11.03.2004

Electoralism not so bad

Hackney Respect

There was much that was positive about Respect’s March 4 public meeting in Hackney, addressed by Paul Foot of the Socialist Workers Party and Taylan Sahbaz of the local Turkish and Kurdish community centre, Day Mer.

It was democratically chaired by Jane Basset, a local SWP comrade and leading militant in the National Union of Teachers. She allowed dissenting views to be aired - a Socialist Party comrade, plus two CPGBers were given generous space to develop critical points. The turnout - just under 100 - was pleasing.

Also very encouraging was the presence on the platform of the rep from Day Mer; even more so as the comrade underlined that Respect offered Turks and Kurds an opportunity they had sought for some time - a way into British politics as part of the working class of this country, not as migrant workers or asylum-seekers. The meeting also showed a degree of independent thinking - a good half of the audience warmly applauded our comrade Anne Mc Shane’s intervention highlighting two key mistakes made by Respect’s January 25 founding convention.

Led by its SWP majority, it rejected the demand for open borders and the principle that workers’ representatives receive no more than the average skilled worker’s wage. Judging from the response to comrade Mc Shane’s critical comments, there is still a lively debate to be had in Respect on such questions.

Disappointingly, leading SWPers responded in a familiar manner. Julie Waterson set the tone. All criticism was “negative” and “carping”. Instead, we must all be “hugely excited” and “tremendously confident”. Debate was not needed, but a determination to “get out there and build”. The usual brand of apolitical guff SWP apparatchiks spout when they want to negate criticism from the left.

However, I was surprised by some of the comments of Paul Foot, especially when he replied to the debate. The comrade’s opening remarks seemed to set rather modest ambitions for the new coalition. Prosaically, it was needed to “frighten or dent the government electorally”, he said. He appeared to suggest that the highest aim we could set ourselves was “getting one or two people elected”.

I raised the danger of electoralism in my intervention, citing the shocking comments at the Respect launch by John Rees that he and his comrades had “voted against the things we believe” in order to frame Respect as an electorally ‘credible’ vehicle (Weekly Worker January 29).

In response, comrade Foot just came out with nonsense - a fact he seemed rather shamefaced about when I approached him after the meeting. He told the gathering that electoralism was not such a bad thing - after all, “We would complain soon enough if they banned elections, wouldn’t we?” Democracy - which the comrade almost equated with elections - was won by struggle, therefore we should be rather solicitous of it, he suggested.

This is just bluster. For instance, all Marxists are in favour of reforms - the NHS, universal education, the right to vote and so on. We should defend and seek to extend these - that hardly makes all Marxists reformists, does it? Similarly, I am in favour of revolutionaries taking part in elections - there is a long and very honourable tradition of doing so. That does not equate with electoralism, as I know comrade Foot - despite his disingenuous public comments - is well aware.

Lastly, there was an interesting political convergence in the meeting. Comrade Sahbaz of Day Mer also distanced himself from the CPGB’s criticisms of Respect’s founding platform. The “ultimate goal” was one thing, he suggested, but today’s “objective reality” was another - the old dichotomy between ‘the movement and the final goal’ that was the methodological basis for the collapse of the Second International into reformism, in other words. A limited programme is imposed on us because “what corresponds to reality is a fight for democratisation”, said comrade Sahbaz. A similar political template to that of George Galloway.

However, it was odd that this schema was offered as an alternative to the calls from CPGBers for Respect to adopt positions of consistent democracy - open borders, workers’ reps on a worker’s wage, republicanism, etc. Even more strangely, considering the audience was largely composed of ostensible Trotskyists, comrade Sahbaz - someone from an avowedly Stalinist political background - won warm applause for his criticisms of CPGB comrades, despite the fact that they were based on a ‘two stages’ distortion of Marxism.

It looks like Respect could produce some really interesting new political alignments.