shows:
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Still true to their roots the Urban Music Awards took place in London’s Bloomsbury Theatre. With a packed venue and an electric atmosphere the UMA’s are on the up and up!

Guest included Frank Bruno who presented an award

Sarina Mantle a sultry singer/ fashion designer who performed while showcasing her fabulous eco-friendly collection from her label ‘Wilde Suga’. An amazing performance which was choreographed by the acclaimed Sombo Dakowah

George Galloway MP presented an award and took the opportunity to say  ‘This sends out a message to the BNP…This is what Britain looks like, This is the Britain we want, Nick Griffin, there is no going back.’

All well and good but I still remember when you done this – LMAO! Politicians ah love a wagon don’t they?

Kele Le Roc rocked a body hugging purple number

Egypt sparkled in her outfit and hyped up the crowd when she performed – She rocks!

Oh yes and she won an award as well  (Best Newcomer) as did Sway (Best Hip Hop)  and Levi Roots ( Best Entrepreneur) 

Duo Brick and Lace picked up two awards namely Best Inspiring Act and Best RnB Act

And girl group Cleopatra (Coming at ya! Couldn’t resist!!!!) made an appearance looking all grown up!

Fun was had by everyone and  MASH-leyne wearing a Dorothy Perkins dress walked bare foot to her car (sigh)

Sade Says ‘the only way is up’

Images courtesy of The Award Winning Flyer Newspaper

You can see George Galloway shows:
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Archive can be seen at :
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You can see this and other shows 24×7 on SpideredNews.com TV
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Please also visit George Galloway page on SpideredNews :
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You can see George Galloway shows:
“Comment” videos on:
http://www.worldpressnetwork.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=418

“The Real Deal” Videos on:
http://www.worldpressnetwork.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=473

The above and other George Galloway videos can be seen on SpideredNews’ channel on
Viddler :
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Archive can be seen at :
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Other videos for George Galloway can be seen on:
http://www.guba.com/user/SpideredNews

You can share your opinion on our blogs:
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http://spiderednewsblog.blogspot.com/
http://www.worldpressnetwork.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=418 for Comment show
http://www.worldpressnetwork.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=473 for The Real Deal show

You can see this and other shows 24×7 on SpideredNews.com TV
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Please also visit George Galloway page on SpideredNews :
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