07.04.2004

Firm foundations needed

Respect meeting reports

Oxford

On March 31 Oxford Respect held its first general members’ meeting since its launch on March 9. There were 17 people present, a marked decline from the approximately 70 at the launch. Apart from myself, four or five of those attending were Socialist Workers Party members, but there were no International Socialist Group comrades in spite of their relative local strength. Half a dozen others could be said to have come from that very slippery concept, the ‘muslim community’, in the sense of being either of British south Asian or of Middle Eastern ethnic origin.

Comrades from the Oxford Communication Workers Union branch leadership, supporting Respect in a personal capacity, sent their apologies, since they were involved in a strike which broke out that day in a local dispute over health and safety, harassment and victimisation. We agreed a statement of support for the strikers, drafted by SWPer Martin Gregory, and that a delegation would attend the picket line to deliver it.

The meeting was billed to discuss two items: firstly the Spanish election and “Is Blair next?”, and secondly the EU election campaign. In fact, chair Dona Velluti gave a brief political report of the last week’s events, including the local CWU dispute.The elected steering committee had met twice (but taken no substantial decisions, it seems). George Galloway came to Oxford on March 25 and addressed two meetings. A lunchtime meeting for trade unionists in Cowley attracted 30 and was positively reported in the Oxford Mail. An evening meeting at Oxford Brookes University was attended by 100, but Galloway was apparently “given a hard time” in discussion.

Unison activist Mark Ladbroke, an independent generally close to the SWP, then gave a rather rambling speech which attempted to link the war with all sorts of other grievances affecting working class people’s daily lives, through the line that we as working people did not have a common interest with British and multinational corporations, but with other working people globally. He said that Respect was trying to create a new sort of party. It would not be a top-down party with long speeches from the platform, but draw from people’s immediate experiences. It was ‘what we would make of it’. At this point he threw the meeting open to the floor for ideas.

After this, discussion was understandably slow to get started. The first question concerned the democratic mechanisms for ensuring that ‘what we wanted to make of Respect’ was reflected nationally. Comrade Ladbroke’s response was that this, too, was yet to be sorted out and also fell under the category of “what we make of it”. Comrade Velluti made the point that we have two representatives on a steering committee for the South East Euro constituency (one of whom, comrade Zaid Marham, was present) and could put ideas forward through these. An SWP comrade said that his experience of the founding convention was that it was a new sort of organisation: one could talk to members of the central leadership, who would listen.

We then discussed the Euro election campaign. SWP comrades wanted to emphasise trying to start up Respect groups in towns elsewhere in Oxfordshire, as well as in Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, which had been unrepresented at the South East convention. I suggested that with the small numbers at the meeting it might be more appropriate to begin with establishing firm foundations in Oxford, especially given the short time before the elections. SWP comrades argued in response that the Euro elections were not like ordinary elections which involved leafleting, canvassing and local initiatives. Rather they could and should be fought by publicity splashes and by raising money to get leaflets printed and delivered by Royal Mail under the electoral communications facility. One comrade argued that we “only need to get 2,000 votes per parliamentary constituency to get someone elected”. Hence spreading geographically was critical.

A south Asian comrade agreed that we needed to do some serious work in Oxford. He argued that we needed to target groups who were particularly likely to support Respect: the muslims and the students. We agreed to leaflet people leaving the mosques on Friday. We also agreed to start trying to get Respect launched at the university. A woman comrade suggested leafleting a muslim women’s meeting this weekend. On comrade Velluti’s suggestion, we also agreed to run stalls at Oxford and District Trades Union Council’s May Day event and the Levellers’ Day event in Burford on May 15. SWP comrades agreed to explore further setting up meetings in other towns; there was also a plea from the treasurer for comrades to come forward with money-raising ideas.

All these activities faced two difficulties. The first was that the national office had agreed to send Oxford a list of people in the Thames Valley area who had signed up to Respect, but this had not yet arrived - possibly held up by the local postal dispute. I suggested we request it by email. The second was that the local group was running out of leaflets. Comrade Marham was going up to London this Saturday and agreed to collect some from the national office. It turns out, however, that they too have run out of leaflets ...

I had expected to find Respect locally politically weak and practically dominated by the SWP. I had not expected to find it shambolic. The SWP had obviously put on their anarcho-spontaneist Globalise Resistance hats; but the meeting seemed more than anything else like an unusually disorganised ward Labour Party meeting from the 1980s, if a bit less political than these were.

Wales

Around 50 people attended the April 3 meeting in Cardiff to select Respect’s candidates for Wales in the European elections.

The meeting began with a request from the Socialist Workers Party chair that debate should centre on the practicalities of building the coalition. The implication was that contributions seeking to develop any sort of political strategy or build upon Respect’s platform of well-meaning platitudes would not be welcome. The SWP-recommended slate was overwhelmingly supported and thus the four candidates are Raja Raiz (a prominent member of Cardiff’s ‘muslim community’), Helen Griffin (author and actress), Huw Williams and Taran O’Sullivan (both SWP).

The meeting also chose a steering committee to oversee the election campaign. As a CPGB member, I pointed out that electoral success for Respect would be seen as a victory for the anti-war movement. In particular, I argued for the strengthening of our electoral challenge by setting it on a firm, principled foundation. I highlighted the need for open borders as a logical expression of our solidarity with asylum-seekers and the necessity for all our candidates to commit themselves to take only the equivalent of the skilled worker’s average wage, donating the rest to the movement. Our challenge should not only be to New Labour, but to the UK constitutional monarchy and the system itself.

I stressed that the inclusion of a critical voice on the steering committee would indicate confidence in our politics and serve the positive function of portraying a movement opposed to the undemocratic, self-serving practices of mainstream politicians. In this way the political expression of the anti-war movement could be given the degree of credibility necessary to pull the balance of forces in society to the left. Unfortunately, SWP comrades - roughly half those present - did not agree.

No political objections were raised to these points, however. Indeed, it is hard to see how they could have been. Instead, SWP member Jeff Hurford read out sections of a CPGB leaflet - not one that had been handed out at the meeting itself, but one that, with some foresight, the comrade had brought with him. He felt it was particularly important to tell the audience that a member of the CPGB could not be trusted, since the leaflet referred to the Respect as “an amorphous coalition of greens, peaceniks, muslims and trade unionists”. Of course, the first part of the sentence quoted points out that Respect does not “identify the working class as the agent for social change”. It was interesting that the comrade, as a revolutionary socialist, did not develop this point. Interesting, but hardly surprising, because of course politics was not something we were supposed to be discussing. Working class politicians should not engage in such disingenuous methods of debate.

A sizable section of the proceedings was given over to a discussion on ways to promote Respect locally, with some interesting suggestions put forward. Comrade Williams spoke of his laudable desire to make Respect a household name and welcomed the addition of trade union branches as affiliated organisations. Referring to the need to unite the left vote, he hoped the Green Party would come on board and informed the meeting that there was a “real possibility of a joint slate” with John Marek’s Forward Wales. However, in response to direct questioning from the floor little was said about the state of negotiations between the two organisations other than they were “ongoing”.

After the meeting, it became apparent that a minority of the audience had been invigorated by the discussion of Respect’s politics that had taken place and had some doubts about the SWP’s arguments. These were comrades who the SWP consider part of their periphery. However, rather than give a lead to the more progressive and advanced elements of the class as socialists should, the response of one SWP comrade was typical of the organisation’s recent turn to populism. Apparently, the call for a republic, open borders and a workers’ candidates on a worker’s wage were simply vote-losers and therefore not worthy of support. The comrade had obviously forgotten one of Tony Cliff’s oft-repeated phrases: “Never lie to the class”.

Coventry

Despite the broad agreement reached locally for the left to contest as many of Coventry’s 18 council wards as possible, the Respect executive has decided that there will be no unity coalition candidates in the city on June 10.

Apparently they are under the impression that local members were planning to stand against Socialist Party councillor Dave Nellist or to threaten his position in some way. This would have contravened the understanding reached between Respect and the SP.

I would like to clarify matters, since I have convened four meetings in Coventry since September 2003 to discuss precisely this issue. Members of all groups, including the Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party, have been present at all four meetings.

The boundaries have been changed in our electoral district. This means that all 54 councillors are up for re-election - three in each of the 18 wards. The September plan was to try to get 54 left candidates, or at least ensure that there were no clashes and everybody knew what everybody else was doing.

The Socialist Party has three councillors at the moment in St Michaels Ward. There has been absolutely no question of any other left candidates standing in St Michaels - that has been agreed. The SP made an initial bid to have one candidate in each of the other 17 wards, but it acknowledged of course that this did not prevent other left candidates from standing and it was prepared to discuss with individuals and groups.

The Stop the War Coalition is strongest in Earlsdon and Whoberley, which neighbour each other, and in Lower Stoke across town. They planned to stand in Earlsdon and Whoberley as Respect candidates. Socialist Alliance candidates have stood in both of these wards before. A former Labour MEP indicated she was prepared to stand in Lower Stoke as an independent - possibly as Respect. We were encouraging some student activists to stand in Wainbody, where the University of Warwick halls are situated, mainly on the fees issue; they would probably be Respect candidates as well. There are two other independent left candidates - one from the Marxist Party, who has stood before in Radford ward, and another independent in Westwood ward.

Coventry Socialist Alliance has been in existence since 1992, when 130 comrades were expelled from the Labour Party for supporting sitting left Labour MPs Dave Nellist and John Hughes. We have consistently stood and supported socialist candidates in elections at a time when the SWP was advocating a vote for our New Labour opponents - including Geoffrey Robinson, the architect of New Labour’s PFI project, as Paul Foot so eloquently showed in a recent Private Eye supplement.

Before 1992 we had experience in running elections in the Labour Party. For example, I was a West Midlands county councillor for an authority covering more than the area of the European constituency which the SWP’s John Rees is hoping to represent for Respect. All of this experience apparently counts for nothing, since without consultation we have been told, second hand, that it is not only SA candidates we cannot stand - but Respect ones too!

I was shocked to hear of the Respect EC decision, particularly without making any reference to Respect members in Coventry, of which I am one. I have written to the Respect executive, asking to see copies of its correspondence with the SP’s Hannah Sell. Just what has been agreed?

One of the coalition’s leaflets declares: “Do you want to be part of a real democracy?” Yes, I do! But the decision does not seem at all democratic to me - more like the old-fashioned deals in smoke-filled rooms.

Redbridge and Havering

George Galloway spoke at the April 2 launch of Redbridge and Havering Respect in Ilford. Some of his comments are very interesting:

“For me the most important letter in Respect is the ‘E’ for ‘equality’ - equality for immigrants: legal and illegal; asylum-seekers and refugees. Equality for everybody.” I wonder if comrade Alan Thornett, Resistance and the SWP consider Galloway’s position “too advanced”.

When asked a question about ‘interference in the affairs of other countries’, George Galloway replied: “I have been interfering in the affairs of other countries all my political life. Not like Bush and Blair, for the benefit of imperialism and multinational corporations. No, I have been interfering on behalf of democracy, progressives and socialists.”

This is almost identical to the positions of the Jewish Socialist Group and CPGB voted down at the Stop the War Coalition conference in February. Not quite, though - he significantly omitted ‘secular’. Still, his is a far better position than the interventions by Resistance and SWP comrades against us based on a crass interpretation of ‘self-determination’.

Finally, he even had a go at muslim fundamentalism, although it was in his direct interests to do so because islamist intervention is a threat to Respect. He commented on the fact that a representative of political islam “had a five-minute slot on the radio saying that it is un-islamic to vote, to link up with other communities and the left. In whose interests do they speak? If they didn’t exist the authorities would have had to invent them. Perhaps they did.”

Funny old world, eh?

Willesden

George Galloway and Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui of the Muslim Parliament of Britain spoke to an audience of over 80 people at Respect’s rally in Willesden, North London on April 6. A good turnout, with a relatively high percentage of people from the local ‘muslim community’ in attendance.

Both main speakers’ contributions were interesting, highlighting broad questions of contemporary world politics. This again illustrates that engaging in the cut and thrust of electoral politics will produce a pressure for Respect’s ‘thumbnail sketch’ electoral platform - an “emergency programme”, as comrade Galloway has put it (Weekly Worker April 1) - to be considerably fleshed out.

For example, Dr Siddiqui commented that he did not believe that there was any real terrorist threat originating with the indigenous muslim community here in Britain. It is being invented, in much the same way - on a different scale - the supposed threat of the USSR was talked up by the imperialists. To the extent that a danger existed, it was largely external. A parallel was drawn with Afghanistan and what the comrade referred to as “a CIA-sponsored jihad” - a conflict whose roots were not religious, but assumed that form because of the interference of the west.

Capitalism needs a new enemy in the aftermath of the collapse of bureaucratic socialism. The United States is seeking to consolidate world hegemony and a politically important cohering factor in that drive is the creation of a new enemy - political islam. Yet the US has shown itself not only perfectly prepared to work with this reactionary trend in the past and in the present-day world - look at Saudi Arabia - but to actually create it where it perceived that its great power ambitions would be served.

Comrade Galloway spoke well. He condemned terrorism, observing that ultimately actions such as the Madrid outrage benefited imperialism, not the cause of liberation. If the reactionary forces like the perpetrators did not exist, he said, the west “would feel the need to invent them”.

Much of his speech concentrated on the “uprising in Iraq” - he saw the recent increase in armed attacks on coalition forces as vindication of the anti-war movement’s warnings. He approvingly cited Teddy Kennedy’s comment that Iraq was now “Bush’s Vietnam” - although without drawing out any political differences between the National Liberation Front of that country and the forces now engaged in military action on the ground in Iraq.

He sharply attacked the Liberal Democrats for their collapse once war had started, but did not mention the Green Party at all. Strange in some way, as both the Lib Dems and the Greens will be at least partial competitors for much of the same anti-war constituency as Respect come June. Comrade Galloway at least underlined again that this competition is being taken seriously - Respect aims to get 21 million leaflets out, to get a party political broadcast and everything needed for a serious electoral challenge.

All of which underlines the need for the coalition to go way beyond an “emergency programme”, of course. In the harsh world of serious party politics, political vagueness or ‘silences’ will be ruthlessly punished by our opponents.