21.07.2004

Respect gets noticed

Principled politics are needed to fill the political vacuum on the British left. But can Respect become this vehicle? asks Peter Manson

The Tory leadership, stung by criticisms that it had not fought hard enough in last year’s Brent East by-election - where the Conservatives also lost ground while the Lib Dems gained a formerly safe seat from Labour - every day bussed in scores of MPs from Westminster to both constituencies in the week before July 15. To no avail. The Tory share of the vote in both seats dropped by around three percent relative to their tally in the 2001 general election.

So the support given to both main parties is largely sullen and reluctant. The Liberal Democrats are the main beneficiaries of protest votes, particularly in view of the perception that they opposed the war on Iraq. June 10 showed that the far right - in the shape of the UK Independence Party and the BNP - can take advantage of the Tories’ continued disarray, but there is also a huge vacuum on the left which the Lib Dems cannot really fill. True, they can pose left in Brent, Leicester and Birmingham, but what about all those seats in ‘Middle England’, which they must also target and, in truth, are more likely to win in a nationwide poll than inner-city constituencies?

That is where Respect comes in. However, if that vacuum is to be filled, it will require consistent hard work and the transformation of Respect into some kind of a principled socialist party. It will also require a sober assessment of where we are now. That is why the hype in the coalition’s post-election press release - now a leaflet - is unfortunate:

“We have sent shock waves through the whole political establishment. Thursday’s by-election results show the sea change which is happening in British politics … The voters have dealt Tony Bliar a massive blow … spectacular votes in both seats.”

Yvonne Ridley went further: “England now has a four-party system - and the mainstream parties better get used to it. We have made our mark on national politics.” Or George Galloway: “We have established ourselves as the fourth party in British politics and we are building for the general election, when we will give them another shock.”

The claim to be Britain’s “fourth party” was one that Arthur Scargill used to make in the early days of the Socialist Labour Party. It was equally ill-founded then - although at least with Respect you could say it is based on coming fourth in two by-elections!

But let us be realistic. The Euro results on June 10 - well under two percent - reflect much more accurately Respect’s true support. And those results included some remarkable highs, as well as returns that can only be described as derisory. In fact Respect’s percentage vote decreased in both Leicester and Birmingham five weeks later - hardly surprising in view of the concentrated effort the mainstream parties are able to put into by-elections.

The results, while healthy, are far from a “breakthrough”, as claimed. It is true that Respect is now starting to be noticed in the media, but Tony Blair is hardly spending sleepless nights just yet over this particular challenge. We also have to consider the basis upon which Respect appealed to voters, particularly in Leicester South.

Certainly its platform was leftwing - left populist, to be more accurate. It firmly opposed the war and occupation of Iraq, along with privatisation and the “Tory” anti-union laws. It put forward some eminently supportable demands on pensions, health, education, asylum rights and the environment. Nevertheless, this does not represent a coherent manifesto - we all know that the platform was kept deliberately vague on many issues and there has been a studied silence on others - abortion springs immediately to mind.

It has to be said that Yvonne Ridley’s success in a constituency with a large muslim population owed far more to the fact that she is a recent convert to islam than to Respect’s platform. In fact she was a very poor candidate from a working class point of view. She has no record of fighting, or even speaking out, for workers. As she made clear in her interview with this paper, she has not the slightest understanding of the socialist tradition. Like comrade Galloway, she dismisses with contempt the idea that working class representatives should stand on a worker’s wage (Weekly Worker July 1).

Unlike the workers in Leicester whose votes she sought, Yvonne Ridley sends her daughter to a private school. Thanks to her high profile as a former detainee of the Taliban, she was featured prominently in Harper’s and Queen.

Its article noted: “Things changed when Ridley had her daughter, Daisy ... Suddenly, she couldn’t do the after-work drinks, where all the networking was done and deals were struck. For her, motherhood was ‘like being in a three-legged race with a ball and chain on the legs’. Her solution to the problem was to send Daisy, now 11, to boarding school in the Lake District … In the holidays, Daisy often flies out to join her mother and the two of them take off on travel expeditions.”

The article continues: “As we wander back to Ridley’s villa, with its airy rooms and marble floor, I comment that private education doesn’t come cheap. She gives me a semi-smile: ‘In my bleakest, blackest moments I look at Daisy and I think, ‘Porsche Boxster!’” (Harper’s and Queen March 2004).
Former SWP member Andy Newman has done a little research and has come to the conclusion that the boarding school in question must be Windermere St Annes - the only one that fits the description given in Harper’s and Queen. Comrade Newman, writing on the Socialist Unity website, notes that fees at Windermere St Annes are “up to £16,380 per year (for comparison, top drawer schools Eton and Marlborough charge £19,000 and £20,000)”.

Ironically Respect’s policy on education demands a “system that is not dependent on the ability to pay, that is comprehensive and gives an equal chance in life to every child, no matter how wealthy or poor their parents, from nursery to university” (Founding declaration).

Comrade Newman points out that, since Yvonne Ridley is a single mother with a job that necessitates long periods away, her decision to send her daughter to boarding school is perhaps understandable. But, as he says, there was a nearby alternative in the state sector: “Dallam School, a member of the State Boarding School Association, is in the Lake District as well” (that particular area was chosen so that Daisy could be near her mother’s family).

So far the Socialist Workers Party has made no comment on the fact that Ridley sends her child to a private school. Perhaps, now that this information has come to light, we can expect her decision to be condemned in equally stringent terms to those used in the case of Diane Abbott, who also decided to shun a state alternative. She was called a “New Labour education hypocrite” (Socialist Worker November 22 2003).

l In Leicester South, the SLP’s Dave Roberts won 263 votes (0.89%) - 38 more than RU Seerious of the Monster Raving Loony Party (225). Independent Pat Kennedy, representing a local campaign to save six special-needs schools from closure, picked up the support of 204 voters. Some on the left suggested that Respect should have stood down in his favour.