06.10.2004

Don't rain on our parade

Less than 20 Respect members turned up to the all-Wales meeting, reports Cameron Richards

An all-Wales meeting of Respect took place in Cardiff on a miserable, rainy day on Sunday October 3. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss policy on the national and language questions in Wales, as well as to elect delegates to the forthcoming Respect conference in London.

With John Rees billed to speak (he failed to turn up) and a mountain of food supplied, one might have expected numbers in excess of the 50 or so who attended Respect meetings in the run-up to the June 10 elections. In the event less than 20 members bothered to come.

Whether this was because there is discontent with the Respect project in Wales or simply because Socialist Workers Party members have bought into their leaders line that meetings are now boring it is difficult to say - there were certainly no reports that a rival faction was holding a barbecue on this atrocious day in October.

Yet what was clear was that the SWP organisers of the event were clearly embarrassed at the low turnout. Indeed, not even one of the four Respect candidates who stood in Wales for the European elections could make it. Clearly, all is not well for Respect in this part of the world.

SWP members (who made up about half the meeting) did attempt to explain away the low attendance by either claiming that it was not built for properly or by referring dismissively to the ‘ghetto of Wales’. In the end all they could do was talk of the great events in east London or even in Hartlepool (?) and hope that Wales would soon follow.

In these circumstances the chair of the meeting, Martin Chapman of the SWP, was hardly likely to adopt anything less than his normal sectarian and less than comradely demeanour. When prior to the meeting CPGB members presented him with the motions we had brought on democracy, open borders and a worker’s wage, we were curtly told that these should be presented to our Respect branches and he would not even allow us to challenge his ruling.

Fair enough, one might think. Except that branches of Respect are virtually non-existent across Wales and there is not a cat in hell’s chance of any meeting before the deadline date for motions to the Respect conference. Only when a non-SWPer politely informed our Martin that it was standard labour movement practice to be allowed to challenge the standing orders did he relent.

Predictably, our challenge to the standing orders failed, but this did not prevent comrade Chapman from continually flouting democratic practice in order to achieve one thing - preventing CPGB members having minority rights of representation. In slate elections for a Welsh steering committee, he ruled that we could not put an alternative slate by simply adding the name of CPGB comrade Bob Davies to the existing one. This was apparently because we did not have the support of others on that slate - even though many were not even at the meeting. So, in true SWP fashion, only one slate was put to the meeting.

Things continued in this vein when it came to electing delegates for the national conference. This time voting was by first past the post for the 10 places. Not surprisingly, Martin announced that 11 nominations had been received, including that of the CPGB’s Ethan Grech. It does not take a genius to work out who did not get elected.

One could accept this as expressing the democratic wishes of the meeting perhaps. But when we meekly asked if Ethan could, therefore, be reserve delegate in case one of the 10 dropped out, the reaction was a little exaggerated. One SWP hack bleated out that the vote showed that Respect Wales does not want a CPGBer to attend conference, so there would be no reserve. At least, one could not fault his honesty.

On a slightly more positive note, there was a little more consensus on the motions on Wales. Though not much, it has to be said. Only SWP obstinacy prevented the compositing of SWP and CPGB motions on the Welsh language, despite the SWP mover expressing his wish for this to happen.

On the national question, the SWP correctly put forward a motion calling for the right of Wales to self-determination, but without explaining how this was to be exercised or without stating what they think the precise nature of the relationship between Wales and the rest of Britain ought to be. Comically, they counterposed to the CPGB’s anti-nationalist and anti-unionist call for a federal republic of Wales, England and Scotland, their own (though not stated in the motion) vision of a socialist republic.

But before one gets excited about a ‘socialist republic’ becoming part of Respect’s programme, we should recognise that this ‘ultra-leftism’ is only put on display because the SWP has nothing to say about the national question in the here and now - giving the demand for self-determination concrete form seems to be beyond it. This was immediately apparent when the comrades opposed the CPGB’s principled call for a Welsh parliament with full powers to determine its relationship of the rest of Britain.

Instead the SWP put forward a mealy-mouthed motion supporting Wales getting the same powers as New Labour’s Scottish parliament. Unwilling to come out fully against the cancer of Welsh nationalism, paradoxically the SWP ends up using its influence in Respect to spout unionism. It is unable to see that there is an alternative to both.

Schooled as I am in the debacle of the puny Welsh Socialist Alliance, I could not help feeling as the meeting proceeded that the WSA was a behemoth compared to Respect Wales. Whatever successes Respect has in certain parts of England, unless it can become an inclusive and democratic entity, then it will remain on the furthest fringes of politics.