23.06.2004

Respect: Lessons of Socialist Alliance

Tina Becker reports on a meeting of Respect in North-East London.

Around 50 people attended the June 22 Respect meeting in North East London, convened to discuss 'After the elections - where do we go from here?' Despite the generally upbeat mood of the meeting - we achieved a "fantastic result", said GLA candidate Dean Ryan (Socialist Workers Party) - it is clear from the sometimes contradictory or ambiguous contributions at the meeting that a period of sober reflection and debate is needed to map out the way ahead.

The audience was overwhelmingly SWP, with not much evidence on the evening of new activists from the muslim, Turkish or Kurdish local working class communities that the campaign did undoubtedly activate to a certain extent. This is a weakness, but it is still early days. Speaking from the platform, Veli Yadirgi, a muslim college lecturer, pointed out that, while "the overwhelming majority of muslims did not vote for Respect", it did receive a percentage of the votes of those who are "members of the working class". The lesson being that we needed to campaign on "class issues" - perhaps a corrective to the populism that marred so much of Respect's propaganda?
Her emphasis on class was contradicted by Taylan Sahbaz from the Turkish community centre, Day-Mer, who argued forcefully in favour of populism. According to him it was true that "we have made some mistakes" - but, incredibly, they were of a leftist nature: "We should not have limited our potential outreach by presenting ourselves as a left alternative. That will have put people off." He said that it was the fact that "Respect is not a real political party, but a unity project" that made it attractive to Day-Mer.

Clearly, the move by some political organisations of the Turkish and Kurdish community into British political life is tremendously positive. For too long, the leaders of these groups have attempted to maintain them simply as organisations of foreign workers or political activists rather than seek integration into the society where they find themselves. However, this can only come about through active political struggle. The revolutionary élan and dedication of these communities need to be absorbed by our rather dozy 'indigenous' left; on the other hand, a hard political struggle is required against the traditions of Stalinoid populism that so many revolutionary organisations from this part of the world will perhaps bring with them.
The emphasis from SWPers - on the top table and in the audience - was very much on campaigning on very localised issues and getting away from the habits and modes of work of "the old left", as Lindsey German - a hoary stalwart of that old left herself, of course - rather disingenuously put it (there was little or no mention of class).

On one level, comrade German had a point, of course. The left today is very conservative and unimaginative, compared to yesteryear. For example, speaking on housing, Lindsey cited the way the "the CPGB did it in the 50s, when they housed people in thousands of empty buildings in London". She also has a point when she says: "We certainly do not want to repeat what the old left has done - sitting in horrible little rooms, talking only to each other. Instead, do it like the Kurdish community: go to picnics together, talk politics over dinner." With the "old left" painted in these rather dismal colours, who could disagree?

However, the comrade's real message could be a rather grim one for the future of Respect. The strong implication was that people could forget about the transformation of the coalition into a party, with 'boring' or 'old fashioned' infrastructures such a branches, democratic membership conferences and an accountable leadership. If this is true, then Respect - however much campaigning effort the SWP devotes to it - will suffer from the same disorientation, demoralisation and eventual decline that laid low the Socialist Alliance. While the SWP leadership refuses to confront the party question, all such initiatives will founder.

Naturally, quite a number of speakers from the floor raised precisely this question, amongst them the CPGB's Anne Mc Shane: "We have built on the success of the Socialist Alliances and expanded this support. But if we really want to become a lasting alternative to New Labour, we need to do become a campaigning, political party," she argued.

Another comrade reported that in Brent "there were more people campaigning for the Socialist Alliance than for Respect. We need to discuss why that is". He also reported that he had "come across quite a few leftwing friends and colleagues who didn't vote for Respect because of George Galloway and his position on abortion. I couldn't convince them that it didn't matter what Galloway personally had said."

However, comrade Nick Rogers (formerly in the Scottish Socialist Party) quite rightly pointed out that it "matters a great deal what the leader of Respect says publicly just before an election". Exactly. In a party, the reactionary views of an individual comrade - however prominent - are not key. The discipline of the collective - expressing democratically agreed national policies - would be what all our comrades are obliged to abide by at the end of the day.

Comrade Rogers also argued against comrades German's and Sahbaz's dismissal of the "old left", which could be seen as an excuse to ignore the "democratic structures" of organisation.
Plaintively, another member of the audience wondered how he could actually get involved in the structures of the new organisation: "Is there a branch I can join? How can I get involved?" His request for this pretty basic information fell on deaf ears. Not one speaker addressed the question of structure; instead the focus was on planned local campaigns.

Now if we take as the template the regime the SWP fought to impose on the SA, this implies that the Respect membership can expect to turn up to really boring, apolitical meetings, while genuine decisions are made elsewhere. They can expect to be told where to leaflet and when. They perhaps should not anticipate too much debate and democratic input into what Respect should actually be campaigning about.

The lessons of the death of the SA must be learned if Respect is not to go the same way.